method. It would not be long until Newton was incorporating Descartes’s
techniques and building upon his theories.
As Newton was nearing manhood, it was becoming increasingly
obvious that he would make a distracted and uninspiring farmer. (Similar
to Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein, Isaac was often criticized for
having “his head in the clouds.”) Thankfully, arrangements were made for
Isaac’s admission to Cambridge University, three days’ journey to the
south. In June of 1661, he was installed in Trinity College, Cambridge
University, completely dedicated to his scholastic mission. By his third
year Newton had absorbed all that could be known. This sounds
impossible to modern ears, but Newton was able to learn all contemporary
math and physics in his first few years in Cambridge.
And then, in 1664, an astonishing and beautifully horrific upheaval
occurred across England. Plague, the ancient scourge, began to claim lives
and ignite fear from down south. Cities and universities began to drain
across the country, and Cambridge, bowing to the Black Death, shuttered
in 1665. Isaac returned home to Woolsthorpe, living with his mother and
half-sisters for the first time. Medieval instincts called for isolation in the
face of pandemics, and Newton may be seen as the greatest solo artist of
all time.
In 1665, the Royal Society was gaining momentum and preparing for
publication; Isaac Newton was secreted away in the upstairs bedroom of
Woolsthorpe Manor. Unanswered questions plaguing Newton, he began an
approximate eighteen-month project that would be the most productive
and astounding by any theorist, ever. Taking fastidious notes in tiny script
(on precious paper bequeathed to him by a former tutor), the solitary
Newton unlocked the secrets of light, the meaning of gravity and the laws
of thermodynamics, as well as the calculus concepts of integration and
derivation that would make all modern mathematics and science possible.
What held the moon above us? Why did it not come crashing down to
earth, or simply fly away? Why did all objects have a certain weight that
pulled them to earth, and why always straight down? The ancient Greeks
and early Renaissance philosophers had tried, in vain, to unlock the
mysteries of orbits and objects; Newton employed all the known
mathematics of the time and invented more.
Through an amazing coincidence, the sun is four hundred times the
diameter the moon, but is also four hundred times farther away. This
marcin
(Marcin)
#1