The Black Death inadvertently set the stage for one of his most famous insights. As he spent his days experimenting and observing light, one of the worst things to happen to the world occurred: The Black Plague that swept London in 1665. In particular, his interest in optics, the science of light, was increasing. In this process, he continued to develop himself rapidly. Isaac Newton, “The Correspondence Of Isaac Newton”. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. This made Newton even more ambitious, and he realized that he had done Euclid an injustice by rereading the Elements. Isaac Barrow, who tested him, was shocked at Newton’s shortcomings in geometry. However, his self-righteous actions came as a slap in his face when he wanted to enter Trinity College as a professor. Decart’s geometry book interested him more. But he saw it as empty and useless and did not like it.
That’s why he bought Euclid’s legendary book, The Elements. Especially when the field of astronomy was still in its infancy, Newton’s insufficient knowledge of geometry was not enough to understand stellar movements. He studied modern physicists and mathematicians such as Decart, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.ĭuring this period spanning 4 years, Newton’s interest in mathematics and physics increased exponentially. Like his other colleagues at the university, he did not confine himself to Aristotle’s teachings alone. At this point, no one knew about Newton’s potential, and he had not yet achieved serious success. He wouldn’t stop until he crushed whoever challenged him.Īfter successfully graduating from school in 1661, Newton attended Trinity College in Cambridge, England.
This event was actually a fragment of his entire future. He was doing all this to prove his strength to the boy who bullied him at school. His classes were bad, but he improved his grades in a short time and increased his popularity at school with the sundials he designed. He was also attending King’s School in Grantham to learn Latin. Many of Newton’s biographers have noted that it was the lessons learned from Clarke that sparked Newton’s interest in chemistry. Here he became interested in both chemistry and its pseudoscience, alchemy. Derived from the Hebrew (Yitzhak), the name Isaac means “one who laughs” or “one who rejoices.” In the Old Testament of the Bible, Isaac is the firstborn son of Abraham.įrom the age of 12 to the age of 17, he worked under William Clark, a pharmacist. It was named after his father, who was a wealthy farmer. If we are standing on the shoulders of giants today, didn’t everything start with the question of “ why”?īorn to a poor farming family in Woolsthorpe, England, in 1642, Isaac Newton arrived in the world only a few months after his father had died. The fall of an apple may sound simple, but discovering gravity from this is a genius idea.