![]() ![]() He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusual for a member of the Cambridge faculty, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. In addition to his work on the calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of the infinitesimal calculus. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. ![]() Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 9061-9064). They lived together for several years, and when they broke up in 1693, Newton suffered symptoms of a nervous breakdown. The greatest love affair of Newton’s life was with a fellow mathematician, Fatio de Duillier. (Newton’s laws do still apply, except on very small scales where quantum mechanics takes over.) ( P: ©Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723). ![]() Elisa_rolle Sir Isaac Newton’s work laid the foundation for physics that prevailed until the theories of Einstein and Planck in the twentieth century. ![]()
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