Isaac Newton

 Biography

Isaac Newton was born on Dec. 25, 1642, in Woolsthorpe, England. His father died before he

was born, and when he was only three his mother, Hannah Newton, remarried and moved

away, leaving him to be raised by an uncle. He was sent to the local grammar school, and for a

time it was expected that he would grow up to manage his mother's property. But he

nonetheless persisted in the pursuit of his wider interests, and after leaving the grammar school

he enrolled at Trinity College, at the University of Cambridge, in 1661. He received his bachelor

of arts in 1665, and was named a fellow of the College two years later. Meanwhile, in the

turbulent year of 1666, while England fought with Holland and suffered plague and a terrible fire

in London, Newton made three of his greatest discoveries. In the field of optics, the study of

light, he developed and proved his theory that white light is composed of a mixture of other

colors of light, which, when split apart by a prism, form a band of color called a spectrum. This

was a revolutionary advance, and equally revolutionary was his work in mathematics, where he

developed a binomial theorem and worked out a method of calculating the slope of curves and

the area under them, paving the way for the field of math known as calculus. But his most

important innovation was the concept of gravity, the attraction between bodies in space that

holds planets, moons and comets in orbit, and draws falling objects toward the earth. His theory

of gravity, however, remained incomplete and unverifiable; it would not be published for two

decades.

 Contribution
1. Developed calculus, revolutionary form of mathematics, allowed for the calculation of the
area inside a shape with curved sides, and to calculate the rate of change of physical
quantities
2. Newton and Leibniz accused of stealing ideas on calculus from each other, later
established that both came up with it at the same time
3. Used prisms to show that light was made up of colours of the rainbow, disproved ancient
Greek ideas on light
4. Telescopes in his time broke light into unwanted colours, causing an obscure view of
objects, solved problem by being first to construct a telescope with a curved mirror rather
than lenses
5. In 1672, he became a member of the royal society (group of scientist who believed in
experimental method)
6. Laws of motion

 Works
1. Law of Motion- Newton’s first law states that, if a body is at rest or moving at a
constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at
constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. This postulate is known as the law
of inertia. The law of inertia was first formulated by Galileo Galilei for horizontal motion
on Earth and was later generalized by René Descartes. Before Galileo it had been
thought that all horizontal motion required a direct cause, but Galileo deduced from his
experiments that a body in motion would remain in motion unless a force (such as
friction) caused it to come to rest. Newton’s second law is a quantitative description of
the changes that a force can produce on the motion of a body. It states that the time rate
of change of the momentum of a body is equal in both magnitude and direction to the
force imposed on it. The momentum of a body is equal to the product of its mass and its
velocity. Momentum, like velocity, is a vector quantity, having both magnitude and
direction. A force applied to a body can change the magnitude of the momentum, or its
direction, or both. Newton’s second law is one of the most important in all of physics. For
a body whose mass m is constant, it can be written in the form F = ma, where F (force)
and a (acceleration) are both vector quantities. If a body has net force acting on it, it is
accelerated in accordance with the equation. Conversely, if a body is not accelerated,
there is no net force acting on it. Newton’s third law states that when two bodies interact,
they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.
The third law is also known as the law of action and reaction. This law is important in
analyzing problems of static equilibrium, where all forces are balanced, but it also
applies to bodies in uniform or accelerated motion. The forces it describes are real ones,
not mere bookkeeping devices. For example, a book resting on a table applies a
downward force equal to its weight on the table. According to the third law, the table
applies an equal and opposite force to the book. This force occurs because the weight of
the book causes the table to deform slightly so that it pushes back on the book like a
coiled spring.

2. The Law of Gravitation- Using this law and making extrapolations based on it,
Newton derived Kepler’s empirical laws of planetary motion, which naturally emerged
 from his gravitational theory. Many people may have observed apples and all kinds of
other things falling down, before Newton, but none of them followed the broad
generalization that it represented. Even moon falls towards the Earth and Earth towards
the Sun, in the same way! That is what Newton figured out. For the first time, man could
understand the motion of planets and satellites and give it a rational explanation.

3. Discoveries in Optics

 Inquiry into the nature of light (Opticks)- He discovered white light to be

composed of component color wavelengths. He demonstrated this with the use of a
prism which dispersed a beam of white light into wavelengths of different hues. It’s
the same effect which leads to the formation of rainbows in the sky. Through this
finding, he overturned the prevalent notion since Aristotelian times which stated that
light was inherently white and colorless.

 Newton’s Law of Cooling- Among his other stellar discoveries, Newton

also came up with an empirical theory explaining the rate at which your
hot cup of coffee cools. The law discovered by him states that the rate of
cooling in a body is directly proportional to temperature difference
between the body and its surroundings. Mathematically, it can be stated
as follows: dT/dt = – K (T – Ts) where, T is temperature of the body, K is a
constant, dT/dt is a time derivative representing change of temperature
and Ts is the temperature of surroundings. (The derivative is ‘negative’ as
the body is cooling).
4. Newton’s Discoveries in Mathematics

 Binomial Theorem- Under the tutelage of Isaac Barrow at Cambridge, Newton’s

mathematical genius flowered. His first original contribution to mathematics was the
advancement of binomial theorem. Through the usage of algebra of finite quantities in an
infinite series, he included negative and fractional exponents in the binomial theorem.

 Calculus- Isolated during the plague years (1665-1666) at Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton
came up with his greatest breakthroughs in physics and mathematics. Through invention
of Infinitesimal Calculus, (credit for which also belongs to Leibniz), Newton provided a
mathematical framework which enabled the study of continuous changes. He called it
the Science of Fluxions. The invention of calculus ranks right up there with invention of
fire or the building of the first steam engine. His approach to calculus was geometrical, in
contrast to Leibniz, who was inclined more towards the analytical side.
5. Newton-Raphson Method- He also made contributions to numerical analysis in the
form of the Newton-Raphson method. In the book, De analysi per aequationes numero
terminorum infinitas (Latin for On analysis by infinite series), published in 1771, Newton
described this iterative method of approximation to calculate roots of real-valued
functions. The method is described by the following formula: xn+1 = xn – f(xn) / f'(xn)
where xn+1 is the root calculated from the n+1th iteration, xn is approximate root from
the previous iteration, f(xn) is the function to be solved and f'(xn) is the derivative of the
function.