Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

I don't know what I look like to the world, but to myself, I'm just like a child playing by the sea, rejoicing from time to time to pick up smoother stones or more beautiful shells than usual. and what unfolds in front of me is a completely undiscovered sea of truth.

Isaac Newton, "Books and people's anecdotes, observations and characters"

It may be common for an apple to fall to the ground, but only genius can find gravity in it. If we stand on the shoulders of giants today, then maybe the beginning of everything is Newton's "why".

Isaac Newton was born in 1642 to a poor farmer in Woolthorpe, England. His father was a wealthy farmer, but his family fell after his untimely death. As a posthumous son, Newton inherited his father's name. The name Isaac comes from the Hebrew language (Yitzhak), which means "laughing person" or "happy person". In the Old Testament, Isaac was the eldest son of Abraham.

From 12 to 17, he worked under pharmacist William Clark (William Clark). Here, he became interested in chemistry and its pseudoscience alchemy. Many biographers of Newton have pointed out that it was what he learned from Clark that inspired Newton's interest in chemistry.

He also studied Latin at King's School in Grantham. At first he performed badly, but he improved his grades in a short time. He designed a sundial and became famous at school. All he did was to prove his strength to the bully of the school. This incident is actually a portrayal of his whole life. He won't stop until he defeats all those who challenge him.

In 1661, Newton graduated from high school and entered Trinity College in Cambridge, England. At this time, Newton was still unknown and he had not yet achieved real success. Like his classmates in college, he was not limited to Aristotle's doctrine. He also studied the theories of modern physicists and mathematicians such as Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.

During his four years at Trinity College, Newton's interest in mathematics and physics grew rapidly. Especially at that time, the field of astronomy was still in its infancy, but Newton's knowledge of geometry was insufficient to understand the motion of stars. So he went to buy Euclid's legendary book Geometry.

If I see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton, "Newton's reply to Hook"

In the meantime, he continued to enrich himself quickly. In particular, his interest in optics is growing day by day. While he was watching the light in the laboratory every day, a rather bad thing happened: the Black death swept through London in 1665, which inadvertently laid the foundation for one of his most famous insights.

The painting showing Napoleon touching the Black death caused a large number of deaths and social isolation caused by the plague. Trinity College was temporarily closed and Newton returned to his hometown.

There is no reliable record that the apple did fall on Newton's head, but Newton's observation made him think about why the apple always fell straight to the ground (rather than sideways or upward) and inspired him to come up with the law of gravitation. In spite of this, it took him nearly 20 years to turn the idea into a mature theory.

After supper, when the weather got warmer, we went to the garden and drank tea in the shade of the apple tree. He told me that it was the same situation before, and the concept of gravitation entered his mind. An apple fell, and he sat there meditating.

William Stucre, "memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton"

Newton believed that this gravity had nothing to do with the earth or the apple. In fact, all celestial bodies in the sky should show this force. However, there was one small problem: mathematics at the time could not explain these movements. As a result, Newton developed his own mathematics, known as calculus, and became one of the earliest theoretical physicists.

In 1666, the 23-year-old Newton made revolutionary inventions and discoveries in calculus, kinematics, optics and gravity, but he did not publish any of them. This year is also known as the year when Newton observed the fall of the apple. The year 1664-1667 was called Newton's "year of Miracle", which was a good time for him.

Source: Cambridge University Library at the same time, Newton began to challenge the boundaries of empiricism. He went even further, once inserting a long, blunt sewing needle into the eye socket between the eye and the bone, recording the colored circles and other visual phenomena he saw while studying the light.

In addition, he used a mirror to invent the first reflection telescope in history, the Newton telescope. As a result, Newton was better able to track objects in the sky, thus revealing their laws of motion. As a result of all these achievements, he replaced Isaac Barrow as Lucas Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University in 1669.

In 1671, he published a paper pointing out that white is a mixture of other colors, and colors are formed by the refraction of white light. At that time, people thought that color was a mixture of light and darkness, and prisms colored light. Robert Hook (Robert Hooke) is a supporter of this color theory. In his article, Hook severely criticized Newton and his method for failing to explain the experimental work well. At the same time, these criticisms from the scientific community are the main reasons why Newton has been slow to express his views on gravity for many years.

Newton stayed away from scientific research, and because of his conservative family background, he became obsessed with unlocking the secrets of the Bible.

Newton refused to accept the Christian theory of the Trinity of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. To him, it was the devil's lie. However, the Trinity College where he works gets its name from this theory. This forced him to hide his beliefs and works for years. Although Newton was born into an Anglican family and was a devout but unorthodox Christian, he would not have been accepted by mainstream Christians if he had made public his Christian beliefs in his thirties. A manuscript he sent to John Locke questioning the Trinity was never published.

Gravity explains the motion of the planet, but it cannot explain who makes the planet move.

Isaac Newton

In a letter written in 1704, it can be seen that Newton set the date of the end of the world as 2060. Source: at the end of 2002, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered a manuscript by Newton that calculated the year of the end of the world. In his complex calculations based on theological literature, Newton chose the year 800 as an important date. This is the date of the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire. On this day, he added the complex calculation of the number 1260, and got 2060. In a 1704 letter exhibited at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Newton described his "discovery":

So you can estimate the time. According to the original calendar with 12 months as a year and 30 days as a month, the half cycle is 42 months, or 1260 days or three and a half years. One day in the sky, one year in the world. If the three kingdoms were completely conquered in 800 AD, the end of the world would come in 2060 AD. The world may end later, but I don't see any reason for it to end earlier.

He attached great importance to theology, which accounted for 27% of his writings until his death. The proportion is much higher than that of his books on mathematics, astronomy and physics.

Newton copied the illustration of the Sorcerer's Stone, the Holy Grail of Alchemy. Almost 10% of his book is about alchemy. In fact, if Newton had not been introverted by Hook, he might not have been exposed to so much alchemy, chemistry and theology. The energy spent in these fields delayed his completion of the theory of gravity.

Newton was not the first man in the age of reason.

He was the last magician, the last Babylonian and Sumerian, the last great mind, and he looked at the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes, just like the sages of ten thousand years ago.

John Keynes

His unscientific work almost made him die young. In fact, he is thought to have suffered mercury poisoning in pursuit of alchemy to change elements. He began to have very serious mental problems.

In fact, had it not been for the astronomer Edmund Edmond Halley who visited Newton in 1684, all we might know today is that Newton was an ordinary scientist. Harley spends most of his time observing the moon, but he is also interested in gravity. One of the problems that caught his attention was the proof of Kepler's law of planetary motion. Harley came to ask Newton why the orbits of the planets were elliptical rather than round. In August 1684, he went to Cambridge to discuss the problem with Newton. This visit freed Newton from his fanaticism and made him turn to science again and return to his life.

A very rare first edition of Newton's Mathematical principles of Natural philosophy to avoid lagging behind the scientific community, Newton published principles, in which he listed three famous Newton laws that would revolutionize physics. He also explained his calculus and gravitation. Newton first published the principle of universal gravitation in 1687, which pointed out that every object in the universe is attracted by another object, which is proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Therefore, the branch of physics known as classical mechanics was formally born, which is a revolution in physics.

Robert Hook began to write to Newton after the publication of the principles, and his criticism made Newton shrink back to himself. Hook claims that he discovered gravity a few years before Newton, so it should be cited in the "principle". Hook is making the biggest mistake of his life.

A portrait of Hook was hung by the Royal Society, but Newton destroyed it. Because of Newton's greed, we don't know what Robert Hook looks like today. It was not until three centuries after his death that people realized his importance, and historians began to call the versatile genius "Leonardo da Vinci of England".

On the 375th anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's birth, the Royal Mint launched a commemorative coin of precious metal in his honor. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was the most important figure in the scientific revolution in the 17th century. At that time, British coins were easily forged and the country was in the midst of a financial crisis. Newton's interest in alchemy came in handy here. In fact, in the spring of 1696, Newton was appointed director of the Royal Mint on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Montague. Newton modified features such as the weight of money, which made Britain breathe a sigh of relief.

As a result of these achievements, he continued to serve as manager of the mint until his death. We call Newton "Sir" today not because of his scientific achievements, but because of his position at the Mint. Although these achievements opened the door to the Royal Society for him, in fact, Newton once again distanced himself from science. He also developed a strong interest in theology, thinking that he was adding up the age of the prophet to calculate the age of the world. He even claimed that the calculation was more important than many of his findings. In addition, Newton was obsessed with power and fame.

Meanwhile, Leibniz was accused of plagiarism by the Royal Society. However, Newton was about to become president of the Royal Society, and the charges against Leibniz were by no means fair. More strangely, Newton himself prepared a report on the accusations of plagiarism. In 1712, Newton was recognized as the father of calculus. Today, it is generally believed that the two men discovered calculus independently.

Newton's last mistake before his death was to get Fomo (Fear of missing out). At that time, Britain reached an agreement with France to forgive each other's debt and established a South American shipping monopoly in the South China Sea. The monopoly, known as the South China Sea Company, offsets government bonds by offering shares to holders of gilts. Newton was also one of the people who bought shares in the company. in fact, his stock increased tenfold in a very short time. Newton seized the opportunity to sell his shares and made a profit of 1 million dollars. However, as the share price continued to rise after the sale, Newton was worried about missing out on moneymaking opportunities, known as fomo, which prompted him to buy more when the stock was at record highs.

This is one of the earliest economic bubbles in financial history, known as the South China Sea bubble. After the bubble burst, Newton's losses far exceeded his previous gains. Newton could not accept his failure, and the other day he said:

I can calculate the motion of celestial bodies, but not human madness.

Photo Source: Sir Godfrey Neller, when Isaac Newton died on March 20, 1727, he left a manuscript of more than 8 million words. He was the first scientist buried in Westminster Abbey. After Newton's death, his hair was examined and found to contain mercury, which may be the result of his pursuit of alchemy.

In Newton's life, the nuance between achievement and ambition was obvious. If it hadn't been for Harley, maybe he would have been addicted to alchemy and theology. But he is now the father of physics.

Nature and its laws are hidden in the dark night. God said, let Newton go! So everything is full of light.

Alexander Pope

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ID:cas-iop), author: Sarp, translator: Tibetan idiot, revision: Nuor

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