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Newton
By Michael Johnathan McDonald.
Sir Isaac Newton:
Age of Newton
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A disagreeable genius
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From Descartes'
pushes to Newton's pulls
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The raw data from the
Principia
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Add Galileo and
Kepler...
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Newton's world system
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Chronology and
prophecy
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The last of the Magi
Isaac Newton
Biography
Born Woolsthrope, Christmas Day 1642.
Schooled at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1661.
Fellow, later Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge,
1667-1696.
Warden, later Master of the Mint, London, 1696-1727.
Fellow of Royal Society of London (FRS) 1672; President
1703-1727
Knighted, 1705; buried at Westminster Abbey, 1727.
Scientific writing
1. Optical Writings
Reflecting telescope (1672)
Nature of white light and color ( 1672-1675)
Opticks, or A Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions,
Inflections and Colours of Light (1704)
2. Celestial and terrestrial mechanics
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ( 1687, 2d
ed.1713, 3d ed. 1725)
3. Mathematics
Differentials: “ treaties of the methods of series and
fluxions” written in 1671
(Published
posthumously, 1736)
Integrals: “Treaties on the quadrature of curves” written in
1671 (pub. 1704)
4. Chemistry
“On the nature of acids”, written around 1692 (pub. 1710)
Query 31 of the Opticks
Other Posthumous writing by Issac Newton,
Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms (1728)
Observations upon Prophecies of Daniel and Apocalypses of St.
John (1733)
An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the
Scriptures (1754)
Letters to the Reverend Dr. Richard Bentley (1756)
Millions of words on AlchemIsaac Newton
Spent about 30 years at Trinity College and the
35 years in England and Cambridge.
Isaac Newton's only authentic painting is
the one when he was around sixty-years old and after he was at
Cambridge. He was the Einstein of his time up until the 20h century.
In his day he was considered a natural philosopher of the highest
order. In the 18th century he became almost deified, and by the 19th
century he was regarded as the a figure we think of as Einstein
today. He is the most famous for three laws on motion and bringing back
the occult, And in his old age an argument for gravity. Gravity he believed held the
universe together. This meant he believed that the terrestrial and
the celestial operated under the same laws. This was of course was
in direct contrast with Aristotle and Ptolemy universes ( also see
Galileo's Dialogue Day I for his argument too). Bacon's
natural history was an inductive method, where collections of
natural mater were worked into knowledges. The Cartesian method was
a deductive method. These were the first types of scientific
methods, however Newton cannot really be classified as such although
his experiments in alchemy do show attempts to observe data in a
scientific manner, but at a minor significance. He was the last of
the natural philosophers and in the last fifty-years new research,
thanks in part to the Portsmith Papers (1936), we know that
religion was a huge topic for Newton who wrote a lot on this subject
but kept it secret due to his Trinity affiliation and the Anglican
Church. These papers, unpublished revealed an incredible world of
religion and a man struggling with which direction he should travel.
He was obsessed with religion to point of trying to trace back
to the Babylonians the in chronology the origins of religion.
However, not a deist, nor a non-believer he denied the trinity and
still believed whole heartedly in the maker that is involved in all
our lives intimately and also involved in the universe - correcting
the clocks once in a while ( orbits of planets) when they went
occasionally out of whack. He was an Arian who practiced alchemy.
What was alchemy? Andreas Libavius (1550-1616)
made Alchemy easy for the public to understand. In 1597, he wrote
the first systematic chemistry textbook, Alchemia, which included
instructions for the preparation of several strong acids. This was
the first form of the science of chemistry. Although the spiritual
connotations were attached to this subject, and Newton's own
philosophy of it as well, we see practical applications in his work,
especially Query 31. When he was around twenty years-old we
got another glimpse into his persona. He wrote a confession of
forty-nine sins in which he tells us he was a bully at school (
elementary-to high school equivalent levels), he beat up people and
including his half sister and that he was not following " The,"
meaning God, his affection, he wrote. This showed his mental sins as
morbid, and abandoned mentally from others, and also showed a
troubled youth. "My family spurned me." He was a recluse and
never married or had good relationships to women. He had two
relationships with men. After the plague hit, this is one of the
periods in his life where he created much. This was a period of
about eight-months in which he worked out much of the problems in
the new calculus system and gravity. This was called the "
Miraculous Year." As far as his professorship in Trinity there is
little evidence to him having students. A legend says that he taught
to walls, meaning that his lectures on math were troublesome
and he lost his audience. A professor named Issac Barrows gave up
his seat for him to occupy a position at the College where he
received a good salary to be able to study what he need and wanted
too. This was a key factor in any person that accomplished much in
life. His latent publishing methods were due to fear of being
laughed at.
Alchemistry, or the Newtonian model was his
understanding that the universe was a cryptogram created by God and
knowledge was the way to unlock it and not faith. The occult
plus the studies on force brings back the issue of gravity. He
didn't believe in faith, revelation of the trinity (Jesus as divine)
but understood knowledge. He believed in intelligent design.
He would say 'we can only know through the study of natural
philosophy God . He didn't believe in the lazy God scenario of
Descartes universe. God is not just motion, who creates something in
the universe and leaves it to fend for its self. This was , his
thoughts on Descartes' handling of God.
The
notion of a scientific method before the modern version could be
discussed as similarities to the method we know today; we look at
Astrology which was huge in the middle ages.
Astrology used
methods like the scientific method regardless if one believes in it
or not. The data was collected, there was involvement around the
data, there was a prediction outcome and it provided a livelihood
for many including Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler and many others as
discussed these sections.
Newton on
Prophecy
Newton on Prophecy
and what was God's Role? The last Maji. Majis were references
to astrologers in ancient times, but Newton's writings on Biblical
chronology did not appear to rely on astrological repetition.
Newton’s question:
what was God’s ultimate purpose.
Newton Apocalyptic Code (History Chanel, 2009)
Newton’s claim: The world will end in the year of 1260.
Newton’s claim that 1,000 years of peace, God will be with humans.
Newton: Father of physics, rational universe
Newton: Biblical decoding, obsessive mystic, Study of Bible – and of
theology.
Newton: It was estimated that Newton secretly worked on alchemy and
Biblical interpretation for 30 years – and wrote only to a selected
few friends about his findings.
Did not write many
future end dates down, as he was very careful. But late in his life
he scribbled 2060 on one paper and one appears as the date 2060,
found twice in the Yahuda MSS at Jerusalem (Stephen D. Snobelen).
Newton: 2060 A.D. is a new era, not the end of the world.
Most of the world knew Newton as the Father of Physics.
This was the unexpected Newton, irrational; branded by some as a
dark heretic. He did not want to go public and wrote that ‘what I
write lay until I’m away.’ He did not want to publish, because it
would threaten the establishment. In the Bible he saw God speaking
to mankind. The common Christian conception was that one day the
world would end. So he set on to understand Biblical chronology.
Apart from the rational mind of co-creating Calculus, studies into
Optics and rational observable world/ natural forces his secret work
lay in passion. Passion dominated reason. Instead he tried to reason
the passion, as most persons of the world had been dominated by the
passion of the Christ and of the Bible.
The Apocalypse actually means ‘the unfolding of prophecy,’ and not
the end of the world. Atheists or non-believers of the Judaic
traditions, including Christianity and Islam, believe that Sir. I.
Newton had undiagnosed compulsive- obsessive disorder.
He was against Catholic normative three-person God-head (trinity of
God): the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He rejected the
Catholic orthodox of 3-1/1-3 , and saw that the Catholics had
corrupted the trinity. He believed God was singular and that he was
to interpret his Biblical codes. However, Newton’s outline was three
key events: (1) Jews Return to Holy Land;(2) The World will end in
1260 from starting point that he must choose; ( 3) and, most
concerned with after event from the anti-Christ by the ushering in
of the eternal city of God. During number one, the Jews return to
Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. He believed the architectural plan
revealed secret codes. Most likely using the King James version of
the Bible.
What did Newton Rely upon? The integer of 1260. He somehow linked
this integer to the Book of Revelation and to Daniel in the Old
Testament. However, under calculations of the day for the year
method, he ran into structural problems. So he fudged and rounded
off to keep it simple –thus deleting a decade or so from the
numbers.
Letter-slip
addressed to "Sir Isaac Newton", red wax seal.
apocalyptic
calculations: Yahuda manuscripts in Jerusalem / 1705 --/
Stephen D. Snobelen, "Statement on the date 2060," March 2003;
updated May 2003 and June 2003 , availabel from
issac_newton.org
7.3o, folio 8r:
Prop. 1. The 2300 prophetick days did not commence before the rise
of the little horn of the He Goat.
2 Those day [sic] did not commence a[f]ter the destruction of
Jerusalem & ye Temple by the Romans A.[D.] 70.
3 The time times & half a time did not commence before the year 800
in wch the Popes supremacy commenced
4 They did not commence after the re[ig]ne of Gregory the 7th. 1084
5 The 1290 days did not commence b[e]fore the year 842.
6 They did not commence after the reigne of Pope Greg. 7th. 1084
7 The diffence [sic] between the 1290 & 1335 days are a parts of the
seven weeks.
Therefore the 2300 years do not end before ye year 2132 nor after
2370.
The time times & half time do n[o]t end before 2060 nor after [2344]
The 1290 days do not begin [this should read: end] before 2090
[Newton might mean: 2132] nor after 1374 [sic; Newton probably means
2374]
Revelations: Time, Times, and a half of time: The one day for a year
method ( this is astrological in one such progression system – but
in his notes, it does not appear referenced to the stars or accurate
cycles). His notes are extensive, and he wanted to keep it simple.
So his calculations were not specific and varied widely.
formula:
Time=1; Times=2; half of Time=1/ 2 = roughly this equals to 1260
days – Newton could not rationalize the numeric discrepancies.
(365 days per year formula) ( 365 divided by 2) =182.5 + 365 (3)
=1277.5
or 182.5 + 1095 =1277.5 ???
364 divided by 2 = 182 + 3(364) = 1274
Newton then fudged the numbers to be more rounded off to the 10ths
of a century or decades. He concluded that the integer 1260 could
then be apply across historical events to indicate a progression,
such as repeatable circumstance but not admitted too as cyclic in
form but linear in time and space. To get to the year of 2060 a nice
even year, Newton chose another even year of the first crowning of a
Charlemagne and nothing to do with the Jews. Therefore, according to
Newton, 2060 is when the Anti-Christ will have appeared: This was
calculated upon Roman Empire’s period of Holy Roman Empire, begun on
Christmas, as was his birthday and the crowning of Charlemagne by
the Pontiff in the year of 800 ACE on Christmas (Yahuda MS 7,
University of Cambridge, microfilm; Stephen D. Snobelen, 1999
British Journal for the History of Science paper "Isaac Newton,
heretic: the strategies of a Nicodemite", pages 391-2. ). If we use the
Julian Calendar, Nostredame was also born on Christmas eve of the
year 1503.
Historical points: Some of them of what he used.
Calculations: Charlemagne crowned first Holy Roman Emperor on
Christmas in 800 ACE. 800 ACE + 1260 = 2060 ACE.
800 (Christmas Day) Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor; so 1260
added on meant that 2060 is the time of the conflagration.
Newton viewed amongst all his endeavors, including alchemy, that
prophecy was the most dangerous. From 1727 his death and until 1936 his
writings on the Bible chronology and general prophecy disappeared
into an English library vault. A collection of posthumous writing
were gathered up and placed into keeping. Newton died in 1727,
although these papers were dated later due to their retrieval and
categorizing.
During his later years and after practicing alchemy for about 30
years he was placed in charge of the English royal mint, and put
counterfeiters to the gallows. These actions might have driven him
to delve into subject matters of life’s ultimate purpose. In
Revelations, the Armageddon spoke to him as a massive shedding of
human life. After the end of the World, the anti-Christ, God will
for 1,000 years live alongside humans – in 1,000 years of peace.
Ultimately Newton may have come into conflict with what later Albert
Einstein would challenge and that is the relativity of time and
space. For Newton, if prophecy were true then some irrational
understanding, according to his period’s views was this
non-continuum of linear time – but some sort of past, present and
future in time and space as functioning in some continuum.
From the 1609 Old Roman Empire ceding land back to the Jews; Adding
1260 years adds up to the number of 1869. This was later adjusted to
1889 when Zionism came onto the world scene. Thus (609ADE) the Roman
Empire ceded land back to the Jews. (1889) Zionism arises and
supports the Jews return to the Holy Land. Newton often ran into
these problems because he was not using astrology systems but only
historical events for chronological purposes. Newton had many
numerical observations. These are only a few.
Anti-Christ appears in the New Testament, and is only for one
person: Anti from Greek means “in place of,” and Christos means
anointed.”
Christian Zionists want the Jews to Return Home to usher in the New
Kingdom of Heaven.
Fundamental belief of Christian Zionism: (1) Jews return to the Holy
Land (1948); (2) Jews retake Jerusalem (1967); (3) Jews rebuild
their temple—thus the goal is the ushering in the last days. Newton
came up with a date of 1944. Yet it was 684 ADE and plus 1260 which
did add up to the yearly number of 1944. This indicated that Newton
was using multiple systems. Yet, it was in 1948 that Jews were
allowed to return to Palestine and lands of ancient Israel. The
precursor idea is from the period of Flavius Petrus Sabbatins
Iustinianus, of a collective persons arguing to end imperialism and
return peoples to the proper order. These decisions pertained to
classical knowledge was dangerous which had spurred the barbarians
to revolt and conquest and turn the European lands into a wasteland.
So this was a part of correcting these past Roman actions. So
Newton, while not looking at Justinian I’s decisions to end
Hellenistic curriculums, noted that Jewish movements and
circumstances marked key points in history linking the Revelation
code tied to astrology and to the progression motion of a day for a
year. It was not astrology but the concept it was laid out as in
Daniel and the Book of Revelations.
Natural Rational Universe
Newton
(bio) Sir Isaac Newton, PRS, (4 January [O.S. 25 December 1642] 1643
– 31 March [O.S. 20 March] 1727) was an English physicist,
mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, inventor, and natural
philosopher who is generally regarded as one of the most influential
scientists in history.
Newton wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
wherein he described universal gravitation and the three laws of
motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics. By deriving
Kepler's laws of planetary motion from this system, he was the first
to show that the motion of bodies on Earth and of celestial bodies
are governed by the same set of natural laws. The unifying and
deterministic power of his laws was integral to the scientific
revolution and the advancement of heliocentrism.
Among other scientific discoveries, Newton realized that the
spectrum of colours observed when white light passes through a prism
is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as Roger
Bacon had claimed in the 13th century), and notably argued that
light is composed of particles. He also developed a law of cooling,
describing the rate of cooling of objects when exposed to air. He
enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular
momentum. Finally, he studied the speed of sound in air, and voiced
a theory of the origin of stars.
Newton shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of
calculus, which he used to formulate his physical laws.
(Differential calculus however, was conceived centuries earlier in
India by Bhaskara and the Kerala School.) He also made contributions
to other areas of mathematics, having derived the binomial theorem
in its entirety. The mathematician and mathematical physicist Joseph
Louis Lagrange (1736–1813), said that "Newton was the greatest
genius that ever existed and the most fortunate, for we cannot find
more than once a system of the world to establish."
Newton was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth (at Woolsthorpe
Manor), a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. Newton was
prematurely born and no one expected him to live; indeed, his
mother, Hannah Ayscough Newton, is reported to have said that his
body at that time could have fit inside a quart mug (Bell, 1937).
His father, Isaac, had died three months before Newton's birth. When
Newton was two, his mother went to live with her new husband,
leaving her son in the care of his grandmother.
According to E.T. Bell (1937, Simon and Schuster) and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent
to Grantham Grammar School where he became the top boy in the
school. At Grantham he lodged with the local apothecary, William
Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's
stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to Cambridge
University at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his
studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It
is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other
recorded 'sweethearts' and never married.
However, William Stukeley and Mrs Vincent, the source which Bell and
Eves have embroidered so unhelpfully, merely say that Newton
entertained 'a passion' for her while he lodged at the Clarke house.
Mrs Vincent's maiden name was Katherine Storer, not Anne
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was
educated at The King's School in Grantham (where his signature can
still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from
school and by Oct 1659 he was to be found at Woolsthorpe where his
mother attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports
of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears
to be Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his
mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his
education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an
admirable final report. His teacher said:
His genius now begins to mount upwards apace and shine out with more
strength. He excels particularly in making verses. In everything he
undertakes, he discovers an application equal to the pregnancy of
his parts and exceeds even the most sanguine expectations I have
conceived of him.
In June 1661 he matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that
time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but
Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern
philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo,
Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665 he discovered the binomial theorem
and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become
calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in 1665, the
University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For
the next 18 months Newton worked at home on calculus, optics and law
of gravitation.
Newton became a fellow of Trinity College in 1669. In the same year
he circulated his findings in De Analysi per Aequationes Numeri
Terminorum Infinitas (On Analysis by Infinite Series), and later in
De methodis serierum et fluxionum (On the Methods of Series and
Fluxions), whose title gave rise to the "method of fluxions".
Newton is generally credited with the binomial theorem, an essential
step toward the development of modern analysis. Newton and Gottfried
Leibniz developed the calculus independently, using different
notations. Although Newton had worked out his method years before
Leibniz, he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did
not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began
publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover,
Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally
adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British
Empire. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his
calculus because he feared being mocked for it. Starting in 1699,
other members of the Royal Society accused Leibniz of plagiarism,
and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Thus began the
bitter calculus priority dispute with Leibniz, which marred the
lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.
This dispute created a divide between British and Continental
mathematicians that may have retarded the progress of British
mathematics by at least a century.
Newton discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified
polynomials of degree 3 in 2 variables, made substantial
contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first
to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to
derive solutions to diophantine equations. He approximated partial
sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's
summation formula), and was the first to use power series with
confidence and to revert power series. He discovered new formulae
for pi.
He was elected Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669. In that
day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained
Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship
required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so
as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should
exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose
permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict
between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.
Optics
From 1670 to 1672 he lectured on optics. During this period he
investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism
could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a
lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum
into white light. He also showed that the coloured light does not
change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining
it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it
was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same
colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects
interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of
objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory
of colour. Many of his findings in this field were criticized by
later theorists, the most well-known being Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, who postulated his own colour theories.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would
suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a
reflecting telescope (today, known as a Newtonian telescope) to
bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's
rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was
able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope,
due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. (Only later, as
glasses with a variety of refractive properties became available,
did achromatic lenses for refractors become feasible.) In 1671 the
Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope.
Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which
he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised
some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from
public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.
In one experiment, to prove that colour perception is caused by
pressure on the eye, Newton slid a darning needle around the side of
his eye until he could poke at its rear side, dispassionately noting
"white, darke & coloured circles" so long as he kept stirring with
"ye bodkin."
Newton argued that light is composed of particles, but he had to
associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light
(Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-XX). Later physicists instead favoured a
purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction.
Today's quantum mechanics restores the idea of "wave-particle
duality", although photons bear very little resemblance to Newton's
corpuscles (e.g., corpuscles refracted by accelerating toward the
denser medium).
(disputed — see talk page) Newton is believed to have been the first
to explain precisely the formation of the rainbow from water
droplets dispersed in the atmosphere in a rain shower. Figure 15 of
Part II of Book One of the Opticks shows a perfect illustration of
how this occurs.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of
the ether to transmit forces between particles. Newton was in
contact with Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist who was born in
Grantham, on alchemy, and now his interest in the subject revived.
He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of
attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who
acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton
was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the
magicians."21 Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from
his contributions to science 2. (This was at a time when there was
no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied
on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he
might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac
Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular
theory of light. The book is also known for the first exposure of
the idea of the interchangeability of mass and energy: "Gross bodies
and light are convertible into one another...". Newton also
constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic
generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Gravity and Motion
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation
and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's
laws of motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the
subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This
contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the
Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the
Principia) was published on 5 July 16871 with encouragement and
financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the
three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for
more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas
(weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and
defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he
presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law,
of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He
acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born
mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an
intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this
friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Late Life
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with
the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the
infinity of the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have
influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John
Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never
published. Later works — The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended
(1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St. John (1733) — were published after his death. He
also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above)2.
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to
1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain
about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be
closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal
Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage
of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the
Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat
treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and finagling Edmond Halley
into the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch).
Newton became Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699. These
appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them
seriously, exercising his power to reform the currency and punish
clippers and counterfeiters. He retired from his Cambridge duties in
1701. Ironically, it was his work at the Mint, rather than his
contributions to science, which earned him a knighthood from Queen
Anne in 1705.
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an
associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at
the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the
Astronomer Royal, by attempting to steal his catalogue of
observations.
Newton died in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His
niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt3, served as his hostess in social
affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very
loving Uncle" 4, according to his letter to her when she was
recovering from smallpox.
In later years there has been some speculation that Newton had
Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. See People speculated to have
been autistic. 1
Newton and his World
Principa, published in 1687, Newton’s’ natural Philosophy. These
were philosophies on matters on force of universal attraction,
forces between bodies, and particles of matter; particles, meaning
atoms.2
The
Queries (Questions) were sets of topics subsections on all
matters of natural science that Newton set out to investigate and
write his thoughts on. There were like a life guideline. At first
Newton set out forty-five headings under which to organize material
gained from his new readings. These readings kick-started his
knowledge based upon natural science. The philosophies of Descartes,
equated matter with tension, and other investigations on natural
laws. Vortexes and vacuums, and optics connected not only to
celestial phenomena, but earthly applications as well.3
The
Queries wound up focusing on the Cartesian mechanical philosophy and
atomism, an issue that would remain a central theme of his
scientific career.4
Hypothesis of Light
Newton was the first one to understand that white light makes up all
the other light in the visible spectrum, and not a part of the
spectrum as Robert Hook thought of it as (a modified version of
Descartes). This was impart some of the causes for Hook's venomous
rhetoric toward Newton, who stayed in his room at Cambridge instead
of venturing out to the Royal academies meetings. Newton was a
mysterious or shy and can be traced back to his roots in a Freudian
type of analysis. He was born with a deceased father, and his mother
rejected him to a relative. He possibly held a longing for a real
family his whole life. He was a recluse, so to speak, and
didn't engage in public conflict but attacked from his pen. He was
rarely known to controversy, but he loved to dish it out and this
may be the unsure feeling of not having a safety-net of a sound
family childhood. He also, like Copernicus and Galileo, but
sometimes for different reasons waited to release his work. This is
another reason why he doesn't fit the model of the modern scientist
- who usually release their studies so others can advance them or
study them in our communities of research. Newton's reason was his
insecurity, also tying back to this childhood reason, especially
from Hook who could give quite a tongue lashing in his creeds in the
scientific community. Newton never got over his public wow of Hooks
attacks. He waited until Hook was dead before he published his
finding on light. This shows us something about his character. This
is not a member of the scientific community and therefore the title
of last of the natural philosophers. The French Newton, Laplace
(1749-1827; and Maxwell), was really a scientific scientist. He
strictly followed the modern type of methods of repeatable and
observational experiments.
-
A single ray can
generate many thousands of vibrations.5
-
Fifthly, light and
aether mutually act upon each other, aether in refracting light,
and Light in warming aether; and the dense aether acts more
strongly.6
-
Rayes of Light to be
smal bodyes, emitted every way from a shining substances, those
that they impinge on any refracting or reflecting superficies,
must necessarily excite vibrations in the aethers as stones doe
in water when throwne into it.7
-
I suppose the aether
suits its Density to the bignesse of the pore, or the Medium
within it and so being of a diverse density from the aether that
surrounds it, refracts or reflects light in Superficies, and so
makes the body, where many such interstices [ an especially
small or narrow space] are, appeare opake.8
Alexander Koyré
The
Significance of the Newtonian Synthesis
Newton’s insight and experimental genius – not skill…Robert Hooke,
were just as skilled, or even more so than he – that we own the idea
of decomposition of light and the first scientific theory of
spectral colors; that it is to his deep philosophical mind that we
owe the formulation – though not the discovery – of the fundamental
laws of motion and of action, together with a clear understanding of
the method and meaning of scientific inquiry; that is his invention
of calculus that enabled him to demonstrate the identity of
terrestrial and celestial gravitation and to find out the
fundamental laws of attraction that binds – or at least until
recently bound – together the smallest and the largest bodies –
stars and atoms – of the infinite Universe. We know too, of
course, that it is not to him, but to his great rival Leibniz, that
we owe de facto the actual spread and development of the
infinitesimal calculus, without which the gradual extension and
perfection of the Newtonian systema mundi would be
impossible.9
It has
often been said, too, that the distinctive feature of the Newtonian
science consists precisely in the linking together of the
mathematics and experiment, in the mathematical treatment of the
phenomena, that is, of the experimental or (as in astronomy, where
we cannot perform experiments) observational data.10
The
overwhelming success of Newtonian physics made it practically
inevitable that its particular features became thought of as
essential for the building of science -- of any kind of science ― as
such, and that all the new sciences that emerged in the eighteenth
century ― science of man and society – tried to confirm to the
Newtonian pattern of empirico ― deductive knowledge, and to abide by
the rules laid down by Newton in his famous Regulae philosophandi,
soften quoted and misunderstood.11
Newton and the Cambridge Platonists.
Natural
philosophy within the mathematical framework See: Principia.
The
philosophy of interlinking the mechanical physics to natural
philosophy of the ancients and his own thoughts became paramount,
the various ancient thought of spiritual-natural things acting on
bodies. “The Providence of God the craftsman”, Newton says of Plato.12
Newton, and the Cambridge Platonists, was as their task the
unification and restoration of this philosophy. 13 Newton states the cause
of gravity, for the ancients, was God.14
The
splitting up of the natural and divine knowledge began with taking
God’s natural proofs away, or figuring them into the cosmological
system of astronomy and physics, from epistemology. Newton believed
that he knew how God’s agency operated in His created world,
particularly in the cause of gravitation.15 For many
people, this statement is shocking. Rather, he shared the belief,
common in the seventeenth century, that natural and divine knowledge
could be harmonized and shown to support each other.16
Roger
Cotes, Newton’s admired editor, adds to Query 21 that those who deny
the vacuum deny God for the sake of asserting Necessity.17
Basically, Newton knew humans and his fellow scientists do not have
all the answers and, even today, we still do not. Therefore the act
of God’s agency of the cosmos is still in question. During the 1450s
after the printing press, many anti-Aristotelian and Platonist
individuals wanted to reformulate the new scientific research in an
unnatural way. Their intellect was, in fact, superior to a central
intelligence of a God. In the eighteenth century a number of books
came out to try to explain Newton in a simplified language for the
masses. From an account of Sir Isaac Newton by Colin Maclaurin, Philosophical
Descoveries, London: printed for the authors children,1748.
Speculative men, by the force of genius, may invent systems that
will perhaps be greatly admired for a time; these however, are
phantoms which the force of truth will sooner or later dispel: and
while we are pleas’d with the deceit, true philosophy, with all the
arts and improvements that depend upon it, suffers. The real state
of things escape our observation: or, if it presents itself to us,
we are apt either to reject it wholly as fiction, or by new efforts
of a vain ingenuity, to interweave it with our own conceits, and
labor to make it tally with our favourite schemes. Thus, by blending
together parts so ill suited, the whole comes forth an absurd
composition of truth and error.18
Mathematics was not seen as spiritual or connected to a god.
Newton's Cosmology
" Now, in order to include God in the world. Newton declared
, in the 1706 Lain Opticks, that the world by it self tended
to dissolution, and consequently needed periodic reformation buy the
Creator". Newton showed a need for these periodic reformations and
even hit upon a possible mechanism by which they could be preformed.19
Endnotes:
1. Isaac Newton,
[database on-line]; available from Wikipedia, Free open source
encyclopedia, March 2006.
2.
Newton, eds., Bernard Cohen and Richard S. Westfall, (New York:
Norton & Company, 1995), 5.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 4.
5. Ibid., 24.
6. Ibid., 21.
7. Ibid., 13.
8. Ibid., 25.
9. Ibid., 59.
10. Ibid., 68.
11. Ibid., 69.
12. Ibid., 106.
13. Ibid., 107.
14. Ibid., 104.
15. Ibid., 97.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 86.
18. Ibid., 122.
19. Ibid., 284.
Principia
Building on these foundations, in 1687 English
mathematician Sir Isaac Newton published the famous
Principia, which postulated the first-ever
law of gravitation. In his own words, “I deduced
that the forces which keep the planets in their orbs
must be reciprocally as the squares of their
distances from the centers about which they revolve;
and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the
Moon in her orb with force of gravity at the surface
of the Earth; and found them pretty nearly.” Most
modern-day, non-relativistic, gravitational
calculations are based on Newton's work.
Newton's law of universal gravitation
-
Main article: Newton's law of universal
gravitation
In 1687 Newton published his work on the
universal law of gravity in his Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy. Newton’s law of
gravitation states that: every particle in the
universe attracts every other particle with a force
that is directly proportional to the product of
their masses and inversely proportional to the
square of the distance between them. If the
particles have masses m1 and m2
and are separated by a distance r, the
magnitude of this gravitational force is:
-
where G is a universal constant called the
gravitational constant.
Einstein's theory of gravitation
-
Main article: Einstein's theory of
gravitation
Newton’s conception and quantification of
gravitation held until the beginning of the 20th
century, when the notion of instantaneous action at
a distance, which it entailed, was recognized as
being untenable from the viewpoint of relativity. In
his general theory of relativity, the German-born,
Jewish physicist Albert Einstein developed a wholly
new concept of gravitation. Einstein proposed that
the four-dimensional space-time continuum is curved
by the presence of matter, producing a universe in
which bodies travel in geodesics that are the curved
trajectories interpreted by Newton as the result of
some attractive force.
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is a model that combines
3-D space and 1-D time into a single construct called the space-time
continuum (in which time plays the role of the 4th dimension).
According to Euclidean space perception, our universe has three
dimensions of space, and one dimension of time. By combining the two
concepts into a single manifold, physicists are able to
significantly simplify the form of most physical laws, as well as to
describe the workings of the universe at both supergalactic and
subatomic levels in a more uniform way.
Wikipedia, Space
Time, Free
open-source Encyclopedia. (wikipost Mar 2006) <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime> 2006.
Wikipedia,
gravatation, Free
open-source Encyclopedia. (wikipost Mar 2006) < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity> 2006.
Copyright ©
2006 Michael Johnathan McDonald. Bookoflife.org . All rights
reserved.
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