ISAAC NEWTON

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ISAAC NEWTON
(1642-1727)
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CONTENT

• Proverb
• Introduction
• Optics
• Mathematics
• Mechanics Gravitation
• Publications

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PROVERB

• If I have been able to see further, it was only
  because I stood on the
  shoulders of giants.
• 
  - Isaac Newton

• Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in nightGod
  said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
                                                   
              -Alexander Pope

• Amongst the Interpreters of the last age there
  is scarce
• one of note who hath not made some discovery
  worth knowing and thence seem to gather that God
  is about opening these mysteries. The success of
  others put me upon considering it and if I have
  done anything which may be useful to following
  writers, I have my design.
• 
  -Isaac Newton

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NEWTON'S HOMETOWN
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INTRODUCTION
1643 Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire,
England 1661 Entered Cambridge University 1665
discovered the binomial theorem and begins work
on the
differential calculus. 1667 Was elected a
Fellow of Trinity College 1669 Was elected
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics 1671 Was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London
1687 Presented his theories of motion,
gravity, and mechanics. His theories explain the
eccentric orbits of comets, the tides and their
variations, the precession of the Earth's axis,
and motion of the Moon. 1689 Was elected
Member of Parliament for the University of
Cambridge to the Convention Parliament 1703
Became President of the Royal Society of London
1707 Published Arithmetica universalis
(General Arithmetic) which contains a collection
of his results in algebra.
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OPTICS
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Optics
He investigated the refraction of light by a
glass prism developing over a few years a series
of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact
experiments, Newton discovered measurable,
mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of
colour. He found white light to be a mixture of
infinitely varied coloured ray, each ray
definable by the angle through which it is
refracted on entering or leaving a given
transparent medium. He correlated this notion
with his study of the interference colours of
thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap
bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme
acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He
held that light consisted of streams of minute
particles. From his experiments he could infer
the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles"
forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according
to their dimensions, so interacted with white
light as to reflect, selectively, the different
observed colours of those surfaces .
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Mathemetics
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Mathematics
Newton made contributions to all branches of
mathematics then studied, but is especially
famous for his solutions to the contemporary
problems in analytical geometry of drawing
tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining
areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only
did Newton discover that these problems were
inverse to each other, but he discovered general
methods of resolving problems of curvature,
embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse
method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to
Leibniz's later differential and integral
calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from
Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a
quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another.
Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as
Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made
extensive use also (especially in the Principia)
of analogous geometrical arguments.
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Mathematics
Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually
hidden from all but his correspondents until
1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on
the quadrature of curves (integration) and
another on the classification of the cubic
curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from
about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707 .
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MechanicsGravitation
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Mechanics Gravitation
According to the well-known story, it was on
seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time
during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that
the same force governed the motion of the Moon
and the apple. He calculated the force needed to
hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the
force pulling an object to the ground. He also
calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a
stone in a sling, and the relation between the
length of a pendulum and the time of its swing.
These early explorations were not soon exploited
by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the
problems of planetary motion.
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Mechanics Gravitation
Book I of the Principia states the foundations of
the science of mechanics, developing upon them
the mathematics of orbital motion round centers
of force. Newton identified gravitation as the
fundamental force controlling the motions of the
celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To
contemporaries who found the idea of attractions
across empty space unintelligible, he conceded
that they might prove to be caused by the impacts
of unseen particles.
Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids Newton
solves problems of fluids in movement and of
motion through fluids. From the density of air he
calculated the speed of sound waves.
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Mechanics Gravitation
Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in
the universe Newton demonstrates it from the
revolutions of the six known planets, including
the Earth, and their satellites. However, he
could never quite perfect the difficult theory of
the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the
same law in later editions, Newton added
conjectures on the possibility of their return.
He calculated the relative masses of heavenly
bodies from their gravitational forces, and the
oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already
observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the
precession of the equinoxes from the forces
exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by
exact computation.
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Cambrige University
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Publication
1672 Geographia generalis by the German
geographer Varenius His own letters
on optics appeared in print


Principia 1704Opticks
revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706.
1728 The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
Amended The System of the World
1733 Book III of the Principia
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and
the Apocalypse of St John  
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THE END
By Phylis Eva