30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Isaac Newton | Amazing Facts 4U
- Isaac Newton is regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time.
- He was a real Renaissance man with accomplishments in several fields, including astronomy, physics, and mathematics. Newton gave us new theories on gravity, planetary motion, and optics.
- His book, the Principia Mathematica, is still one of the most important and relevant scientific works in history, even after more than 300 years.
- He formulated his Three Laws of Motion, which were derived from Johann Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion and his own mathematical description of gravity which has laid the groundwork for modern physics.
- The three laws of motion are: First, a stationary body will stay stationary unless an external force is applied to it. Second, force is equal to mass times acceleration, and a change in motion is proportional to the force applied and third, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
- These discoveries represented a huge leap forward for the fields of math, physics, and astronomy, allowing for calculations that more accurately model the behavior of the universe than ever before.
- Isaac Newton was born prematurely on December 25, 1642. The Great Galileo died the same year.
- Amazingly Sir Isaac Newton’s father’s name was also Isaac Newton!
- Isaac Newton was actually born in a poor farmer family. As he was lacking in farmer skills, his uncle persuaded his mother Hannah to allow him to join Cambridge’s Trinity College after her second marriage which had improved her financial condition.
- Isaac Newton completed his bachelor’s degree at Cambridge University’s Trinity College in 1665 but immediately thereafter an epidemic of the bubonic plague led to the university getting closed. During the first seven months of the outbreak, roughly 100,000 London residents died.
- It was during these two years of break from regular studies that Newton worked on the development of his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation.
- He was named the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge in 1669, taking over the post from his mentor Isaac Barrow.
- Isaac Newton actually never married.
- Isaac Newton was very fond of alchemy which is a pseudoscience which deals with the study of converting a lead and other base metals into gold. He actually wrote 169 articles on it, none of which were ever published as during his lifetime making gold and silver was considered a felony.
- Isaac Newton actually spent more than half his life hunting hidden meanings in the bible rather than working on science.
- Isaac Newton went to the extent of learning Hebrew just because he wanted to understand the bible thoroughly.
- Among Newton’s predictions from the study of the bible was that Jews will take back Israel and it turned out to absolutely correct!
- The “apple tree” story never happened. Contrary to the popular belief that an apple fell on his head which led him to postulate the theory of universal gravitation, he actually saw it falling and had an idea that the invisible force that makes apples fall is also responsible for the movements of the moon.
- Amazingly the descendants of the original apple tree can still be found at Cambridge.
- A piece of the original apple tree was given to NASA who took it into space.
- Weirdly enough, despite being a very religious man, he never believed in ghosts, spirits, the devil, and Satan. He went on to write a whole thesis that argued against the Holy Trinity doctrine of the Church keeping it secret. The thesis went into publication 37 years after his death.
- Isaac Newton was actually secretive in his discoveries. He kept many of these scientific and mathematical works secret. His work on optics in which he found that the white light is composed of a spectrum of colors, was completed by him in 1669 but he presented his findings only in 1672.
- Because of his secretive nature, some of his crucial work went into serious disputes. He actually invented methods of calculus ahead of Gottfried Leibniz, a German mathematician but didn’t publish it. Now the credit for inventing calculus is today shared by both Newton and Leibniz.
- Isaac Newton in 1689 he became a Member of Parliament but had no interest in politics. Amazingly he spoke only once during his one-year tenure, asking the window to be closed.
- Isaac Newton had an arch-rival in Robert Hooke who was an accomplished and respected scientist in his own right. Hooke claimed that Newton had stolen his gravitational work. stole his work but he died early. Newton became the President of the Royal Society and the controversy was laid to rest.
- Edmond Halley (of Halley’s Comet fame) was his friend and he paid for the publication of Newton’s Principia Mathematica.
- Isaac Newton faced two nervous breakdowns. One was in 1678 and the other was in 1693. The possible reason seems to be chemical poisoning as a result of his alchemy practices. It was after this second breakdown that his scientific research ended.
- One of Newton’s teeth was sold in 1816 at auction for about $3,600 which is about $35,000 today making it the most valuable tooth in the world.
- He worked as a Master of the Royal Mint in 1696 the position he held until his death. He personally pursued counterfeiters. At that time counterfeiting was considered high treason and punishable by death. He was responsible for moving the currency from silver to gold standard.
- Isaac Newton was a famous and wealthy man at the time of his death in 1727 and was given the king’s send-off. His body lay in state in Westminster Abbey like a king.
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