A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1643, English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and philosopher Sir Isaac Newton was born.

“According to the calendar then in use in England, Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642 (4 January 1643 in most of Continental Europe). The first decade of his life witnessed the horror of the civil wars between parliamentary and royalist forces in the 1640s, culminating in the beheading of Charles I in January 1649. His uncle and stepfather were rectors of local parishes, and they seem to have existed without much harassment from the church authorities convened by Parliament to check for religious ‘abuses’. In his second decade he lived under the radical Protestant Commonwealth, which was replaced in 1660 when Charles II was restored to the throne. Newton was born into a relatively prosperous family and was brought up in a devout atmosphere. His father, also Isaac, was a yeoman farmer who in December 1639 inherited both land and a handsome manor in the Lincolnshire parish of Woolsthorpe. His mother, Hannah Ayscough, came from the lower gentry and (as was common for the period) seems to have been educated at only a rudimentary level. Nevertheless, her brother William had graduated from Trinity College Cambridge in the 1630s and would be influential in directing Newton to the same institution.

Newton’s father, apparently unable to sign his name, died in early October 1642, almost three months before the birth of his son. Newton told Conduitt that he had been a tiny and sick baby, thought to be unlikely to survive; two women sent to get help from a local gentlewoman stopped to sit down on the way there, as they were certain the baby would be dead on their return. Surviving against the odds, Newton was brought up by his mother until the age of 3, when she was approached with an offer of marriage by Barnabas Smith, an ageing vicar of a local parish. Smith was wealthy, and they married in January 1646 after he had promised to leave some land to her first born. Spending most of her time with her new spouse, she produced three more children before his death in 1653 (one of whom would be the mother of Catherine Conduitt). Although John Conduitt waxed lyrical about Hannah’s general virtues, and was careful to point out that she was ‘an indulgent parent’ to all the children, he emphasized that young Isaac was her favourite. Whatever the truth of this, Newton’s own evidence indicates that, as a teenager, he had an extremely difficult relationship with his mother, and historians have always found it difficult to make Conduitt’s account tally with the fact that for seven years Newton was effectively left in Woolsthorpe to be brought up by his maternal grandmother.” — From ‘Newton: A Very Short Introduction’ by Robert Iliffe

[Pg. 8-9 — From ‘Newton: A Very Short Introduction’ by Robert Iliffe.]

Image via Wikimedia Commons

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1687, Isaac Newton published his landmark book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The book, often referred to as the Principia, outlines Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravity, and is considered to be one of the most influential works in science history.

“When it appeared in 1687, the Principia boldly announced a credo that would influence the practice of science for the next three centuries. Hypotheses were to be banished, and well-designed experiments were to be made the basis of general mathematical laws. These laws were to be as few in number as possible and were to be assumed true everywhere, unless counter-evidence could be found. Its crowning conceptual glory was the law of Universal Gravitation, which held that massive bodies attracted each other according to a constant ‘G’, multiplied by the product of the masses and divided by the square of the distance between them (Gmm′/r2 ). The epoch-making implications of this work now became clearer: massive planetary bodies could no longer be privileged as the sole bearers of centripetal attractions, since from the third law of motion all massive bodies exerted such a force. The stunning conclusion was that each and every massive body in the universe attracted every other body. This was to raise substantial problems for Newton and his contemporaries. What was attraction? How, for example, could it be exerted from one end of the universe to the other? Through what sort of medium did it operate?”

[P. 98-99- Newton: A Very Short Introduction by Rob Iliffe]

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Image credit: Sir Isaac Newton’s own first edition copy of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Andrew Dunn. CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

On 5 July 1687, just under 330 years ago, Sir Isaac Newton’s most influential edition of the book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in which Newton’s three Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation were first published. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted a portrait of Newton immediately after Principia’s success. Principia, no doubt, contributed to Sir Isaac Newton being regarded as one of the most influential scientist to shape modern science.

‘Let Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an Ornament to the Human Race’ – The inscription upon Sir Isaac’s monument.

Image credit: Portrait of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Which of Newton’s laws were proved wrong? How often do nature’s predators miss in capturing their prey? Test your knowledge of failure in this quiz.