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Sir Isaac Newton, A Math and Science Philosopher
Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and the general public as one of the most influential men in history. He was born on January 4, 1643 and died on March 31, 1727. In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he 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, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series. From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. He showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton's mathematical work has been said to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied. Newton is said to have claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it. Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves, made contributions to the theory of finite differences, was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to get solutions to Diophantine equations. He was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. This contributed to the renaissance because it showed people how to think in many different ways. The renaissance was a thinking period in time and the mathematics made by Sir Isaac Newton helped this cause greatly. Sir Isaac Newton was a great scientist who will never be forgotten.
This is a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton
This picture shows Isaac using his prism to reflect light onto a mirror
