One day, in the middle of the 17th century, in one of London's newly opened coffee houses, Edmund Halley and Robert Hook met with Christopher Wren. Some of the greatest minds of all time gathered to discuss not less important puzzles: what controls the movement of the planets around the sun? How do comets move? Edmund Halley guessed that the cosmic bodies are moving along an ellipse, but he couldn't make the necessary calculations in order to describe it mathematically. None of them could. And then Halley made one of the most important historical decisions in his life: he turned to Isaac Newton.
Newton lived in Cambridge, and he lived there, like a hermit. When Halley asked him to help find the answer, he sad:
- Yep, the force of gravity weakens with the square of the distance. That's why their orbits have the shape of an ellipse.
- But... How did you figured it out?!! - Halley asked.
- Well, I calculated this. About 10 years ago. |
| Isaac Newton |
Nature and Nature’s laws
lay hid in night;
God said: Let Newton be!
and all was light!
A. Pope
It is pointless to compare scientists with each other, but ... Yes, there were Pythagoras and Archimedes, Leonardo and Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, Faraday and Maxwell, Lomonosov and Mendeleev, but they all pale in comparison with Newton. Why?
Let's just say, he made his first significant discovery in 21 years - he generalized the binomial theorem. The expansion of (x + y)2 is just a special case of this formula, the formula itself decomposes the binomial of any degree.
Then he:
1. Invented the differential calculus.
2. Discovered that the white color consists of a mixture of colors of the spectrum (with the help of the notorious prism). Before him it was considered one of the main mysteries of the light.
3. Then he invented the integral calculus based on differential calculus.
4. And then he invented the foundations of mathematical analysis.
Not a bad list, right? For any of these discoveries, he could receive a Nobel Prize. But he did not publish any, simply because fame did not interest him. For a 23-year-old boy, he already knew too much.
 |
| A replica of Newton's reflecting telescope |
At 25, thanks to his “hobby” in optics, he invented and constructed a small reflecting telescope with about 40 times magnification without loss of quality. Newton found that he could see the four Galilean moons of Jupiter with his new little telescope. The telescope was presented to small group from the Royal Society of London, and they were so impressed with it they demonstrated it for Charles II, the king of England. It is described as the better of the instruments Newton built. However, the greatest invention of him is still ahead.
Principia Mathematica
Do you remember the story at the beginning? This happened in 1684, when Newton was 41 years old. Then he promised to send Halley his calculations. When Halley got them, he was so impressed that he immediately went back to Cambridge - to persuade Isaac to publish his discoveries.
Newton wrote the book 2 years and called it "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy". Both the physical and mathematical level of Newton's work is completely incompatible with the work of his predecessors. Widely regarded as one of the most important works in both the science of physics and in applied mathematics during the Scientific Revolution, it described the foundations of classical mechanics including three main laws of motion, and description of the orbits of cosmic bodies. All modern mechanics originates in this book.
- Is that all?
Absolutely not. As the character of Morton Opperly in "Poor Superman" sad, "Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find.”. Of an estimated ten million words of writing in Newton's papers, about one million deal with alchemy.
Newton was elected the warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. He succeed so much, that later Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon the death of Thomas Neale.
Isaac always had his own perception of the world: the desire to get to the heart of things, intolerance to deceit, indifference to the fame.
What do you think about Isaac Newton?
Newton never married, he didn’t play well with others. But, perhaps, this is the reason for his success. What do you think about that?
Thank you for reading!
Sources:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/cosmos-a-spacetime-ody
Comments
To be honest, I think it had a big influence. Why?
Firstly, partner, children, family, friends - just people and relationships consume a lot of time. Conversations about the weather, somebody's day, work, cars or even small talks - they all consume huge amount of time. Newton didn't have to do it, thanks to it he had 'space' to work ;) (of course, I don't want to consider if it's normal/good/bad).
Secondly, being asocial allows to think different than others. You don't have some 'standards' and in my opinion leaving obviousness is the most important and the same the most difficult thing in inventing.
I think all geniuses are similar in this feature - they are asocial. Perhaps it's not a rule, but happens very often. I admire Newton as well as other geniuses, but to be honest I prefer to have family, friends and my 'normal' life.
I don't consider his dedication to scientific career as sacrifice, I mean, I don't believe it was one for nim. Probably, he didn't feel like going aby other way and that was what he had to embark.
As we all know, geniuses are born more often as men so there had been a slight possibility that he could find a aproppriate women, even if he would have learnt to deal with people - in what I quite disbelieve.
This is the view, for instance, of Stephen Hawking in the last appendix to his bestselling "A Brief History of Time" - he didn't liked Newton's character.
His fellow scientists John Flamsteed, Robert Hooke, and Henry Oldenberg were just a few of those who felt the sting of Newton's viciousness.
However, this does not mean that he was a bad scientist :)
As some kind of proof:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-what-happens-when-you-screw-with-isaac-newton-1690479177
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Newton_calculus_controversy
But, for example, Isaac Newton graduated from his university.
As I see, you've read this article too ;-)
I think that because he was an introvert he was so successful in his work because his studies was the only thing in his life.
He loved science more than anything and that’s why he was so successful. That’s just my guess, he might have also be just weird but smart :)
There is no doubt Newton is a real genius. I really admire all the people who follow their own path without looking at the others and do their own thing. In the case of Newton, this process resulted in many brilliant inventions, what deserves much greater recognition.
Regarding loneliness of many geniuses, maybe the lack of social skills is just the price they pay for this special gift of being so smart.
I think there is not any difference between his success and the fact that he was not married , in the history there are many examples of prominent people who also made a great contribution to science but was married.
I don't know if being lonely helped him but for sure because of loneliness he has more time to study.