Newton was born in a poor peasant family in Ursop, a remote village in Lincolnshire, northern England. His father Isaac died two months before his birth, but his mother still gave him the same name as his father Isaac. When Newton was two years old, his mother remarried to a priest named Barton, and his grandmother adopted him. At school age, Newton entered a public school. His education is average, and his academic performance is average. However, he is very interested in handcrafting. His grandmother didn't want to use the pocket money he gave him. He saved money to buy tools such as hammers, saws and pliers. He knocked all day and made some small toys himself. Its exquisiteness is often surprising.
/kloc-at the age of 0/2, Newton entered Graham Town Middle School. His hobby of handcraft and machinery has been brought into full play. He imitated the big windmill powered by the mill in the town and also made a small windmill. When the wind blows, the blades turn, add some wheat grains and grind the flour like a windmill. He also made a small water clock according to the principle of dripping water, which will automatically drip water on his face every morning to urge him to get up. After her stepfather died, her mother took her two sisters and a younger brother home. Because of his poor family, his mother hoped Newton could share some family burdens. Newton, who was just 14 years old, dropped out of school and went home to graze and farm.
Newton was at home, but his mind was full of ideals, thinking about various learning problems. In order to study, he was so intoxicated that he often left everything behind, either losing his horse or his sheep. Once, when he was measuring the wind speed in a storm, he was soaked to the skin, and his mother was shocked. She was worried that he would go insane and had to send him back to school.
166 1 year, Newton was admitted to Trinity College of Cambridge University with excellent results. Professor Barrow decided that Newton was a talented person and recommended him to be a graduate student. 1665, Newton graduated from Cambridge University and stayed in the research room for further study. In June of that year, the plague was prevalent, schools were closed, and Newton had to return to his hometown. During this period, Newton concentrated his main energy on scientific research. He systematically sorted out his lessons in college, devoted himself to studying the major works of predecessors such as Kepler, Descartes, Archimedes and Galileo, and conducted many scientific experiments. 1666, Newton discovered a triangular glass prism and used it to decompose white light into light of various colors. Repeated experiments have proved that white light can be scattered into color spectrum; This is by no means an accidental phenomenon, but because it is a mixture of colors with different refractive indexes. When it passes through the prism, the refractive index of violet light is the largest, followed by blue light ... the refractive index of red light is the smallest, so that a color spectrum is formed behind the prism. It is the same principle that sunlight passes through the misty fog and produces beautiful seven-color rainbows. Newton's successful experiments and conclusions corrected the wrong understanding that colored light is only refracted by prism and light itself cannot be decomposed, which opened the way for scientists to establish spectroscopy later.
1667 In March, Newton returned to the university for postgraduate study, 1668, and obtained a master's degree. Newton deliberately improved the refraction telescope while studying photodegradation, and found spherical aberration and chromatic aberration. He successfully developed reflecting telescope and became one of the inventors of reflecting telescope. Earlier, Zuji, a Roman, Melson, a Frenchman and Gregory, a Scot, all designed reflecting telescope, but they all failed. Newton was the first person to make reflecting telescope.
1669, Newton was recommended by Professor Barrow and became a professor of mathematics. 167 1 was elected as a member of the royal society. He proposed the particle nature of light to the paper "New Theory of Light and Color" submitted by the Society, which was Newton's first paper. Unexpectedly, his argument conflicted with Hooke's wave theory, one of the founders of the Royal Society, which triggered a big debate. This debate lasted for nearly 300 years until the conclusion of wave-particle duality of light came to an end in the early 20th century. Newton studied optics in many aspects, and he also discovered Newton's ring, described the diffraction phenomenon of light, especially studied the vibration theory of light, and put forward the so-called "burst interval" of light, which was similar to the wavelength in later wave theory. Newton made such great achievements in optics that some people say that only by making contributions in optics can Newton be called a great scientist.
Newton's most brilliant achievement in natural science is the discovery of the law of universal gravitation. During this period, many scientists are exploring the mysteries of celestial motion. 1679, Hooke realized the gravitational inverse square law, but it has never been proved. Therefore, he wrote to Newton and asked about his research progress on this issue. 1684, Ryan, Harley, Hooke and others proposed to promote the study of this problem, hoping to get the result of elliptical orbit from the inverse square relationship of gravity between celestial bodies. In August of the same year, Harley made a special trip to visit Newton and found that Newton had solved this problem. 165438+ 10 In October, when Newton sent the recalculated manuscript paper and related materials to Harley, Harley excitedly read the calculated manuscript and tried to persuade Newton to publish it. The publication of the article "About Sports" immediately aroused great repercussions in the royal society. 1685, Newton completed an epoch-making masterpiece Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, but the Royal Society suspended its publication due to lack of funds. With the generous help of enthusiastic Harley, it funded all the publishing expenses and made this epoch-making work published in 1687. The publication of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy marks the establishment of a classical mechanical system. It takes the four absolute concepts of space, time, mass and force as the core, the three basic laws of motion as the core, the law of universal gravitation as the highest synthesis, and uses calculus to describe the causal law of object motion. It unifies celestial mechanics and ground object mechanics. It is the first big synthesis in the history of physics, and it is a scientific system with strict structure and logic based on experiments and observations.
After Newton published the book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, he devoted himself to political activities. 1688 Elected Member of Parliament. 1696, Montello, a classmate of the finance minister at that time, asked Newton to be the deputy director of the mint. He did his duty and did an excellent job. 1699 promoted to director of mint. 1703, Hook died, and Newton, aged 6 1, was elected as the president of the Royal Society. 1704, Newton's book Optics was published. In the same year, a number of mathematical works such as Counting Cubic Curves, Finding the Area and Length of Curves with Infinite Series and Calculus were published. 1705, the Queen of England awarded Sir Newton the title. 17 1 1 year, Newton published "Analysis by Using Series and Flow Number". . 1727 In March, Newton, who was 85 years old, suddenly fell ill after attending the regular meeting of the Royal Society and died on the 28th of that month. As a great man who made great contributions to the country, Newton was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Newton has made fundamental contributions in the field of natural science, but his thoughts belong to spontaneous materialism. He denied the guiding role of philosophy and sincerely believed in God. Especially in his later years, he immersed himself in theological works and went further and further on the road of idealism, so that he degenerated into a religious fanatic. When he couldn't explain the tangential motion of the planet, he put forward the fallacy of "God first pushes". Newton said a thought-provoking sentence before his death: "I don't know what kind of person I am in the eyes of others;" But in my own opinion, I am like a child playing by the sea. From time to time, I am complacent about finding a pebble smoother than usual or a shell more beautiful than usual, but in the face of the vast ocean of truth that unfolds before us, I have never found it. " "If I see farther than Descartes, because I stand on the shoulders of giants. "
After Newton's death, science has made great progress. Especially in the field of physics, 200 years later, Einstein's special theory of relativity has broken through the system of Newton's classical mechanics. But it is undeniable that Newton is a master of modern physics and a solid pillar of the development of physics. To this day, the calculation of satellite and spacecraft orbits is still based on the gravity he discovered.