Sir Issac Newton ( ) Mathematician Physicist Astrologer Alchemist Knight

The year is 1642; What can we describe? Free fall and Projectile Motion Planetary Orbits Inclined Planes, Levers, Simple Machines The Tides A Few Others (Buoyancy, Optics, etc.)

What can we fully explain? Essentially, NOTHING!! Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad... Two properties: Inertia and acceleration First attempt: Rene Descartes; had lots of good math, mostly lousy physics

Newton: the early years Born on Christmas Eve, father died before birth, Mother moved away, raised by grandparents Newton tries to run the family farm – inept Enters Trinity college (Cambridge) in 1661 “Work study student” in the mess hall.

Making his bones: the binomial theorem Some calculations very hard to do, in particular, division and roots. Approximation procedure: (1 + x) N ≈ 1 + Nx for small x √(1.02) = ( ) 0.5 ≈ 1 +.5(.02) = 1.01 calculator says Made him relatively famous

A great year 1665 Plague hits London; Newton moves to farm for a year and a half. Is bored; invents:  Dynamics  Calculus  Optics  Discovers Gravity

Publish or Perish? Considered his results “self–evident”, so didn’t publish. 1667: Cambridge Fellow; 1669: Lucasian chair Lectured on Optics in the 1670’s; opposed by Robert Hooke (of Hooke’s law fame) Hooke is Senior member of Royal Society; Newton refused membership

The Principia 1679: Hooke asks for the orbit of a planet subject to Inverse Square Law 1684: Edmund Halley (of comet fame) asks Newton Hooke’s question; Newton says he solved it years before: elliptical orbits Halley convinces Newton to publish: 1687: The Principia (Hooke charges plagiarism)

A few finishing touches 1693: Warden of Mint; 1695: Master of Mint 1703: Hooke dies; Newton becomes president of Royal Society 1704: Published Opticks and his Calculus (Leibniz charges Plagiarism) 1705: Knighted (first Scientist); 1727: Died

“If I seem to have seen further than others, it is because I’ve been standing on the shoulders of giants.” “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me”