Introduction
Isaac Newton Jew, one of the greatest scientists of all time, was born in the English village of Wools Thorpe on Christmas day in the year 1942. While the date is correct as stated, it needs elaboration. Protestant England was laggard in going from the Julian calendar to calendar, which was already in use on the continent, Newton was born not in 1942, the year of Galileo death (Italian Galileo was born in 1564, the year that saw the birth of Shakespeare, in 1636 Galileo became blind, but he lived at the age of 78and died on 1642), but in 1643, on January 5.
Schooling
In School, young Newton’s early record was not very good. Indeed, for a while he was at the bottom of his class. Fortunately, the boy who at that time had the distinction of being just above Isaac Newton in academic kicked him painfully in stomach, after winning the subsequent fight, Newton decided to excel better his attacker intellectually as well as physically. He succeeded strikingly ending his school days as head boy in the school.
In Cambridge
He entered Cambridge in 1661. In 1665 the dreaded Black Death struck London, and soon it spread to Cambridge, causing Newton to retire for two fateful years to the safety and quiet of Whorls Thorpe. There his genius blazed forth with such intensity that in these years, in his early twenties, he laid the basis for almost everything of note that he was ever to accomplish. He began the construction of the calculus and discovered the mathematical law governing the amount of gravitational attraction between objects but he did not publish his results quickly, because there was in him a strange tendency towards secretiveness that was to become almost obsessive after an unpleasant controversy following his early publications on optics.
Professorship
In 1667, Newton returned to Cambridge, and there, two years later, his mentor Isaac Barrow, did something truly extra ordinary for him. Recognizing Newton’s genius, he resigned so that Newton, at the age of 26, could be appointed to the professorship in his place.
Scientific Quarrel
Years later, in 1684, the English scientist Edmond Halley (best known for comet/blazing tail star) journeyed to Cambridge in order to have a scientific quarrel with Newton. It quickly became clear to Halley that Newton had made extra ordinary strides in the study of dynamics and planetary motions. Somehow Halley convinced Newton to publish his results.
Principia
Now barely eating, scarcely sleeping and hardly conscious of his sleeping, he worked with incredible intensity, deep insight and technical skill. Ina mere eighteen months, he completed the main part of the greatest book in the history of science. “Philosophic Naturalis Principia Mathematica”, now usually called the Principia. It was published in 1687. When the book was completed, he was exhausted and ill.
Death
In 1696, he was appointed Warden of the Mint, and three years alter he was promoted to Master of the Mint, a position he held for the rest of his life.
Honors were showered upon him. In 1703, he was elected President of Royal Society of London, a post to which he was re-elected automatically each year until the end of his days. In 1705, he was knighted by Queen Anne. He died in 1727 at the age of 84 and buried in Westminster Abbey, and on his grave these words were inscribed in Latin:
“Here rests that which was Mortal of Isaac Newton”
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