He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium.
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He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.Īs Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ( Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.Īs a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as “the prime of my age for invention”. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669.
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time.
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