What discoveries belong to Newton? Brief biography of Isaac Newton. Beginning of a scientific career

Sir Isaac Newton - English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, creator classical mechanics, who made the greatest scientific discoveries in human history.

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 (according to Gregorian calendar) in the village of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. He received his name in honor of his father, who died 3 months before the birth of his son. Three years later, Isaac's mother, Anna Ayscough, remarried. Three more children were born into the new family. Isaac Newton was taken into the care of his uncle, William Ayscough.

Childhood

The house where Newton was born

Isaac grew up withdrawn and silent. He preferred reading to communicating with his peers. He loved making technical toys: kites, windmills, water clocks.

At the age of 12, Newton began attending school in Grantham. He lived at that time in the house of the pharmacist Clark. Perseverance and hard work soon made Newton the best student in his class. But when Newton was 16 years old, his stepfather died. Isaac's mother brought him back to the estate and assigned him household responsibilities. But Newton did not like this at all. He did little housekeeping, preferring reading to this boring activity. One day Newton's uncle, finding him with a book in his hands, was amazed to see that Newton was solving math problem. Both uncle and school teacher, convinced Newton’s mother that such a capable young man should continue his studies.

Trinity College

Trinity College

In 1661, 18-year-old Newton was enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge University, as a sizar student. Such students were not charged tuition fees. They had to pay their tuition by doing various jobs at the University or serving wealthy students.

In 1664, Newton passed the exams, became a student and began to receive a scholarship.

Newton studied, forgetting about sleep and rest. He studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, phonetics, and music theory.

In March 1663, the department of mathematics was opened at the college. It was headed by Isaac Barrow, a mathematician, future teacher and friend of Newton. In 1664 Newton discovered binomial expansion for an arbitrary rational exponent. This was Newton's first mathematical discovery. Newton would later discover mathematical method expansion of a function into an infinite series. At the end of 1664 he received his bachelor's degree.

Newton studied the works of physicists: Galileo, Descartes, Kepler. Based on their theories, he created universal world system.

Newton’s programmatic phrase: “In philosophy there can be no sovereign except truth...”. Is this where the famous expression came from: “Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer”?

Years of the Great Plague Epidemic

The years 1665 to 1667 were the period of the Great Plague. Classes at Trinity College ceased and Newton went to Woolsthorpe. He took all his notebooks and books with him. During these difficult “plague years,” Newton did not stop studying science. Carrying out various optical experiments, Newton proved that White color is a mixture of all colors of the spectrum. Law universal gravity - This greatest discovery Newton, made by him in the “plague years”. Newton finally formulated this law only after the discovery of the laws of mechanics. And these discoveries were published only decades later.

Scientific discoveries

Newton's telescope

At the beginning of 1672, the Royal Society demonstrated reflecting telescope, which made Newton famous. Newton became a member of the Royal Society.

In 1686 Newton formulated three laws of mechanics, described the orbits celestial bodies: hyperbolic and parabolic, proved that the Sun also obeys the general laws of motion. All this was set out in the first volume of Mathematical Principles.

In 1669, Newton's world system began to be taught at Cambridge and Oxford. Newton also becomes a foreign member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In the same year, Newton was appointed manager of the Mint. He leaves Cambridge for London.

In 1669 Newton was elected to parliament. He stayed there for only a year. But in 1701 he was elected there again. That same year, Newton resigned as professor at Trinity College.

In 1703, Newton became president of the Royal Society and remained in this position until the end of his life.

In 1704, the monograph “Optics” was published. And in 1705, Isaac Newton was awarded the title of knight for scientific achievements. This happened for the first time in the history of England.

The famous collection of lectures on algebra, published in 1707 and called “Universal Arithmetic,” laid the foundation for the birth numerical analysis.

In the last years of his life, he wrote the “Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms” and prepared a reference book on comets. Newton very accurately calculated the orbit of Halley's comet.

Isaac Newton died in 1727 in Kensington near London. Buried in Westminster Abbey.

Newton's discoveries allowed humanity to make a giant leap in the development of mathematics, astronomy, and physics.

The English scientist Isaac Newton made an invaluable contribution to natural science and became famous in history as an outstanding physicist who made many discoveries that significantly influenced the development of science. In addition, Newton was interested in mathematics, mechanics and astronomy.

Today, the laws discovered by Isaac Newton still remain relevant and are necessarily studied within the framework of school course physics.

Life path

Isaac Newton lived a long and eventful life. His life path began on December 25, 1642, when he was born in the village of Woolsthorpe, lost in the vastness of Lincolnshire in the eastern part of England. His father, a landowner, was dead at that time and all responsibilities for raising the boy fell on the shoulders of his wealthy mother.

As a child, Newton was reclusive and had a gloomy character. Newton's favorite pastime at this age was reading literature, but he also did not miss the opportunity construct something primitive from scrap materials.

At the age of 12, his mother sent Newton to Grantham School. Initially, he was a mediocre student, but after being beaten by a stronger peer, he received moral trauma, which led to a sharp increase in mental effort and a desire to become the best student.

Newton's natural abilities contributed to this, and soon he became the best student, which teachers paid attention to. In 1659, Newton had to return home to farm because his mother needed help.

In 1661, Isaac Newton entered the University of Cambridge, where he studied science intensively. In 1663, after listening to Professor Barrow's lectures, Newton developed an increased interest in mathematics and even discovered his own method.

Newton successfully graduated from the university, receiving a bachelor's degree. At the age of 26, he was offered a job as a mathematics professor, which he readily accepted. This became his main profession for 27 long years and opened up scope for scientific research. It was then that Newton was able to make his discoveries, which later played a huge role in science.

In 1689, Newton was invited to parliament, which overthrew the Stuarts. Politics was not to Newton’s taste, and a year later he headed the London Mint, remaining in this position for 32 years. Last years for the scientist were happy, because he had a stable and large income, was respected in society and was surrounded by a large number educated people and scientists who listened to Newton and were inspired to carry out their own scientific research.

Having devoted his life to science, Newton never married. Household affairs my niece studied in London. The outstanding scientist died on March 20, 1727, but he his name and works still live in the physical and mathematical sciences.

Scientific research

Most famous discoveries Isaac Newton are:

• law of universal gravitation;
• three laws of mechanics;
• method of "fluxion calculus".

Initially, Isaac Newton had an interest in astronomy and set himself the goal of solving certain astronomical problems that were unsolvable. As a result, the fluxion calculus method was invented, which made it possible to carry out mathematical calculations.

In parallel with Newton, the German scientist Gottfried Leibniz used a similar method. It’s just that the Englishman used the open method exclusively for personal purposes and made it public only a few years later. This caused controversy between German and English scientists about who first discovered the method.

Newton was not particularly concerned about the controversy and continued to conduct research. The main goal of a scientist, which inspires him to make scientific discoveries, is to understand the reasons from which certain natural phenomena arise, as well as the patterns of their action.

Newton tried to explain phenomena from a scientific point of view and used mathematical formulas for this. The first area of ​​research was optics, in which the properties of light were studied. The researcher found that light is a subtle substance that obeys the laws of mechanics. As a result, the theory was discovered which defined light as the movement of matter in a wave-like manner.

The most important discovery in the field of astronomy is the law of universal gravitation. At that time, scientists had already established that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun, but could not understand the reasons for this. Newton was able to discover the phenomenon of gravity and successfully prove its existence. According to some legends, he was prompted to do this by an apple falling on his head, but in fact, the law was discovered through intensive research.

The laws discovered in the field of mechanics also deserve special attention. Every schoolchild memorizes Newton's three laws by heart.

Isaac Newton dedicated his life to science and his name continues to live.

/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. The unique discoveries made during his bright Life by the famous scientist Isaac Newton are 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 movement, 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 was poorly 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, which determine the time course of a wide class of processes in nature with high degree 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

Lazarus Model.

Great personality The lives of epoch-making personalities and their progressive role have been meticulously studied over many centuries. They gradually build up in the eyes of descendants from event to event, overgrown with details recreated from documents and all sorts of idle inventions. So is Isaac Newton. short biography

This man, who lived in the distant 17th century, can only be contained in a book volume the size of a brick. So, let's begin. Isaac Newton - English (now substitute “great” for each word) astronomer, mathematician, physicist, mechanic. In 1672 he became a scientist of the Royal Society of London, and in 1703 - its president. Creator theoretical mechanics , the founder of all. Described all physical phenomena based on mechanics; discovered the law of universal gravitation, which explained cosmic phenomena and the dependence of earthly realities on them; tied the causes of tides in the oceans to the movement of the Moon around the Earth; described the laws of our entire solar system. It was he who first began to study the mechanics of continuous media, physical optics and acoustics. Independently of Leibniz, Isaac Newton developed differential and integral equations, discovered the dispersion of light, chromatic aberration, tied mathematics to philosophy, wrote works on interference and diffraction, worked on corpuscular theory light, theories of space and time. It was he who designed the reflecting telescope and organized the coin business in England. In addition to mathematics and physics, Isaac Newton studied alchemy, the chronology of ancient kingdoms, and wrote theological works. The genius of the famous scientist was so far ahead of the entire scientific level of the seventeenth century that his contemporaries remembered him to a greater extent as exclusively good man: non-covetous, generous, extremely modest and friendly, always ready to help his neighbor.

Childhood

The great Isaac Newton was born into the family of a small farmer who died three months ago in a small village. His biography began on January 4, 1643 with the fact that a very small premature baby was placed in a sheepskin mitten on a bench, from which he fell, hitting him hard. The child grew up sickly and therefore unsociable; he could not keep up with his peers in fast games and became addicted to books. Relatives noticed this and sent little Isaac to school, where he graduated as the first student. Later, seeing his zeal for learning, they allowed him to continue studying. Isaac entered Cambridge. Since there was not enough money for training, his role as a student would have been very humiliating if he had not been lucky with his mentor.

Youth

At that time, poor students could only study as servants from their teachers. This is the fate that befell the future brilliant scientist. There are all sorts of legends, some of them ugly, about this period in Newton’s life and creative path. The mentor whom Isaac served was an influential Freemason who traveled not only throughout Europe, but also throughout Asia, including the Middle East, the Far East, and the Southeast. On one of his trips, as the legend says, he was entrusted with ancient manuscripts of Arab scientists, whose mathematical calculations we still use today. According to legend, Newton had access to these manuscripts, and they inspired many of his discoveries.

The science

Over six years of study and service, Isaac Newton went through all the stages of college and became a Master of Arts.

During the plague epidemic, he had to leave his alma mater, but he did not waste time: he studied physical nature light, built the laws of mechanics. In 1668, Isaac Newton returned to Cambridge and soon received the Lucasian chair of mathematics. He got it from his teacher, I. Barrow, that same Mason. Newton quickly became his favorite student, and in order to financially provide for his brilliant protégé, Barrow abandoned the chair in his favor. By that time, Newton was already the author of the binomial. And this is only the beginning of the biography of the great scientist. What followed was a life full of titanic mental labor. Newton was always modest and even shy. For example, he did not publish his discoveries for a long time and was constantly planning to destroy one or another chapter of his amazing “Principles.” He believed that he owed everything to those giants on whose shoulders he stood, meaning, probably, his predecessor scientists. Although who could precede Newton if he literally said the very first and most weighty word about everything in the world.

The name Newton is familiar to every graduate high school. Unfortunately, acquaintance with his works is limited to physics. Who exactly was this guy? outstanding scientist- a physicist or a mathematician, an astronomer or an alchemist? What is his contribution to the treasury of human knowledge?

Newton's childhood and youth

The scientist’s homeland was England, a village in Lincolnshire. He was born in 1642 into the family of a poor sheep farmer.

Due to his poor health and introverted character, the boy avoided communication with his peers and did not excel in school. The conflict with his classmates changed his attitude towards his studies. He I decided to gain authority among the kids and teachers with my excellent knowledge. His academic success became so brilliant that, on the advice of his teachers, he continued his studies at college at the University of Cambridge. In those days it was the most prestigious educational institution not only in England, but also in Europe.

Within the university walls

For more than three decades, Newton's connection with the university was not broken. For the first four years, he served wealthy students for the right to study for free. Finally, in 1664 he himself received student ID. And a year later he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

His student years were filled with preparation for subsequent scientific discoveries. Lecture notes are full of his own remarks and names famous physicists and mathematicians. Newton makes scientific instruments, enthusiastically studies astronomy, various branches of physics and mathematics, and music theory. Twenty-three year old student compiles a list of 45 unsolved scientific problems, and begins to work on solving them. The idea that popped into his head excited his inquisitive mind young man until the decision became completely clear.

His stay at the university was interrupted by a plague epidemic that broke out in England and affected the campus. The young man leaves the university for two years and goes to his village.

Scientific activity during the “plague years”

In the silence and solitude of his native estate, Newton makes a significant part of his discoveries. He already had extensive knowledge of a wide variety of scientific fields, including mathematics. It was the scientist’s love for this subject that determined him discoveries in mathematical science. The most significant of them:

• proof of the opposition of the operations of integration and differentiation;
• method of finding roots of quadratic equations;
• derivation of Newton's binomial formula - expansion formula for an arbitrary natural degree binomial (a+b) n into a polynomial and others.

Young scientist summarizes the results of observations of the movement of celestial bodies and establishes on this basis the law of universal gravitation. The legend about the apple falling on Newton's head is far from true. This made it possible to explain the whole chain natural phenomena, calculate the masses and densities of the planets.

Return to Cambridge

When his forced absence from the university ended, Newton returned to Cambridge. He earns a master's degree and a position as a college professor of mathematics. During this period, the scientist was very attracted to optics. He designs and creates a reflecting telescope, gained very wide popularity. The telescope created by Newton made it possible to more accurately determine time using the celestial bodies, which was immediately appreciated by navigators involved in the navigation of sea vessels. Thanks to this invention, he becomes an honorary member of the Royal Scientific Society.

Newton argues with his great contemporaries about the nature of light. Publishes the work “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, where:

• introduces the concept of mass, momentum, etc.;
• formulates 3 laws of mechanics, which became the basis classical physics(Newton's laws);
• referring to experiments with a prism, he proves the complex composition of white light;
• describes the orbits of celestial bodies;
• makes a significant contribution to the substantiation of the heliocentric system. In parallel with his research in the field of physics and mathematics, Newton devotes a lot of energy to alchemy. Newton's biography contains pages describing his work as director of the Royal Mint and a member of the British House of Lords.

Isaac Newton's services to world science are enormous. But he did not create this scientific heritage from scratch. Scientist benefited from the vast arsenal of knowledge of his predecessors. They were rethought by him, verified by observations and elegant experiments.

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