Isaac Newton is a great English theoretical scientist. Newton's years of life are 1642−1727. Life did not spare the great genius. The scientist suffered a lot of grief, pain and loneliness. Financial difficulties, social pressure, rejection of ideas, death of mother, mental disorder. The great Newton survived everything and gave the world his brilliant ideas for the structure of the world and the Universe. Brief biography of the scientist presented in this article.
Childhood of a young scientist
Newton was born into a farming family with little income. A few months before his birth, his father died. The child was born very weak and premature. All relatives believed that he would not survive. Infant mortality in those years was simply monstrous. The baby was so small that it fit in a wool mitten. The boy fell out of this unfortunate mitten twice onto the floor and hit his head.
At the age of three, the boy remains in the care of his grandparents, as his mother marries for the second time and leaves. He will later be reunited with his mother.
Isaac grew up as a very frail, sickly child. It was absolutely introverted personality- “a thing in itself.” The child was very inquisitive and made various items: paper kites, pedal carts, mills and so on. His interest in reading awoke very early. He often retired to the garden with a book and could spend hours studying the material.
In 1660, Isaac entered Cambridge University. He was one of the disadvantaged students, therefore, in addition to studying, his duties included serving the university staff.
Study of optical phenomena
In 1665, Newton was awarded the degree of Master of Arts. In the same year, a plague epidemic began in England. Isaac settles in Woolsthorpe. It was here that he began to study optics in order to understand the nature of light. He's studying chromatic aberration, performs hundreds of experiments that have become classics and are used in educational institutions still.
While studying optics, the scientist at first professed wave nature of light. Light moves in the form of waves in the ether. Then he abandoned this theory, realizing that the ether must have a certain degree of viscosity that would impede the movement of cosmic bodies, which does not happen in reality.
Over time, the scientist comes to the idea of the corpuscular nature of light. He conducts experiments on the refraction of light, the processes of reflection and absorption of the spectrum.
Laws of mechanics
Gradually, from experiments with light, the scientist’s understanding of the physics of the surrounding world begins to emerge. It will become the main brainchild of I. Newton. Newton studies matter and the laws of its motion in space:
- Thanks to studies of motion, he comes to the idea that if there are no significant influences on an object, then it will move uniformly and rectilinearly in space. This conclusion is called Newton's first law.
- The second states that moving bodies can acquire acceleration under the influence of forces applied to these bodies. Acceleration is directly proportional to the forces applied to the body and inversely proportional to the mass. It is from the consequences of this law that the understanding of the problems of applied forces comes: what kind of forces they are, how they act, how they arise.
- And finally, the third law is the law of counteraction. The action force is equal to the reaction force. With the same force I press on the wall, with the same force it presses on me.
Law of Gravity
One of Newton's main achievements is the discovery of the law universal gravity. There is a myth that a scientist was sitting under an apple tree in the garden and an apple fell on his head. This dawned on the scientist: all bodies are drawn to each other. Miscalculations began on paper, endless formulas and, finally, the result - the force of attraction between bodies is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This formula explained the movement of planets and cosmic bodies. Many physicists met this theory with hostility, since its application seemed very doubtful.
Work in Cambridge
After the plague subsided, Newton returned to Cambridge and joined the mathematics department in 1668. By this time, he was already known in narrow circles as the author of the binomial, the theory of fluxions, and integral calculus.
While working as a teacher, he is improving the telescope - creating a reflective telescope. The invention was evaluated representatives of the Royal Society of London. Newton receives an invitation to become a member. However, he refuses under the pretext that he has nothing to pay membership fees. He was allowed to be a member of the club for free.
In 1869, Newton's mother became seriously ill with typhus and was bedridden. Newton loved his mother very much and spent 24 hours a day at her sick bedside. He himself prepared her medicine and looked after her. However, the disease progressed, and soon the mother died.
Membership in the society was painful for Newton. His ideas were often perceived as very oppositional, which greatly upset the scientist. This also affected his health. Constant stress and anxiety resulted in a mental disorder. In 1692 there was a fire and all his manuscripts and work were burned.
That same year, Newton became seriously ill. He suffered from mental illness for two years. He stopped understanding his own works.
The constant need for money and loneliness also caused his illness.
In 1699, Newton was appointed caretaker and director of the mint. This improved the scientist’s financial situation. And in 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Society of London and was awarded a knighthood.
Published works
Let us list the main works of the scientist that were published:
- “Mathematical principles of natural philosophy”;
- "Optics".
Newton's personal life
Newton spent his entire life alone. There are no surviving references to his partners and life partners. It is believed that Isaac was lonely all his life. This, of course, influenced his sublimated switching of sexual energy into creative potential. But this same fact served as the basis for his emotional disorders.
In his mature years, the scientist had great financial wealth and very generously distributed his money to those in need. He said: if you don’t help people during your life, it will mean that you have never helped anyone. He supported all his distant relatives, donated money to the parish in which he was raised for some time, and appointed individual scholarships for talented and capable students (for example, Maclaurin, the famous mathematician).
Throughout his life, Isaac Newton was extremely modest and shy. He for a long time did not publish his works for this reason. Having the rank of director of the Mint, he was very lenient with employees. He was never rude to students or humiliated them. Although the latter often made fun of the professor.
During his lifetime, Isaac Newton did not take photographs, since photography had not yet been invented at that time, but there are a huge number of portraits of the scientist.
Since 1725, Newton, already at an advanced age, stopped working. In 1727, a new wave of plague epidemic began in Great Britain. Newton gets sick with this terrible disease and dies. In England, mourning is being held in honor of the great scientist. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. On his tombstone there is an inscription: “Let those now living rejoice that such beauty of the human race was in their world.”
Sir Newton is rightly considered one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" ("Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica"), which sets out the foundations of classical mechanics, was first published in 1687. In 1691, Newton was seriously poisoned; after exhumation, his body was found high content mercury
Newton formulated the laws of motion and gravity that dominated the next three centuries among scientists studying the structure of the physical universe. After Kepler discovered the law of planetary motion solar system, refined on the basis of Newton’s law of gravitation, the English physicist lost his last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos.
Newton built the first working reflecting telescope and developed a theory of color based on observations of white light being split into spectral colors by a prism. He formulated the empirical law of thermal radiation and studied the speed of sound. In addition to his work on calculus, Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalized Newton's binomial formula, and developed Newton's method, an iterative numerical method for finding the root of a given function.
Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Among other things, Newton was interested in alchemy and theology, but did not publish any works on chemistry or alchemy and viewed the Bible from a rationalist position. According to his calculations, the end of the world should not come before 2060. He refused to take holy orders from the Church of England, perhaps because he rejected the doctrine of Trinitarianism. Towards the end of his life, Newton became president of the Royal Society.
Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643, into a farmer's family, in the village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire. The father did not live to see Newton's birth. The mother, Hannah Ayscough, remarried a 63-year-old widower and had three children. She began to pay less attention to Isaac, and the boy withdrew, immersed himself in reading and found an outlet in making outlandish technical toys.
In 1655, Newton entered Grantham School (The King's School, Grantham) and lived in the pharmacist's house. His stepfather died, and his mother brought Isaac back to the estate in 1659, trying to involve him in managing the household. Newton simply hated rural life and was more willing to write poetry than to help his mother. Ultimately, the young man returned back to school, where he became one of the best students.
In 1661, Isaac began studying at Trinity College as a "sizer", a poor student who essentially accepted the role of servant at the college in order to pay for his studies. During his student years, Newton still did not make close contacts, was indifferent to fame and was completely absorbed in one idea - to get to the very essence of everything. In 1665, Newton received his bachelor's degree. On a wave of creative enthusiasm, he identified for himself about 45 global unresolved issues, both in nature and in human life. In 1665-1667. he formulated his main ideas, which later resulted in a system of differential and integral calculus, the invention of the reflecting telescope and the discovery of the law of universal gravitation.
Newton was associated with Trinity College for over 30 years. Here he conducted his experiments on the decomposition of light. In 1668 he was awarded a master's degree; Newton received a separate living room and salary. He conscientiously lectured a group of students on standard academic subjects, but was never popular and had poor attendance in his classes.
In 1687, Isaac published his great work, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” At the same time, his conflict with King James II began, only after whose overthrow Newton was elected to parliament for the first time from the University of Cambridge.
Since 1699, Newton's world system began to be taught at Cambridge, and since 1704 at Oxford (Oxford University). In December 1701, Newton officially resigned all his posts at Cambridge and resigned. In 1705, Queen Anne knighted a man for the first time in English history for his scientific achievements. However, Sir Isaac Newton, according to one version, was nevertheless knighted for political reasons.
Shortly before his death, Newton got burned out on securities when the bank went bankrupt trading company "The South Sea Company." He died in his sleep on March 31, 1727. Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen is confident that the cause of Newton's lack of contact and difficulties in social interaction was Asperger's syndrome.
Newton was born into a farmer's family, but he was lucky good friends and he was able to escape from rural life into a scientific environment. Thanks to this, a great scientist appeared who was able to discover more than one law of physics and astronomy and formulate many important theories in the branches of mathematics and physics.
Family and childhood
Isaac was the son of a farmer from Woolsthorpe. His father was from poor peasants who, by chance, acquired land and thanks to this succeeded. But his father did not live to see Isaac's birth - and died a few weeks before. The boy was named after him.
When Newton was three years old, his mother remarried - to a wealthy farmer almost three times her age. After the birth of three more children in a new marriage, his mother’s brother, William Ayscough, began to study Isaac. But Uncle Newton could not give at least any education, so the boy was left to his own devices - he played with mechanical toys he made with his own hands, and besides, he was a little withdrawn.
Isaac's mother's new husband lived with her for only seven years and died. Half of the inheritance went to the widow, and she immediately transferred everything to Isaac. Despite the fact that the mother returned home, she paid almost no attention to the boy, since the younger children demanded him even more, and she had no assistants.
At the age of twelve, Newton went to school in the neighboring town of Grantham. To avoid having to travel several miles home every day, he was placed in the house of a local pharmacist, Mr. Clarke. At school, the boy “blossomed”: he greedily grasped new knowledge, the teachers were delighted with his intelligence and abilities. But after four years, the mother needed an assistant and she decided that her 16-year-old son would be able to handle the farm.
But even after returning home, Isaac is in no hurry to solve economic problems, but reads books, writes poetry and continues to invent various mechanisms. Therefore, friends turned to his mother to return the guy to school. Among them was a teacher at Trinity College, an acquaintance of the same pharmacist with whom Isaac lived during his studies. Together, Newton went to enroll in Cambridge.
University, plague and discovery
In 1661, the guy successfully passed the Latin exam, and he was enrolled in the College of the Holy Trinity at the University of Cambridge as a student who, instead of paying for his studies, carries out various assignments and works for the benefit of his alma mater.
Since life in England in those years was very difficult, things were not the best in Cambridge. Biographers agree that it was the years in college that strengthened the scientist’s character and his desire to get to the essence of the subject through his own efforts. Three years later he had already achieved a scholarship.
In 1664, Isaac Barrow became one of Newton's teachers, who instilled in him a love of mathematics. During those years, Newton made his first discovery in mathematics, now known as Newton's binomial.
A few months later, studies at Cambridge were stopped due to the plague epidemic that was spreading in England. Newton returned home, where he continued his scientific works. It was in those years that he began to develop the law, which has since received the name Newton-Leibniz; V home he discovered that white- nothing more than a mixture of all colors, and called the phenomenon “spectrum”. It was then that he discovered his famous law of universal gravitation.
What was a feature of Newton's character, and was not very useful for science, was his excessive modesty. He published some of his research only 20-30 years after their discoveries. Some were found three centuries after his death.
In 1667, Newton returned to college, and a year later he became a master and was invited to work as a teacher. But Isaac didn’t really like lecturing, and he wasn’t particularly popular among his students.
In 1669, various mathematicians began to publish their versions of infinite series expansions. Despite the fact that Newton developed his theory on this topic many years ago, he never published it anywhere. Again, out of modesty. But his former teacher, and now friend Barrow, persuaded Isaac. And he wrote “Analysis using equations with infinite number members”, where he outlined his discoveries briefly and to the point. And although Newton asked not to give his name, Barrow could not resist. This is how scientists around the world first learned about Newton.
In the same year he takes over from Barrow and becomes professor of mathematics and optics at Trinity College. And since Barrow left him his laboratory, Isaac is interested in alchemy and conducts many experiments on this topic. But he did not abandon research with light. So, he developed his first reflecting telescope, which gave a magnification of 40 times. The king's court became interested in the new development, and after its presentation to scientists, the mechanism was assessed as revolutionary and very necessary, especially for sailors. And Newton was admitted to the Royal Scientific Society in 1672. But after the first controversy about the spectrum, Isaac decided to leave the organization - he was tired of disputes and discussions, he was used to working alone and without unnecessary fuss. He was barely persuaded to remain at the Royal Society, but the scientist’s contacts with them became minimal.
The birth of physics as a science
In 1684-1686, Newton wrote his first great printed work, “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” He was persuaded to publish it by another scientist, Edmond Halley, who first proposed developing a formula for elliptical motion in the orbit of planets, using the formula of the law of gravity. And then it turned out that Newton had already decided everything long ago. Halley did not back down until he extracted a promise from Isaac to publish the work, and he agreed.
It took two years to write it, Halley himself agreed to finance the publication, and in 1686 it finally saw the world.
In this book, the scientist first used the concepts of “external force”, “mass” and “momentum”. Newton gave three basic laws of mechanics and drew conclusions from Kepler's laws.
The first edition of 300 copies was sold out in four years, which by the standards of that time was a triumph. In total, the book was republished three times during the scientist’s lifetime.
Recognition and success
In 1689 Newton was elected Member of Parliament at the University of Cambridge. A year later it is sorted out a second time.
In 1696, thanks to the assistance of his former student, and now President of the Royal Society and Chancellor of the Exchequer Montagu, Newton became keeper of the Mint, for which he moved to London. Together they put the affairs of the Mint in order and carry out monetary reform with the reminting of coins.
In 1699, the Newtonian system of the world began to be taught in his native Cambridge, and five years later the same course of lectures appeared in Oxford.
He was also accepted into the Paris Scientific Club, making Newton an honorary foreign member of the society.
Last years and death
In 1704, Newton published his work On Optics, and a year later Queen Anne knighted him.
The last years of Newton's life were spent reprinting the Principia and preparing updates for subsequent editions. In addition, he wrote “Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms.”
In 1725, his health seriously deteriorated and he moved from bustling London to Kensington. He died there, in his sleep. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey.
- Newton's knighting was the first English history, when the title of knighthood was awarded for scientific merit. Newton acquired his own coat of arms and a not very reliable pedigree.
- Towards the end of his life, Newton quarreled with Leibniz, which had a detrimental effect on British and European science in particular - many discoveries were not made because of these quarrels.
- The unit of force in the International System of Units (SI) was named after Newton.
- The legend of Newton's apple spread widely thanks to Voltaire.
Isaac Newton short biography outlined in this article.
Isaac Newton short biography
Isaac Newton- English mathematician, astronomer, physicist, mechanic, who laid the foundations of classical mechanics. He explained the movement celestial bodies– planets around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth. His most famous discovery was the law of universal gravitation
Was born December 25, 1642 years in a farming family in the town of Woolsthorpe near Grantham. His father died before he was born. From the age of 12 he studied at Grantham School. At that time he lived in the house of the pharmacist Clark, which may have awakened in him a craving for chemical sciences
1661 entered Trinity College, Cambridge University as a sponsor. After graduating from college in 1665, Newton received a bachelor's degree. 1665–67, during the plague, was in his native village of Woolsthorpe; These years were the most productive in Newton's scientific work.
In 1665-1667, Newton developed ideas that led him to the creation of differential and integral calculus, the invention of a reflecting telescope (made by himself in 1668), and the discovery of the law of universal gravitation. Here he conducted experiments on the decomposition (dispersion) of light. It was then that Newton outlined a program for further scientific growth
In 1668 he successfully defended his master's degree and became a senior member of Trinity College.
In 1889 receives one of the departments at Cambridge University: the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics.
In 1671 Newton built his second mirror telescope — larger size And best quality than the first one. The demonstration of the telescope made a strong impression on his contemporaries, and soon after (in January 1672) Newton was elected a member of the Royal Society of London - the English Academy of Sciences.
Also in 1672, Newton presented his research on a new theory of light and colors to the Royal Society of London, which caused heated controversy with Robert Hooke. Newton had ideas about monochromatic light rays and the periodicity of their properties, substantiated by the finest experiments. In 1687, he published his grandiose work “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” (“Principles”).
In 1696, Newton was appointed Warden of the Mint by Royal Decree. His energetic reform is quickly restoring confidence in the UK monetary system. 1703 – Newton’s election as President of the Royal Society, which he ruled for 20 years. 1703 – Queen Anne knighted Newton for his scientific services. recent years devoted a lot of time in his life to theology and ancient and biblical history.
NEWTON, ISAAC(Newton, Isaac) (1643–1727) - English mathematician, physicist, alchemist and historian, who laid the foundations of mathematical analysis, rational mechanics and all mathematical science, and also made a fundamental contribution to the development of physical optics.
Isaac (in English his name is pronounced Isaac) was born in the town of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire on Christmas Day, December 25, 1642 (January 4, 1643 in a new style) after the death of his father. Newton's childhood was spent in conditions of material prosperity, but was deprived of family warmth. The mother soon remarried - to an already middle-aged priest from a neighboring town - and moved in with him, leaving her son with his grandmother in Woolsthorpe. Over the next years, the stepfather had virtually no contact with his stepson. It is noteworthy that almost ten years after the death of his stepfather, nineteen-year-old Newton included in the confession he prepared for St. Day. Trinity has a long list of their sins and childhood threats to their stepfather and mother to burn down their house. Some modern researchers explain Newton's painful unsociability and bileness, which later manifested itself in his relationships with others, as a mental breakdown in childhood.
Newton received primary education at the surrounding village schools, and then at the Grammar School, where he studied mainly Latin and the Bible. Due to the revealed abilities of her son, the mother abandoned her intention to make her son a farmer. In 1661 Newton entered St. College. Trinity (Trinity College) of the University of Cambridge and three years later received - thanks to the mysterious favor of fate that accompanied him throughout his life - one of 62 scholarships that entitled him to subsequent admission to Fellows of the college.
The early period of Newton's amazing creative activity occurred during his student years during the terrible plague years of 1665 and 1666, when classes at Cambridge were partially suspended. Newton spent a significant part of this time in the village. These years included the emergence of fundamental ideas from Newton, who had virtually no mathematical training before entering the university, that formed the basis for most of his subsequent great discoveries - from elements of series theory (including Newton's binomial) and mathematical analysis to new approaches in physical optics and dynamics, including the calculation of centrifugal force and the emergence of at least a guess about the law of universal gravitation.
In 1667 Newton became a bachelor and junior member of the college, and next year- Master and Senior Fellow of Trinity College. Finally, in the fall of 1669, he received one of the eight privileged royal chairs of Cambridge - the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, inherited by him from Isaac (Isaac) Barrow, who left it.
According to the college's charter, its members were required to take the priesthood. This also awaited Newton. But by this time he had fallen into the most terrible heresy for a true Christian: a member of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity doubted the fundamental dogma of the doctrine of the Trinity of God. Newton faced the grim prospect of leaving Cambridge. Even the king could not exempt a Trinity College member from ordination. But it was in his power to allow an exception for a professor who occupied a royal chair, and such an exception for the Lucasian chair (formally not for Newton) was legalized in 1675. Thus, the last obstacle to Newton’s career at the university was miraculously removed. He acquired a firm position without being burdened with almost any responsibilities. Newton's overly complex lectures were not popular with students, and in subsequent years the professor sometimes found no listeners in the audience.
The late 1660s and early 1670s saw Newton's manufacture of a reflecting telescope, for which he was elected to the Royal Society of London (1672). In the same year, he presented to the Society his research on a new theory of light and colors, which caused a heated debate with Robert Hooke (Newton’s pathological fear of public discussions, which developed with age, led, in particular, to the fact that he published a paper prepared in those years Optics only 30 years later, after Hooke’s death). Newton owns ideas about monochromatic light rays and the periodicity of their properties, substantiated by the finest experiments, that underlie physical optics.
In those same years, Newton was developing the foundations of mathematical analysis, which became widely known from the correspondence of European scientists, although Newton himself did not publish a single line on this subject: Newton’s first publication on the foundations of analysis was published only in 1704, and more complete guide– posthumously (1736).
Ten years later than Newton, G.V. Leibniz also came to the general ideas of mathematical analysis, and began publishing his works in this field in 1684. It should be noted that the subsequently generally accepted Leibniz notation system was more practical than Newton’s “method of fluxions”, having received widespread in the continental Western Europe already in the 1690s.
However, as it finally became clear only in the 20th century, the center of gravity of Newton’s interests lay in alchemy in the 1670s–1680s. He was actively interested in metal transmutation and gold from the early 1670s.
Newton's seemingly monotonous life in Cambridge was shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the only serious disruption to its rhythm was the two and a half years devoted in the mid-1680s to writing Mathematical principles of natural philosophy(1687), which laid the foundation not only for rational mechanics, but also for the entire mathematical science. During this short period, Newton showed superhuman activity, concentrating on creating Started all the creative potential of the genius bestowed upon him. Beginnings contained the laws of dynamics, the law of universal gravitation with effective applications to the movement of celestial bodies, the origins of the study of the movement and resistance of liquids and gases, including acoustics. This work has remained for over three centuries the most wonderful creation human genius.
History of creation Started remarkable. In the 1660s, Hooke also thought about the problem of universal gravitation. In 1674, he published his insightful ideas about the structure of the solar system, the movement of the planets in which consists of uniform rectilinear motion and motion under the influence of universal mutual attraction between bodies. Hooke soon became secretary of the Royal Society and late autumn 1679, having consigned to oblivion the previous disputes, invited Newton to speak about the laws of motion of bodies and, in particular, about the idea that “the celestial movements of the planets consist of direct tangential motion and motion due to attraction to the central body.” Three days later, Newton confirmed to Hooke the receipt of his letter, but avoided giving a detailed answer under far-fetched pretexts. However, Newton made a rash statement, noting that bodies are deflected to the east when falling on Earth and move along a spiral converging towards its center. The triumphant Hooke respectfully pointed out to Newton that bodies do not fall in a spiral at all, but along some kind of ellipsoidal curve. Hooke then added that bodies on the rotating Earth fall not strictly to the east, but to the southeast. Newton responded with a letter that was striking for his irreconcilable character: “I agree with you,” he wrote, “that a body at our latitude will fall more to the south than to the east... And also with the fact that if we assume its gravity to be uniform, then it will not will descend in a spiral to the very center, but will spin with alternate rise and fall... But... the body will not describe an ellipsoidal curve.” According to Newton, the body will then describe a trajectory like a kind of trefoil, like an elliptical orbit with a rotating line of apses. Hooke, in his next letter, objected to Newton, pointing out that the apses of the orbit of a falling body would not shift. Newton did not answer him, but Hooke, using another pretext, added in his last letter from this cycle: “Now it remains to find out the properties of a curved line... caused by a central attractive force, under the influence of which the speed of evasion from a tangent or uniform rectilinear motion on all distances are inversely proportional to the squares of the distance. And I have no doubt that with the help of your wonderful method you will easily establish what kind of curve this should be and what its properties are...”
We don’t know exactly what happened and in what order over the next four years. Hooke's diaries over the years (as well as many of his other manuscripts) subsequently strangely disappeared, and Newton almost never left his laboratory. Frustrated by his oversight, Newton, of course, had to immediately take up the analysis of the problem clearly formulated by Hooke and, probably, soon received his main fundamental results, proving, in particular, the existence of central forces subject to the law of areas and the ellipticity of planetary orbits when the center of gravity is found in one of their tricks. At this point, Newton apparently considered the development of the principles he developed later in Beginnings the system of the world was complete for himself and calmed down on this.
At the beginning of 1684 in London, a historic meeting took place between Robert Hooke and the future royal astronomer Edmund Halley (who is usually called Halley in Russian) and the royal architect Christopher Wren, at which the interlocutors discussed the law of attraction ~ 1/ R 2 and set the task of deducing the ellipticity of orbits from the law of attraction. In August of that year, Halley visited Newton and asked him what he thought about this problem. In response, Newton said that he already had proof of the ellipticity of orbits, and promised to find his calculations.
Further events developed from cinematography to the 17th century. speed. At the end of 1684, Newton sent the first application text of an essay on the laws of motion to the Royal Society of London. Under pressure from Halley, he began to write a large treatise. He worked with all the passion and dedication of a genius, and in the end Beginnings were written in an amazingly short time - from one and a half to two and a half years. In the spring of 1686 Newton presented the text of the first book to London Started, which contained the formulation of the laws of motion, the doctrine of central forces in connection with the law of areas and the solution of various problems about motion under the influence of central forces, including motion along precessing orbits. In his presentation he does not even mention the mathematical analysis and uses only the theory of limits developed by him and the classical geometric methods of the ancients. No mention of the solar system, book one Started also does not contain. The Royal Society, which greeted Newton's work with enthusiasm, was, however, unable to finance its publication: printing Started Halley himself took over. Fearing controversy, Newton changed his mind about publishing a third book. Started, dedicated to the mathematical description of the Solar system. Still, Halley's diplomacy won. In March 1687, Newton sent to London the text of the second book, which expounded the doctrine of hydro-aerodynamic resistance of moving bodies and was silently directed against Descartes’ theory of vortices, and on April 4 Halley received the final third book Started- about the world system. On July 5, 1687, printing of the entire work was completed. The pace at which Halley carried out the publication Started three hundred years ago, can well be set as an example for modern publishing houses. Typesetting (from manuscript!), proofreading and printing of the second and third books Started, constituting slightly more than half of the entire composition, took exactly four months.
In preparation Started To print, Halley tried to convince Newton of the need to somehow note Hooke's role in establishing the law of universal gravitation. However, Newton limited himself to only a very ambiguous mention of Hooke, trying with his remark to also drive a wedge between Hooke, Halley and Wren.
Newton's point of view on the role of mathematical proofs in discovery is, in general, very peculiar, at least when it comes to his own priority. Thus, Newton not only did not recognize Hooke’s merits in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation and the formulation of the problem of planetary motion, but he believed that those two sentences that we call Kepler’s first two laws belonged to him - Newton, since it was he who received these laws as consequences from mathematical theory. Newton left only his third law to Kepler, which was only mentioned as Kepler’s law in Beginnings.
Nowadays, we still have to recognize the prominent role of Hooke as Newton's predecessor in understanding the mechanics of the solar system. S.I. Vavilov formulated this idea in the following words: “Write Beginnings in the 17th century no one except Newton could, but it cannot be disputed that the program, plan Started was first sketched by Hooke."
Having completed the publication Started, Newton, apparently, again isolated himself in his (al)chemical laboratory. His final years at Cambridge in the 1690s were marred by particularly severe mental depression. Someone then surrounded Newton with care, preventing the widespread spread of rumors about his illness, and as a result, little is known about the actual state of affairs.
In the spring of 1696, Newton received the position of Warden of the Mint and moved from Cambridge to London. Here Newton immediately became intensively involved in organizational and administrative activities; under his leadership, in 1696–1698, a huge amount of work was carried out to re-mint all English coins. In 1700 he was appointed to the highly paid position of Director (Master) of the Mint, which he held until his death. In the spring of 1703, Robert Hooke, an irreconcilable opponent and antipode of Newton, died. Hooke's death gave Newton complete freedom in the Royal Society of London, and at the next annual meeting, Newton was elected its president, occupying this chair for a quarter of a century.
In London he approached the court. In 1705, Queen Anne elevated him to the rank of knighthood. Soon Sir Isaac Newton became the generally recognized national pride of England. Discussion of the advantages of his philosophical system over Cartesian and his priority in relation to Leibniz in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus became an indispensable element of conversation in educated society.
In the last years of his life, Newton himself devoted a lot of time to theology and ancient and biblical history.
Died on March 31, 1727, a bachelor in the 85th year of his life. country house, secretly refusing the sacrament and leaving a very significant fortune. A week later, his ashes were solemnly placed in a place of honor in Westminster Abbey.
A relatively complete collection of Newton's works was published in London in five volumes (1779–1785). However, his works and manuscripts began to be studied more deeply only in the mid-20th century, when 7 volumes of his correspondence were published ( Correspondence, 1959–1977) and 8 volumes of mathematical manuscripts ( Mathematical Papers, 1967–1981). Published in Russian Mathematical principles of natural philosophy Newton (first edition - 1915/1916, last - 1989), his Optics(1927) and Lectures on optics(1945), selected Mathematical work(1937) and Notes on the book« Prophet Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. Joanna"(1916).
Gleb Mikhailov
