Newtonian physicist name. Isaac Newton short biography. Historical formulations of Newton's laws of mechanics

Known to every schoolchild, the great English scientist was born on December 24, 1642 according to the old style or January 4, 1643 according to the current style, whose biography originates in the town of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, was born so weak that for a long time they did not dare to baptize him. However, the boy survived and, despite poor health in childhood, managed to live to an old age.

Childhood

Isaac's father died before he was born. The mother, Anna Ayscough, was widowed at an early age and married again, giving birth to three more children from her new husband. She paid little attention to her eldest son. Newton, whose biography in childhood seemed to be outwardly prosperous, suffered greatly from loneliness and lack of attention from his mother.

His uncle, Anna Ayscough's brother, took more care of the boy. As a child, Isaac was an introverted, silent child, with a penchant for making various technical crafts, such as a sundial.

School years

In 1955, at the age of 12, Isaac Newton was sent to school. Shortly before this

his stepfather dies, and his mother inherits his fortune, immediately transferring it to her eldest son. The school was in Grantham, and Newton lived with the local pharmacist, Clarke. During his studies his extraordinary abilities, but four years later his mother returned the 16-year-old boy home with the goal of entrusting him with the responsibilities of managing the farm.

But Agriculture- it was none of his business. Reading books, writing poetry, constructing complex mechanisms - this was all Newton. It was at this moment that his biography determined its direction towards science. Schoolmaster Stokes, Uncle William and fellow Trinity College Cambridge University member Humphrey Babington worked together to ensure that Isaac Newton continued his studies.

Universities

In Cambridge short biography Newton looks like this:

• 1661 - admission to Trinity College at the university free education as a student “sizer”.
• 1664 - successful completion exams and transfer to the next level of education as a student, which gave him the right to receive a scholarship and the opportunity to continue his studies further.

At the same time, Newton, whose biography recorded his creative upsurge and the beginning of his independent acquaintance with Isaac Barrow, a new mathematics teacher who had a strong influence on his hobby

In total, Trinity College was given long segment life (30 years) and mathematics, but it was here that he made his first discoveries (binomial expansion for an arbitrary rational indicator and expansion of a function into an infinite series) and created, based on the teachings of Galileo, Descartes and Kepler, a universal system of the world.

Years of great achievements and glory

With the outbreak of the plague epidemic in 1665, classes at the college ceased, and Newton went to his estate in Woolsthorpe, where the most significant discoveries were made - optical experiments with the colors of the spectrum,

In 1667, the scientist returned to Trinity College, where he continued his research in the fields of physics, mathematics, and optics. The telescope he created received rave reviews from the Royal Society.

In 1705, Newton, whose photo can be found in every textbook today, was the first to be awarded the title of knight precisely for scientific achievements. The number of discoveries in various fields of science is very large. Monumental works on mathematics, fundamentals of mechanics, astronomy, optics, and physics revolutionized scientists’ ideas about the world.

On the statue of Sir Isaac Newton(1643-1727), erected in Trinity College, Cambridge, the inscription “In mind he surpassed the human race” is carved.

Today's post contains brief biographical information about life path and scientific achievements of the great scientist. We will find out when and where Isaac Newton lived, in which year he was born, as well as some Interesting Facts about him.

Brief biography of Isaac Newton

Where was Isaac Newton born? Great Englishman, mechanic, astronomer and physicist, creator classical mechanics, President of the Royal London was born in the village of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire in death.

Isaac Newton's date of birth may have two designations: according to the one in force in England at the time of the scientist’s birth - December 25, 1642, according to which began in England in 1752 - January 4, 1643.

The boy was born premature and very sickly, but lived 84 years and accomplished so much in science that would be enough for a dozen lifetimes.

As a child, Newton, according to contemporaries, was withdrawn, loved to read and constantly made technical toys:, etc.

After graduating in 1661, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge University. Even then, a strong and courageous Newton had developed - the desire to get to the bottom of everything, intolerance to deception and oppression, indifference to noisy fame.

In college, he immersed himself in the study of the works of his predecessors - Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, as well as the mathematicians Fermat and Huygens.

In 1664, a plague epidemic broke out in Cambridge, and Newton had to return to his native village. He spent two years at Woolsthorpe, and during this time his main mathematical discoveries were made.

At the age of 23, the young scientist was already fluent in the methods of differential and integral calculus. At the same time, as he himself claimed, Newton discovered universal gravity and proved that he is white sunlight is a mixture of many colors, and also derived the famous formula of “Newton’s binomial”.

It is not without reason that they say that the greatest scientific discoveries are most often made by very young people. This happened with Isaac Newton, but all these epoch-making scientific achievements were published only twenty, and some even forty, years later. The desire not only to discover, but also to thoroughly prove the truth always remained the main thing for Newton.

The works of the great scientist opened up a completely new picture of the world to his contemporaries. It turned out that celestial bodies located at enormous distances are interconnected by gravitational forces into a single system.

In the course of his research, Newton determined the mass and density of the planets and found that the planets closest to the Sun are the most dense.

He also proved that it is not an ideal ball: it is “flattened” at and “swollen” at the equator, and is explained by the action of gravity and the Sun.

Scientific research and discoveries of Isaac Newton

In order to list all the scientific achievements of Isaac Newton, more than a dozen pages are needed.

He created the corpuscular theory, suggesting that light is a stream tiny particles, discovered light dispersion, interference and diffraction.

He built the first one - the prototype of those giant telescopes that are installed today in the largest observatories in the world.

He discovered the fundamental law of universal gravitation and the main laws of classical mechanics, developed a theory celestial bodies, and his three-volume work “Mathematical Principles natural philosophy"brought the scientist worldwide fame.

Among other things, Newton turned out to be a wonderful economist - when he was appointed director of the British court, he quickly put money circulation in the country in order and started issuing a new coin.

The scientist’s works often remained misunderstood by his contemporaries, he was subjected to fierce criticism from his colleagues - mathematicians and astronomers, but in 1705, Queen Anne of Great Britain elevated the son of a simple farmer to knighthood. For the first time in history, the title of knight was awarded for scientific merit.

The Legend of the Apple and Newton

The story of the discovery of the law of universal gravitation - when Newton's thoughts were interrupted by the fall of a ripe apple, from which the scientist concluded about the mutual attraction of bodies with different masses, and then mathematically described this dependence with the famous formula - is simply a legend.

However, for a whole century, the British showed visitors “that same” apple tree, and when the tree grew old, it was cut down and made into a bench, which is preserved as a historical monument.

There is probably not a single person in the world who does not know who Isaac Newton is. One of the world's most outstanding scientists, who made discoveries in several fields of science at once, giving rise to scientific directions in mathematics, optics, astronomy, one of the founding fathers classical physics. So, who is Isaac Newton? Today his short biography and his discoveries are widely known.

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The story of a scientist and explorer

One could say about him in the words of the poet Nikolai Tikhonov: “I should make nails out of these people. There couldn’t be any stronger nails in the world.” Born before his due date, very small and weak, he lived 84 years in perfect health, until a ripe old age, devoting wholeheartedly to the development of science and engaging in government affairs. Throughout his life, the scientist adhered to firm moral principles, was a model of honesty, did not strive for publicity and fame. Even the will of King James II did not break him.

Childhood

The scientist considered his birth on the eve of Catholic Christmas to be a special sign of providence. After all, he managed to accomplish his greatest discoveries. Like a new star of Bethlehem, he illuminated many directions in which science subsequently developed. Many discoveries have been made thanks to the planned they are on their way.

Newton's father, who seemed eccentric and strange person, never found out about the birth of his son. A successful farmer and good owner, who lived only a few months before the birth of his son, left the family a significant farm and money.

From his youth, having had a tender affection for his mother all his life, Isaac could not forgive her decision to leave him in the care of his grandparents after she married for the second time. The autobiography, compiled by him as a teenager, tells of outbursts of despair and children's plans for revenge against his mother and stepfather. He could only trust paper with the story of his emotional experiences; in life, the famous scientist was closed, didn't have close friends and was never married.

At the age of 12 he was sent to Grantham School. His closed and unsociable disposition, as well as his internal focus, turned his peers against him. From childhood, the future scientist preferred studying the natural sciences to boyish pranks. He read a lot, was interested in designing mechanical toys, and solving mathematical problems. Conflict situation with classmates encouraged the proud Newton to become best student at school.

Studying at Cambridge

Having been widowed, Newton's mother really hoped that her 16-year-old son would begin to help her with farming. But with joint efforts school teacher, the boy's uncle and especially Humphrey Babington, a member of Trinity College, managed to convince her of the need for further education. In 1661, Newton took an exam in Latin and enters Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. It was in this institution that for 30 years he studied science, conducted experiments and made world discoveries.

Instead of paying for his studies at the college, where the young man first lived as a student-sizer, he had to carry out some errands for richer students and other economic work around the university. Just 3 years later, in 1664, Newton passed the exams with honors and received an advanced student category, as well as the right not only to free education, but also to a scholarship.

His studies fascinated and inspired him so much that, according to the recollections of his classmates, he could forget about sleep and food. Still engaged in mechanics and designed various things and tools, was interested in mathematical calculations, astronomical observations, research in optics, philosophy, even music theory and history.

Deciding to devote his years of life to science, he gives up love and plans to start a family. The young pupil of the pharmacist Clark, with whom he lived during his school years, also did not marry and retained a tender memory of Newton throughout her life.

First steps in scientific activity

The year 1664 was an inspiring year for the young scientist. He compiles a “Questionnaire” of 45 scientific problems and sets himself the goal of solving them all.

Thanks to the lectures of the famous mathematician I. Barrow, Newton made his first discovery of the binomial expansion, which allowed him to subsequently develop the method of differential calculus, which is used today in higher mathematics. He passes the exam successfully and receives a bachelor's degree.

Even the plague epidemic of 1665 - 1667 could not stop this inquisitive mind and force him to sit idle. During the rampant illness, Newton went home, where he continued to engage in scientific activities. Here, in the privacy of home, he does most of his great discoveries:

• establishes basic methods of types of calculus - integral and differential;
• deduces the theory of color and gives rise to the development of optical science;
• finds a method for finding roots of quadratic equations;
• displays the expansion formula for an arbitrary natural degree binomial.

Important! The famous apple tree, the observations of which helped in the discovery, was preserved as a memorial bench for the scientist.

Major discoveries

Isaac Newton a brief description of his activities. He was not just a genius, a famous scientist, but a person with diverse interests in many areas of science and technology. What is he famous for and what did he discover? A keen mathematician and physicist, he was equally well versed in both exact sciences, and in the humanities. Economics, alchemy, philosophy, music and history - in all these areas the genius of his talent worked. That's just short description great discoveries of Isaac Newton:

• developed a theory of the movement of celestial bodies - determined that the planets revolve around;
• formulated three important laws of mechanics;
• developed the theory of light and color shades;
• built the world's first mirror;
• discovered the Law of Gravity, thanks to which he became famous.

By existing legend, Newton discovered the famous law by observing apples falling from an apple tree in his garden. Biographer of the famous scientist William Stukeley describes this moment in a book dedicated to the memories of Newton, which was published in 1752. According to Stukeley, it was an apple falling from a tree that gave him the idea of attraction of cosmic bodies and gravity.

“Why do apples fall perpendicular to the ground?” - thought Newton and, reflecting, deduced a new law. In the garden of the University of Cambridge, students revere and carefully care for a tree considered to be a descendant of the same “Newton’s apple tree”.

The falling of the apple served only as an impetus for the famous discovery. Newton went to him for many years, studying the works Galileo, Bullialda, Hooke, other astronomers and physicists. The scientist considered Keller’s Third Law to be another impulse. True, he composed the modern interpretation of the Law of Universal Gravitation somewhat later, when he studied the laws of mechanics.

Other scientific developments

Classical mechanics is based on Newton’s Laws, the most important in the field of mechanics, and were formulated in scientific work on mathematics and principles of philosophy, published in 1687:

• first law uniform motion in a straight line, if no other forces act on the body;
• the second Law is , which in differential form describes the influence of acting forces on acceleration;
• the third Law is about the force of interaction between two bodies at a certain distance.

Currently these Newton's laws are an axiom.

Astronomy

At the end of 1669, the scientist received one of the most prestigious positions in the world at Trinity College, the named Lucasian professor of mathematics and optics. In addition to a £100 salary, bonuses and scholarships, there is the opportunity to devote more time own scientific research activities. Doing experiments in optics and the theory of light, Newton creates his first reflecting telescope.

Important! The improved telescope became the main instrument for astronomers and navigators of the time. With its help, the planet Uranus was discovered and other galaxies were discovered.

Studying celestial bodies Through his reflector, the scientist deduced the theory of celestial bodies and determined the movement of planets around the Sun. Using Your Reflector Calculations and Applying them to Bible Study scientific approach, made my own message about the end of the world. According to his calculations, this event will take place in 2060.

Government activities

1696 The great scientist holds the position of keeper of the Mint and moved to London, where he lived until 1726. Having carried out financial accounting and established order in the documentation, he becomes Montagu's co-author on carrying out monetary reform.

During the period of his activity, a branch network of the Mint was created, and the production of silver coins increased several times. Newton introduces technology, allowing you to get rid of counterfeiters.

1699 Becomes manager of the Mint. In this post he continues to fight counterfeiters. His actions as manager were as brilliant as during his scientific career. Thanks to the reforms carried out in England economic crisis was averted.

1698 A report on Newton's economic reform was presented. While in England, Tsar Peter met with the famous professor three times. In 1700, a monetary reform similar to the English one was carried out in Russia.

1689 -1690. He was a representative of Cambridge University in the country's parliament. From 1703 to 1725 he served as President of the Royal Society.

The last months of his life the professor lived in Kensington. The great scientist died on March 20, 1727. He died in his sleep and was buried on the grounds of Westminster Abbey in the tomb of the kings and most prominent people of England. All the townspeople came to say goodbye to their famous contemporary. The funeral procession was led by the Lord Chancellor himself, followed in the funeral procession by British ministers.

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in the small British village of Woolsthorpe, located in the county of Lincolnshire. A frail boy who left his mother’s womb prematurely came into this world on the eve of the English civil war, shortly after the death of his father and shortly before the celebration of Christmas.

The child was so weak that for a long time he was not even baptized. But still, little Isaac Newton, named after his father, survived and lived a very long life for the seventeenth century - 84 years.

The father of the future brilliant scientist was a small farmer, but quite successful and wealthy. After the death of Newton Sr., his family received several hundred acres of fields and forests with fertile soil and an impressive amount of £500.

Isaac's mother, Anna Ayscough, soon remarried and bore her new husband three children. Anna paid more attention to her younger offspring, and Isaac’s grandmother, and then his uncle William Ayscough, was initially involved in raising her first-born.

As a child, Newton was interested in painting and poetry, selflessly inventing a water clock, a windmill, and making paper kites. At the same time, he was still very sickly, and also extremely uncommunicative: fun games with his peers, Isaac preferred his own hobbies.

When the child was sent to school, his physical weakness and poor communication skills once even caused the boy to be beaten until he fainted. Newton could not endure this humiliation. But, of course, he could not acquire an athletic physical form overnight, so the boy decided to please his self-esteem in a different way.

If before this incident he studied rather poorly and was clearly not the teachers’ favorite, then after that he began to seriously stand out in terms of academic performance among his classmates. Gradually, he became a better student, and also became even more seriously interested in technology, mathematics and amazing, inexplicable natural phenomena than before.

When Isaac turned 16, his mother took him back to the estate and tried to entrust some of the responsibilities of running the household to the older eldest son (Anna Ayscough's second husband had also died by that time). However, the guy did nothing but construct ingenious mechanisms, “swallow” numerous books and write poetry.

The young man's school teacher, Mr. Stokes, as well as his uncle William Ayscough and his acquaintance Humphrey Babington (part-time member of Trinity College Cambridge) from Grantham, where the future world-famous scientist attended school, persuaded Anna Ayscough to allow her gifted son to continue his studies. As a result of collective persuasion in 1661, Isaac completed his studies at school, after which he successfully passed entrance exams to Cambridge University.

Beginning of a scientific career

As a student, Newton had the status of "sizar". This meant that he did not pay for his education, but had to perform various tasks at the university, or provide services to wealthier students. Isaac bravely withstood this test, although he still extremely disliked feeling oppressed, was unsociable and did not know how to make friends.

At that time, philosophy and natural science were taught in the world-famous Cambridge, although at that time the world had already been shown the discoveries of Galileo, the atomic theory of Gassendi, the bold works of Copernicus, Kepler and other outstanding scientists. Isaac Newton greedily absorbed all the possible information on mathematics, astronomy, optics, phonetics and even music theory that he could find. At the same time, he often forgot about food and sleep.

Independent scientific activity the researcher began in 1664, compiling a list of 45 problems in human life and nature that had not yet been solved. At the same time, fate brought the student together with the gifted mathematician Isaac Barrow, who began working in the college’s mathematics department. Subsequently, Barrow became his teacher, as well as one of his few friends.

Having become even more interested in mathematics thanks to a gifted teacher, Newton performed the binomial expansion for an arbitrary rational exponent, which became his first brilliant discovery in the mathematical field. That same year, Isaac received his bachelor's degree.

In 1665-1667, when the plague, the Great Fire of London and the extremely costly war with Holland swept through England, Newton settled briefly in Woesthorpe. During these years, he directed his main activity towards the discovery of optical secrets. Trying to figure out how to rid lens telescopes of chromatic aberration, the scientist came to the study of dispersion. The essence of the experiments that Isaac carried out was in an effort to understand the physical nature of light, and many of them are still carried out in educational institutions.

As a result, Newton came to a corpuscular model of light, deciding that it can be considered as a stream of particles that fly out from a certain light source and carry out linear motion to the nearest obstacle. Although such a model cannot lay claim to ultimate objectivity, it has become one of the foundations of classical physics, without which more modern ideas about physical phenomena.

Among those who like to collect interesting facts, there has long been a misconception that Newton discovered this key law of classical mechanics after an apple fell on his head. In fact, Isaac systematically walked towards his discovery, which is clear from his numerous notes. The legend of the apple was popularized by the then authoritative philosopher Voltaire.

Scientific fame

At the end of the 1660s, Isaac Newton returned to Cambridge, where he received master's status, his own room to live, and even a group of young students for whom the scientist became a teacher. However, teaching was clearly not the gifted researcher’s forte, and attendance at his lectures was noticeably poor. At the same time, the scientist invented a reflecting telescope, which made him famous and allowed Newton to join the Royal Society of London. Many amazing astronomical discoveries have been made through this device.

In 1687, Newton published perhaps his most important work, a work entitled “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The researcher had published his works before, but this one was of paramount importance: it became the basis of rational mechanics and all mathematical natural sciences. It contained the well-known law of universal gravitation, the three hitherto known laws of mechanics, without which classical physics is unthinkable, key physical concepts were introduced, and the heliocentric system of Copernicus was not questioned.

In terms of mathematical and physical level, “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” were an order of magnitude higher than the research of all scientists who worked on this problem before Isaac Newton. There was no unproven metaphysics with lengthy reasoning, unfounded laws and unclear formulations, which was so common in the works of Aristotle and Descartes.

In 1699, while Newton was working in administrative positions, his world system began to be taught at the University of Cambridge.

Personal life

Women, neither then nor over the years, showed much sympathy for Newton, and throughout his life he never married.

The death of the great scientist occurred in 1727, and almost all of London gathered for his funeral.

Newton's laws

• The first law of mechanics: every body is at rest or remains in a state of uniform forward motion until this state is corrected by the application of external forces.
• The second law of mechanics: the change in momentum is proportional to the applied force and occurs in the direction of its influence.
• The third law of mechanics: material points interact with each other along a straight line connecting them, with forces equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.
• Law of Gravity: Force gravitational attraction between two material points is proportional to the product of their masses multiplied by the gravitational constant, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between these points.

/brief historical perspective/

The greatness of a true scientist is not in the titles and awards with which he is marked or awarded by the world community, and not even in the recognition of his services to Humanity, but in the discoveries and theories that he left to the World. Unique discoveries made during his bright Life by the famous scientist Isaac Newton is difficult to overestimate or underestimate.

Theories and discoveries

Isaac Newton formulated the basic laws of classical mechanics, was opened law of universal gravitation, theory developed movements of celestial bodies, created fundamentals of celestial mechanics.

Isaac Newton(independently of Gottfried Leibniz) created theory of differential and integral calculus, opened light dispersion, chromatic aberration, studied interference and diffraction, developed corpuscular theory of light, gave a hypothesis that combined corpuscular And wave representations, built mirror telescope.

Space and time Newton considered absolute.

Historical formulations of Newton's laws of mechanics

Newton's first law

Every body continues to be maintained in a state of rest or uniform and rectilinear motion, until and as long as it is not forced by applied forces to change this state.

Newton's second law

In the inertial reference frame, the acceleration received material point, directly proportional to the resultant of all forces applied to it and inversely proportional to its mass.

The change in momentum is proportional to the applied driving force and occurs in the direction of the straight line along which this force acts.

Newton's third law

An action always has an equal and opposite reaction, otherwise the interactions of two bodies on each other are equal and directed in opposite directions.

Some of Newton's contemporaries considered him alchemist. He was the director of the Mint, established the coin business in England, and headed the society Prior-Zion, studied the chronology of ancient kingdoms. He devoted several theological works (mostly unpublished) to the interpretation of biblical prophecies.

Newton's works

– « New theory light and flowers", 1672 (communication to the Royal Society)

– “Motion of bodies in orbit” (lat. De Motu Corporum in Gyrum), 1684

– “Mathematical principles of natural philosophy” (lat. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica), 1687

- “Optics or a treatise on the reflections, refractions, bendings and colors of light” (eng. Opticks or a treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colors of light), 1704

– “On the quadrature of curves” (lat. Tractatus de quadratura curvarum), supplement to "Optics"

– “Enumeration of lines of the third order” (lat. Enumeratio linearum tertii ordinis), supplement to "Optics"

– “Universal arithmetic” (lat. Arithmetica Universalis), 1707

– “Analysis using equations with an infinite number of terms” (lat. De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas), 1711

– “Method of Differences”, 1711

According to scientists around the world, Newton's work was significantly ahead of the general scientific level of his time and were little understood by his contemporaries. However, Newton himself said about himself: “ I don’t know how the world perceives me, but to myself I seem to be only a boy playing on the seashore, who amuses himself by occasionally finding a pebble more colorful than the others, or a beautiful shell, while the great ocean of truth spreads out before me. unexplored by me. »

But according to the conviction of no less a great scientist, A. Einstein “ Newton was the first to try to formulate elementary laws that determine the time course of a wide class of processes in nature with a high degree of completeness and accuracy." and “... with his works had a deep and strong influence on the entire worldview as a whole. »

Newton's grave bears the following inscription:

“Here lies Sir Isaac Newton, the nobleman who, with an almost divine mind, was the first to prove with the torch of mathematics the motion of the planets, the paths of comets and the tides of the oceans. He investigated the differences in light rays and the various properties of colors that appeared thereby, which no one had previously suspected. A diligent, wise and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity and Holy Scripture, he affirmed with his philosophy the greatness of Almighty God, and with his disposition he expressed evangelical simplicity. Let mortals rejoice that such an adornment of the human race existed.

» Prepared