Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet of Lincolnshire on Janury 4, 1643. However, since at the time England had not yet adopted the modern calendar, it was documented as December 25, 1642. When Newton was twelve years old he was enrolled in The King’s School, Grantham, and stayed there until he graduated. He became a top student in his later years.
In June of 1661 he was accepted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar, a work-study role. At the time the college’s teachings were based on the ideas of Aristotle, but he preferred modern philosophers and astronomers, such as Descartes, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. Four years later, in 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem. He started developing a mathematical theory that would later become known as infinitesimal calculus. Shortly after he graduated in 1665 with a BA, Cambridge closed as a precaution against the Black Plague. Because of this Newton went home, and for the next two years further developed his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation. In 1667 when Cambridge re-opened he returned as a fellow of Trinity. In 1669, at the age of twenty seven, he became Lucasian professor of mathematics.
Newton studied many facets of mathematics very in depth, mostly calculus, though. It was in his discovery of calculus that he came into disagreement with a fellow mathematician, Leibniz. At about the time Newton discovered “method of fluxions” and “inverse method of fluxions,” Leibniz discovered differential and integral calculus— the exact same ideas with different names. A dispute on the discovery of calculus then erupted. Newton had discovered differential calculus around 1666, and then two years later in 1668 discovered integral calculus. However, it was not until 1675 that Leibniz independently discovered differential calculus, which he then showed to Newton in 1677, and then later published in 1684. Scientists chose sides, and then Leibniz started attacking Newton’s theory of gravitation, along with his ideas on God and creation. Even after Leibniz died in 1716, the battle still roared on and scientists continued it for another century.
Newton’s discoveries in the world of optics proved to have much less drama than his endeavors in mathematics. In 1664 when he was still a student, Newton started studying optics. Through refracting light through a prism he discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in color. He realized that each ray of white light is definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. From this he concluded that light consisted of streams of minute particles. Newton had a grip on his ideas in 1668, however he did not express his ideas until 1672 and 1675, and he received harsh criticism. And, because the French physicist could not duplicate his experiments on refraction in 1681, scientists in Europe were against him for a generation. Newton delayed the publication of his book Opticks until most of his critics were dead. However, when it came out in 1715, it was a paragon for the intertwining of theory with experimentation.
At about the same time Newton was discovering calculus and forming his ideas on optics, he was also discovering laws of gravitation on the side. As the story goes, in 1665 or 1666 Newton saw an apple fall from a tree in his orchard and thought that the same force that governed the motion of the moon governed the motion of the apple. He then started casually calculating the force that holds the moon in orbit and comparing it with the force pulling an object to the ground. In 1679 he started writing letters to English physicist Robert Hooke, which redirected his ideas and led him to discover that celestial objects travel in an ellipse. He informed Edmond Halley of this in 1684, and Halley’s interest in Newton’s work was the impetus for Newton to write the Principia. Principia has three books: Book I states the foundations of the science of mechanics, Book II discusses the theory of fluids, and Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe. Unlike his other work, Principia was accepted automatically in Britain, and then internationally about a half a century later.
However, the genius that Newton was, he became mentally ill in 1693, just over the age of 50. He shut out all his friends and became paranoid, and started speaking of conversations that had never occurred. In September of that year he broke off his friendship with Pepys in a letter, which is significant because he admits that his psychotic episode was preceded by anorexia and insomnia. He was aware that he was going crazy at that point, saying “nor have my former consistency of mind.” A philosopher Locke then wrote him, however it is that time that he came down with depression. However, Newton’s depression and paranoia was short lived because it was only three years later that he became warden of the Mint, then master of the Mint, and in 1703 president of the Royal Society. He was then soon knighted.
Isaac Newton passed away in March 1727, when he was eighty-five years old. No other scientist in his time had been so widely known, and none would even reach his international acclaim until Einstein.
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