1. Newton – A quick biography
Nature, and Nature’s laws lay hid in Night.
God said, Let Newton be! and All was Light. Alexander Pope
Newton – A quick biography
Born: 4 Jan 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire
Died: 31 March 1727 in London
Dates from “corrected”
Gregorian calendar (1752)
Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge at a time when all studies were ecclesiastical.
But much of his great work was done back home in Lincolnshire during the Plague of 1666.

2. The World before Newton
Little progress in western world since Aristotle and the ancient Greeks
Force required to maintain motion.
Natural case is at rest
A world of alchemy,magic and lack of precision e.g.
Cubit distance elbow to finger
Maths was basically only geometry
Postal address on a letter from Newton:
"To Mr Henry Oldenburge at his house about the
middle of the old Palmail in St Jamses Fields in Westminster".
Newton by
William Blake
Newton made the revolution to modern science based on
experimental results, rigorous mathematics.

3. Newton- Interests & Achievements
Devised Calculus
Independently by Leibnitz
Newton first - but didn’t publish
Principia Mathematica
Most influential physics book
Newton’s laws, and theory of gravity
Also published “Opticks”
Alchemy
Scientific study in un-scientific discipline
Poisoned himself with mercury
Religion
Disbelieved in trinity
Master of the Royal Mint
Newton’s
death mask
in Hunterian

4. A complication: what do we mean by mass ?
Newton’s 2nd law F = mI a
Law of Gravity
mI is inertial mass
mG, MG is gravitational mass
- like electric charge for gravity
Are these the same ?
Yes, but that took another 250 years till
Einstein’s theory of relativity to explain!