Isaac Newton was one of the leading mathematical and scientific geniuses of the 17th and 18th centuries, best known for his far-reaching discoveries in mathematics, physics, and optics. Among Newton's many achievements was his invention of the calculus (the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz would independently invent it a few years later), the formulation of the three laws of motion and the universal theory of gravitation, and he proved that sunlight is the combination of many colors. Newton also served as master of the Royal Mint in London and president of the Royal Society of London for many years.
Newton was born on January 4, 1643. He was so small and sickly at birth that two women who were sent into town to get supplies for him delayed coming back because they thought he would not live more than a few hours. His father, who died a few months before his son was born, was also named Isaac. His mother, Hannah Ayscough, remarried three years after her son's birth to Reverend Barnabas Smith, and they had three children.
A Solitary but Energetic Youth
After his mother left to live with Reverend Smith, Newton stayed behind on the family farm with his maternal grandmother. His was a solitary childhood, fostering a habit that persisted for the rest of his life. When Newton was 12, he went to the grammar school at Grantham. There he studied Latin, and learned it so well that later he could write it as fluently as English. Early in his stay at Grantham, Newton was involved in a prophetic incident. A boy kicked him in the stomach on the way to school one day. Newton challenged him to a fight after school, and even though he was much smaller physically, Newton won the fight, and he rubbed his opponent's nose on the church wall. Later in his life, Newton was known to be easily provoked to retaliation, and he was usually very determined, nasty, and successful against his opponents.
When not in school, Newton spent his time at Grantham making sundials, drawings, and wooden models. He constructed a model windmill which included a mouse on a treadmill to supply power. He created a four-wheeled cart for himself, which he powered by turning a crank he had installed. Sometimes Newton spent so much time on these inventions that he fell behind at school. When that happened, he applied himself to his studies and regained his high academic standing in his class.
When Newton was almost 17 years old, his mother called him home to learn to manage the family farm. He was a disaster as a farmer. Newton was more interested in building models and reading, and he had no patience for watching the livestock or anything to do with farming. His schoolmaster at Grantham and his uncle William Ayscough had noticed his brilliance and successfully persuaded his mother to let him finish grammar school.
Made Mathematical History at Cambridge
In June 1661, Newton was admitted to Cambridge University. He found the traditional Aristotelian curriculum at Cambridge so unrewarding that he never finished any of the assigned books, but he did read prodigiously about philosophy, science, and mathematics. Newton had learned little about mathematics at Grantham, but at Cambridge he devoured books by Euclid, René Descartes, Galileo, and Johannes Kepler and took copious notes. When Newton was working on an interesting problem, he completely forgot about eating or sleeping. He worked so hard on mathematics and physics that within a year he began to record original insights in his notebooks. In 1665, Newton received his bachelor's degree. In the summer of 1665, the plague came to Cambridge, and the university shut down until the spring of 1667. Newton went home and spent his next two years laying the foundations for the calculus, which he called the "fluxional method."
The calculusis a mathematical tool that allows people to solve problems about the limits and rates of changes in dynamic relationships among such factors as time, velocity, position, force, distance, and so on. If one factor is a function of the other, (i.e., dependent upon it--the faster you go, the more distance you cover), then information about an unknown factor can be determined if the other factor is known. Since many factors in human experience are related, the calculus is crucial in many specialities, for example, civil engineering (e.g., what is the maximum stress a building can tolerate if it is made of x materials and is subjected to hurricane winds of y miles per hour"), celestial navigation (e.g., where will a satellite be at a certain time if it is traveling at x speed at y latitude"), and economics (e.g., what will a corporation's profit be if its costs go up at rate x, its sales go up at rate y, and inflation goes down at rate z").
No one knew that Newton had developed the calculus at home in 1665 and 1666. In 1669, however, he made some of his work known to a few people, including Isaac Barrow, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Barrow was impressed. Newton received his master's degree in 1668, and when Barrow resigned his professorship in 1669, Newton took his place. The Lucasian professor gave a series of lectures every term, but Newton's lectures were so difficult that few or no students attended them. When no one attended, he would lecture for fifteen minutes to the empty room and leave.
Newton's work in 1669 and the early 1770s was on opticsand a theory of colors. To aid in his studies, Newton built a reflecting telescope which magnified 40 times. The Royal Society was so impressed by its quality that they elected him a member in January 1672. In February 1672, the Royal Society published an article by Newton on his theory of colors. Robert Hooke, another scientist, challenged Newton in a very superior tone. Newton's response to Hooke was vicious. Newton had thought about colors for years, had conducted many experiments, and knew his subject well. He had no patience for Hooke's tone or ignorance. Newton's disputes with Hooke and others made him withdraw into silence, but while he was silent, Leibniz was publishing his own work on the calculus.
In 1684, Newton was stirred to more work on mathematics and physics by Edmund Halley. In 1687, Newton published his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which formulated the three laws of motion and the universal principle of gravitation. It remains today one of the most famous works of western science.
Quarrels with Leibniz
Newton's most famous quarrel was with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who first invented the calculus. In 1684, Leibniz published a version of the calculus which had a superior system of notation, making it easier to use. When Newton's Principia and other works by English mathematicians were published after Leibniz's calculus, mathematicians throughout Europe assumed that Newton had taken his method from Leibniz.
Newton, however, had invented the calculus in 1665 and 1666, but did not publish his work for years after Leibniz did. Leibniz received letters from Newton in 1671 and 1676 discussing mathematics, and he also saw one of Newton's unpublished manuscripts in London in 1676 and took many notes on it. The issue of who first invented the calculus came to a head in 1699 when Leibniz was indirectly accused of plagiarizing Newton. There followed years of accusations on both sides, which diminished after Leibniz died in 1716. Many scholars today believe that Leibniz did not plagiarize Newton and that both men discovered the calculus separately, though Newton discovered it earlier. Leibniz's version, however, was easier to use and consequently caught on faster than Newton's.
Improving the Royal Mint
Tired of academia, Newton accepted an offer to become warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. He was so well organized that he improved the Mint's operations enormously. Newton was promoted to master of the Mint in 1700 and became wealthy because he earned a commission on the coins minted.
Newton was elected president of the Royal Society from 1703 until his death. In 1705, Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. In the years before his death, he suffered from a number of physical ailments. Newton died in London on March 20, 1727.
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