Isaac Newton and his contributions to science

Isaac Newton was born in 1642 at Woolsthorpe in England. His father died before Newton's birth and when his mother remarried, she went to live with her husband and left Isaac with her mother.

At 12, he was reunited with his mother after the death of her second husband; she desired to turn him into a farmer in order to support the family. Newton was not successful as a farmer and was able to return to school to complete his education.

He entered Cambridge University in 1661. He was an average student, but he became a scholar, which entitled him to another 4 years of future education. However, his education was interrupted in 1665, when the Great Plague came to Cambridge, forcing the closing of the university.

This resulted Newton returning home to study, and it was during his private study that he developed some of his most groundbreaking ideas, including: infinitesimal calculus, the foundations for his theory of light and color, and began to study the motion of the planets in depth.

Newton graduated and was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667 and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669.

He stayed at Cambridge through 1696 and wrote the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy while he was there. Newton was elected to Parliament for the University of Cambridge, became a Warden of the Royal Mint, became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and then became President of the Royal Society of London.

He was knighted in 1705, and wrote Opticks in 1704.

Newton is most famous for describing the laws of gravity, which he famously observed when an apple fell out of a tree. However, his observation of gravity was far more complex than simply an up and down concept; he used gravity to describe planetary orbits. Newton also described the three basic laws of motion: an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; when force is applied to an object, it will accelerate; and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. He developed calculus, which is basically a technique to solve problems with changing variables. Newton studied rainbows and developed prisms, which changed the basic knowledge of light and optics. Newton built the first reflecting telescope. He developed the law of cooling. One of Newton's least scientific, but critically important jobs, occurred when he worked as the Warden of the Royal Mint, and he had all of the silver currency in the country recalled and melted down into coins that were more difficult to counterfeit in order to counteract rampant counterfeiting.

Part II

Because Newton had so many accomplishments, it is difficult to envision a world in which Newton had not lived. Some people may claim that the observation of gravity and gravitational laws was inevitable, and, therefore, had Newton not lived those laws would still be understood. This assertion seems questionable. Newton was alive during a period of tremendous scientific discovery, but he was one of the primary drivers of the mathematics and scientific discoveries during his time period. Without his insight, it is difficult to imagine whether any of the modern scientific advances would have occurred.

Without Newton's explanation of gravity and how gravity impacts orbit, it is highly unlikely that any country would have a successful space program. After all, a space program requires the knowledge of orbits in order to be able to launch things into space and expect them to orbit. In fact, any type of flight would probably be difficult to accomplish without a keen understanding of the laws of gravity. As a result, without Newton's discoveries, the world may be one without flight and without space exploration. This world would be both positive and negative. For example, the atomic bomb was delivered via airplane, which probably would not have been possible without Newton's explanation of gravity. However, the benefits to mankind are far greater than the detriments.