Wednesday, 2nd May 2012 – Edmund Moynihan gave us a fascinating insight into the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton, and not only his scientific achievements, but also some of his less well known traits:
Born in 1643, he was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been “considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived.” His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation.
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 that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In mathematics, he shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of differential and integral calculus. Newton, although an unorthodox Christian, was deeply religious, and wrote more on occult studies than on science and mathematics. Newton secretly rejected Trinitarianism, and feared being accused of refusing holy orders.
Aughton & Ormskirk U3A Science Group (Archived) 