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Show FOCUS: THE CENTURIUM ISAAC NEWTON "criminals of the coin" with su ch vigor that many of the m ended up on the gallows. H ardly the picture we n ormally have of one of England's greatest scientists. In 1699, so successful had Newto n been in cleaning up England's mone tary mess, t hat he was appointed Maste r of the Mint, a position that paid exceedingly well but req uired much less tim e than that associated with his duties as warden; it was a job that allowed him ti me to continue his work on his Opticks. But also in t hat year, 1699, Newton was appointed as a fo reign associate of the Fren ch Academy of Science, one of only eight to receive so important an h onor. In 1701 , when he was 58, Newton was elected a second time to Parliament, and that sam e year he resigned the Lucasian Chair in Mathematics which h e had h eld at Cambridge since 1669. T wo years later in 1703, he was elected president of the Royal Society, a position whi ch h e held unti l the end o f his life. (continued from page 9) Little wonder, then, that Newton is sometimes described as one of the greatest names in human thought, a supreme genius. The origin ality, scope, and importance of his contributions of the law of universal gravitation, the establishment of the fundamental features of physical optics, and the invention of the calculus resulted in the synthesis of all known facts concerning the physical universe. His powers of scientific intuition and deduction surpassed those of any other man of his time. One of the remarkable things about Newton is the fact that he was much more than a mathematician, a physicist, and an astronomer-h e alsci possessed to an admirable degree th_e intellectual aptitude of lawyer, historian, and theologian; and the writin gs he has left regarding those latter subjects are as extensive as they are impressive. Newton's life was as long as it was illustrious, surprising because he was such a small, delicate child wh en he was born on Christmas day in 1642, that he was not expected to live. His father died before he was born, and his mother remarried when he was about two, turning him over to his maternal grandmother to raise. His mother never lost her affection for h er son, and she returned to him after the death of her second husband. Of great importan ce, however, is the village in which N ewton was born- Woolsthorpe, located about sixty miles north of London, because it was he re his genius would flourish. While h e was still very young, Newton attended the local school at Woolsthorpe; but at age eleven he entered the King's School in Grantham, a larger vi llage a few miles away. His mother wanted him to farm the land, but his uncl e and sch oolmaster convinced her th at the young N ewton displayed a talent too great to be de ni ed. T hus, afte r a couple of years on the fami ly farm, at age 17, he returned to King's Sch ool. Newton e ntered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 166 1, as a 'working' student, meaning he had n ot enough money of his own to see him through . In J 665 he was awarded his bachelor's degree. Because of the severity of the plague w hich raged in London in 1665, he returned to Woolsthorpe fo r a period of eighteen months, a period so important that it must be given special attention. He returned to Cambridge in the latter part of 1666, and two years later was awarded the master's degree. The next year he was appointed as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position his major professor, Isaac Barrow, had not only recommended him for, but h ad resigned in favor of Newton. Newton delivered his lectures on optics from 1670 to 1672, based on his own earl y work and on Barrow's. His first paper on optics was published in J 672. ewton's first major work, the Principia, appeared in 1687, but only because of the efforts of Edmund Halley of come t fame. Halley, who would not have di scove red the comet had it not been for the Principia, had become aware of some of Newton's important cliscoveries after visiting Cambridge in 1684. He knew of Newton's explanation of gravity as the force which held the unive rse together, and h e worked diligently on the reluctant Newton to get the latter's ideas in print. In 1672 Newton h ad joined the Royal Society, and in 1687, when the Principia was published by the Royal Society, Samuel Pepys, the great diarist and secretary to the Admiralty, was its president. Because the Royal Socie ty had run out of funds in 1687, Halley, who did not have a great deal of money himself, undertook the cost of publication. Halley also was helpful in seeing the book through publication and in offering editorial assistance. By 1689 N ewton's fame was such that he was elected to Parliament from Cambridge, serving only a year, because in 1690 Parliament was dissolved. A couple of years later, in 1692, when he was 50 years old, Newton became dangerously ill. It was the period of his life w hen his depression was the st rongest and his conduct most erratic; but h e was not, as some claimed, insane. By 1693 Newton h ad emerged fro m his slump sufficiently to take an acti ve interest in scientific concerns once again, but he remained sensitive, borde ring at times on the neurotic. It has even been suggested t ha t he never regained his a bility to deal with scienti fic problems after 1693, but t he evidence simply does not warrant that conclusion. Newton had long sought some kind of government appointme nt, but it was slow in coming, resulting in insuJtin~, whining letters to his friends John Locke and C h arles Montagu, accusing them of working against him . The charges were false and completely unwarranted. Both m en had been good friends of N ewton's and remained so all their li ves. Montagu, w ho was C hancellor of the Exch equer, was instrumental in having Newton appointed as Warden of the Mint in 1696, necessitating Newton's m ove to London for almost the entire remainder of his life. It was at this juncture that New ton displayed a remarkable ability to carry o ut administrative responsibilities; and so successful was h e in doing so that he would be known as a valuable public figure today even if he had accomplished n othing in science. As Warden of the Mint, Newton was responsible fo r overhauling England's coinage system. Coins had been clipped and fil ed until some of the m were only half their face value. All the old coins were called in a nd replaced wi th coins of standard weight, shape, and metallic content. N ewton's efficiency was such that some who had profited from the defacing of the old coins tried to get Newton fired; and when that failed, they tried to bribe him. Tha t also failed. Newton pursued the ewton 's second major work, the Optick s, was publi shed in England in 1704. Like the Principia it was an immedi att: success, although-also like the Principia-it was n ot without its detractors . New ton was always annoyed by criticism of h is work, a nd was often involved in controversy. A promine nt member of the Royal Societ y, Robert H ooke, an e minent scientist in his own right, locked horns with N e wton on several occassions, both with respect to the t h eory of light and the theory of gravitati on. So distastefu l was th e criticism to Newton tha t he at one point decided to publish no furt he r accou nts of his work. Only t he in tervention of Halley persuaded him to p ublish his Principia after a delay of 2 1 years; and the Opticks had to wa it al most 40 yearsuntil t he year after Hooke's death. In l 705, Newton was knighted by Queen Anne at Trinity College, beco ming the fi rst English scientist to be so honored; and it was not viewed as m erely a pe rfunctory t itle, as the even ts at the time o f his death would demonstrate. At the time of his k nighthood he was recognized as perhaps the leading scie nti st in all of Europe. For th e last 24 years of hi s life, N ewton presided over th e weekly m eetings of the Royal Society, occasionally falling asleep, but still managing to do wha t h is duties there required. Although Newton m ade no great di scoveri es in the last 22 years of his life, his mind re mained keen and able to follow second an d third editions of the Principia and Opticks through the press. He managed, moreover, in those years to publish an occasional paper-for example, On the Nature of A cids, whic h appeared in l 7IO; De Analysi, a mathe matical work which appeared in 1711; and a book e ntitled Universal Arithmetic, which was put out a few years earlier. When h e was 82, Newton moved to Kensington where he resided for the remaining two years of his life. He died in 1727. His body lay in state before being buried in Westminster Abbey. The famous Fren ch philosoph er Voltaire traveled from France to attend the fu neral. N ewton 's casket was carried by dukes and earls of the realm-a mark of the great respect in which he was held by the English people. In searching for t he clues to N e wton 's greatness, one is impressed by the wealth of in formation that is available. Quite apart fro m his two major works in science an d (continued on page 11} |