Who was Isaac Newton?
Natural Philosopher and Mathematician.
Date and Place of Birth:
25th December 1642. Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire,
England.
Family Background:
Son of Isaac and Hannah Newton of Woolsthorpe.His
father died three month's before his birth.
Education:
King's School, Grantham. Trinity College, Cambridge.
Chronology/Biography of Isaac Newton:
1646: His mother
Hannah marries the 63 year old Rector from North Witham, Barnabas
Smith. Hannah leaves to live with Smith and leaves young Newton
in the care of her mother.
1653: Death of Barnabas
Smith. Hannah moves back to Woolsthorpe a fairly wealthy woman.
1655: Newton goes
to live with the apothecary Mr Clarke so that he can attend Grantham
Grammar School.
1659: Returns home
to his mother.
1660: Returns to
Grantham School and lives with the Headmaster John Stokes.
1661: Moves up to
Cambridge University.
1664: Newton is
elected as a Scholar at Trinity. Moves temporarily back to Woolsthorpe
to escape the plague then in Cambridge. He continues with his mathematical
work.
Staue of Newton in Leicester Suare Gardens, London,
somewhat ravaged by polution.
(© Anthony Blagg)
1665: He contemplates
the falling of an apple in his garden which leads him to formulate
his theories of gravitation.
1667: Returns to
Cambridge. Elected Minor Fellow of Trinity College.
1668: Elected as
a Major Fellow of Trinity College and granted his Master's Degree.
(August) Makes his first visit to London.
1669: Describes
his reflecting telescope in a letter to Henry Oldenburg the first
Secretary of the Royal Society in London. (October) Created the
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. (November) On his second visit
to London he meets John Collins who was to give great support to
his mathematical endeavours.
1670: Gives the
first of his lectures on optics.
1671: The Newtonian
Reflecting Telescope is sent to the Royal Society.
1672: Elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of London. His first letter on light
and colours is read out by the Royal Society and harshly crtiticised
by Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments
there. (February 8th) His letter is published in the "Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society" and becomes arguably the
first scientific paper ever published.
1675: Attends his
first meetings of the Royal Society where he meets Robert
Boyle. (December) His hypothesis on the properties of light
is reads to the Society.
1676: "Discourse
of Observations" read to the Society.
1679: Death of his
mother and he spends much of the year at Woolsthorpe. (November)
Corresponds with Hooke on planetary motion.
1682: Newton observes
Halley's Comet.
1684: Series of
Coffee House meetings between Newton, Hooke
and Christopher Wren on the motions of the
earth and the problem of the inverse square relation. (August) Meets
up with Halley at Cambridge. Begins work
on his famous book "Principia". He demonstrated to the
world that the force of gravity between two bodies such as the sun
and the earth is directly proportional to the product of the masses
of such bodies and inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between them.
1686: Book one of
"Principia" is presented to the Royal Society in which
he states his three laws of motion. Halley
instructs the Society to publish it.
1687: Begins lecturing
on "De Mundi Dystemate".
1689: Meets the
philosopher John Locke for the first time.
1691: Visits Locke
at Oates.
1692: Attends the
funeral in London of Robert Boyle.
1693: Newton suffers
a nervous breakdown which is illustrated in his letters to Locke
and Samuel Pepys.
1694: Visits John
Flamstead at Greenwich.
1696: Offered a
post of Warden of the Royal Mint and he departs Cambridge for London
where he lives in Jermyn Street.
1699: Elected Foreign
Associate of the Academie Des Sciences in Paris. Elected to the
Council of the Royal Society of London.
1700: Appointed
Master of the Mint.
1701: Elected as
a Member of Parliament by the Cambridge Senate and resigns his chair
as Lucasian Professor of mathematics.
1703: Death of Robert
Hooke. Newton is elected President of the Royal Society.
1705: Recommends
publication of the Observations by John Flamstead the Royal Astronomer
at Greenwich.
1705: (April 16th)
Knighted by Queen Anne in Cambridge.
1709: Moves to a
new house in Chelsea.
1710: Moves to a
new house in St Martin's Street.
1712: A committee
is established to examine the priority dispute between Newton and
the german philosopher Leibniz on who first had ideas on a universal
differential calculus.
1716: Death of Leibniz.
1720: Publication
of the first english edition of "Universal Arithmetic."
1722: Moves to Kensington.
1727: (March 2nd)
Attends the Royal Society for the last time due to his failing health.
Dies on March 20th and then is lain in State at Westminster Abbey
on the 28th and buried there on April 4th.
Written Works:
- 1667:
"Enumericaio Curvarum"
- 1671:
"De Methodis"
- 1680:
"Geometrica Curvilinea"
- 1684:
"De Moto Corporum", "De Compositi Serierum",
"Mathesos Universalis"
- 1686:
"Principia"
- 1695: "Tabula
Refractionum"
- 1702: "Lunae
Theoria"
- 1704" Opticks"
- 1707: "Arithmetica
Universalis"
- 1710: De Natura
Acidorum", "Enumeratio", "De Quadratura Lexicon
Technicum"
- 1711: "Analysis
per Quantitatum"
- 1713:
"Principia" (Second Edition),"Commercium Epistolicum"
- (1728): "Chronology
of Ancient Kingdoms Amended", "Short Chronicle",
"The system of the World", "De Mundis Systemate"
- (1729): "Lectiones
Opticae"
- (1733): "Observations
upon the Prophecies"
Marriage:
Never married.
Places of Interest:
CAMBRIDGE:
Trinity College.
LINCOLNSHIRE:
Grantham Museum, St Peters Hill, Grantham, NG31
6PY.
Grantham School.
LONDON:
Royal Greenwich Observatory
Science Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Westminster Abbey
Date and Place of Death:
20th March 1727, Kensington, London, England.
Age at Death:
84.
Site of Grave:
Nave, Westminster Abbey, London, England.
Westminster Abbey, London
(© Anthony Blagg)
