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 publication contains brief biographical information about the 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? The great English mechanic, astronomer and physicist, creator of 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As a child, Newton, according to contemporaries, was withdrawn, loved to read and constantly made technical toys:, etc.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 gravitation and proved that white sunlight is a mixture of many colors, and also derived the famous formula of “Newton’s binomial”.

No wonder they say that the greatest scientific discoveries are most often committed 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 of tiny particles, and discovered the dispersion of light, 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 the theory of 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 short terms put money circulation in the country in order and established the issue of new coins.

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 a fall 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.

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 fond of painting, poetry, selflessly invented a water clock, windmill, tinkering 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.

Physicist in his youth

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 began to be interested in technology, mathematics and amazing things even more seriously than before. unexplained phenomena nature.

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.

School teacher young man, 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, Isaac completed his studies at school in 1661, after which he successfully passed the 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 he 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.

Isaac Newton studies the refraction of light

The researcher began his independent scientific activity in 1664, compiling a list of 45 problems in human life and nature, which have not yet been resolved. 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 the 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 rectilinear 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 O 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

In the late 1660s, Isaac Newton returned to Cambridge, where he received master's status. own room for life 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, three hitherto known laws of mechanics, without which classical physics is unthinkable, key physical concepts, 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, groundless 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 translational 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: The force of 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.

He is considered one of the greatest luminaries that science has known. Mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton formed theories of motion, gravity, and calculus, among a number of other topics he studied. The son of an illiterate peasant, Isaac was also a loner, very secretive in everything that related to his work. Want to know more about this the smartest person of your time? Read the following facts about him.

1. His secretive nature was influenced by an unhappy childhood.

Isaac Newton was born premature on Christmas Day 1642. This happened in the house where the family of an illiterate farmer lived. The father died a few months before the birth of his son. When Isaac was three years old, his mother married a wealthy priest - Barnabas Smith - who did not love his stepson. The boy's mother went to live in another village with her new husband, leaving her son in the care of his grandparents. This greatly traumatized the boy, who felt abandoned, and played a role in the formation of his character. Isaac could be called a secretive loner. IN adolescence he made a list of his sins, among which was the entry: “Threatened to Father Smith and Mother to burn down their house with them.” As an adult, Newton devoted himself to work. He didn't even have a hobby, and he never married. For many years he hid some of his scientific discoveries.

2. Newton's mother wanted him to become a farmer.

At the age of 12, Newton was enrolled in a school in Grantham. He began to live in the house of a local pharmacist, since it would be a very long time to walk to his village every day. At first he could not be called a good student. But the story tells that one day he had a conflict with a local bully, and after that Isaac turned into an exemplary student. However, at the age of 15 or 16, he left school and returned to his home village with his mother, who by then was widowed for the second time. He was supposed to become a farmer. But the teenager was not interested in work and coped with it very poorly. Eventually, Isaac's mother convinced the school principal to allow the boy to continue his studies. After completing the required course, Newton entered Trinity College at the University of Cambridge (in 1661), leaving agriculture forever.

3. The Black Death unexpectedly inspired one of his most famous ideas.

In 1665, following an outbreak of bubonic plague, Cambridge University was closed and Isaac was forced to return home. Sitting in own garden one day after returning, he saw an apple fall from a tree. This inspired him to new idea, which later developed into the law of universal gravitation. A little later, Newton told the story of the apple to William Stukeley, who included it in the book Memoirs of the Life of Sir Isaac Newton, published in 1751.

4. Few people came to his lectures at the University of Cambridge.

In 1669, 26-year-old Newton was appointed professor of mathematics at Cambridge (one of the oldest universities in the world, founded in 1209). Although Newton remained at the university for 30 years, he had little interest in teaching or his students, so his lectures were attended by very few students, and often no one came to them at all. Newton's entire attention was focused on his own research.

5. Newton worked for the Royal Mint and fought counterfeiters

In 1696, Newton was appointed master of the Royal Mint, which was responsible for the production of currency in England. He left Cambridge, which had long been his second home, and moved to the capital. The mint at that time was located in the Tower of London. Three years later, Newton was transferred to a more profitable position as a master, which he held until his death in 1727. He led a major project to replace the old coins then in use in England with more reliable currency. He also caught counterfeiters, as a result of which he became acquainted with the very “lower classes” of London society. He personally searched for criminals, despite the risk to his life.

6. He was seriously interested in alchemy

In addition to scientific activity, for which he became famous, Newton spent much of his adult life pursuing another interest: alchemy. As you know, the goal of this pseudoscience is to search for the philosopher's stone. It was believed that this substance was capable of turning any base metal into gold. However, Newton hid his alchemical research and encoded its results.

Among other research projects, Newton analyzed the Bible in an attempt to answer the question of how the universe worked.

7. Newton was a Member of Parliament

From 1689 to 1690 Newton was a member of Parliament, in which he represented the University of Cambridge. During this time, the Bill of Rights was passed, which limited the power of the monarchy and gave more rights to Parliament. Newton's contribution to Parliament was limited. They remember that he spoke only once, when he asked the bailiff to close the window because it was cool. However, it was then that Newton met many of the influential people of the time, from King William III to the philosopher John Locke. Newton served his second term in Parliament from 1701 to 1702, but again contributed little to its work.

8. Fierce feuds were no stranger to the scientist

When it came to intellectual competition, Newton could be jealous and vindictive. For example, he was at enmity with the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. The men fought a bitter battle over which of them invented calculus. Newton developed the system in the 1660s but did not publish it. Leibniz formulated his own system and published it ten years later. To resolve this dispute, a committee was assembled under the Royal Community, to which Leibniz turned. However, Newton served as president of this organization, so he was able to assemble a committee with his supporters. As a result, he was publicly recognized as the author of this invention. Nevertheless, today it is Leibniz’s system that is used.

9. Newton was knighted

In 1705, Queen Anne knighted the scientist. By that time he was already rich, having inherited his mother’s property after her death, and had also published two major works: “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” (1687) and “Optics” (in 1704).

The famous scientist died in 1727 at the age of 84. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, which is the final resting place of English monarchs, as well as such famous people(who are not members of the royal family) like Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, David Livingstone.

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

Today discovered by Isaac Newton's laws still remain relevant in mandatory are studied as part of a school physics course.

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 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. The last years for the scientist were happy, because he had a stable and large income, was respected in society and was surrounded by 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. My niece took care of the household affairs 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. The Englishman just used it 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 the phenomena with scientific point vision 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.

Isaac Newton short biography outlined in this article.

Isaac Newton short biography

Isaac Newton- English mathematician, astronomer, physicist, mechanic, who laid the foundations of classical mechanics. He explained the movement of celestial bodies - the planets around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth. His most famous discovery was the law of universal gravitation

Was born December 25, 1642 years in a farming family in the town of Woolsthorpe near Grantham. His father died before he was born. From the age of 12 he studied at Grantham School. At that time he lived in the house of the pharmacist Clark, which may have awakened in him a craving for chemical sciences

1661 entered Trinity College, Cambridge University as a sponsor. After graduating from college in 1665, Newton received academic degree bachelor's degree 1665–67, during the plague epidemic, was in his native village Woolsthorpe; These years were the most productive in Newton's scientific work.

In 1665-1667, Newton developed ideas that led him to the creation of differential and integral calculus, the invention of a reflecting telescope (made by himself in 1668), and the discovery of the law of universal gravitation. Here he conducted experiments on the decomposition (dispersion) of light. It was then that Newton outlined a program for further scientific growth

In 1668 he successfully defended his master's degree and became a senior member of Trinity College.

In 1889 receives one of the departments at Cambridge University: the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics.

In 1671, Newton built his second reflecting telescope - larger size And best quality than the first one. The telescope demonstration produced strong impression on his contemporaries, and soon after this (in January 1672) Newton was elected a member of the Royal Society of London - the English Academy of Sciences.

Also in 1672, Newton submitted his research on new theory light and colors, which caused a heated controversy with Robert Hooke. Newton had ideas about monochromatic light rays and the periodicity of their properties, substantiated by the finest experiments. In 1687, he published his grandiose work “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” (“Principles”).

In 1696, Newton was appointed Warden of the Mint by Royal Decree. His energetic reform is quickly restoring confidence in the UK monetary system. 1703 – Newton’s election as President of the Royal Society, which he ruled for 20 years. 1703 – Queen Anne knighted Newton for his scientific services. recent years devoted a lot of his life to theology and ancient and biblical history.