Isaac Newton

"Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said, Let Newton be! and all was light  

- Alexander Pope" 

If you happen to be in a situation where there is rain and sun at the same time, you are in for a treat, look to the opposite side of the sun and you will see a beautiful rainbow in the sky. Ancients believed that the rainbow was a bridge for the gods from heaven to earth. Isaac Newton experimented with light by passing white light through a prism thus refracting it to form the color spectrum he then passed the spectrum through another prism and converted the spectrum back to white light. When light passes through drops of water in the sky it creates a spectrum, and we see a beautiful rainbow adorning the sky. The angle at which the red light exits the raindrop is 42 degrees and can never be more and the violet light exits at 40 degrees and not more, the different exit angles of light create the rainbow spectrum. A rainbow is natures spectacle but there are little artists like sunlight, raindrops and precise angles that create the magical views for us, and it is our scientists who derive the magic of nature to showcase the awesomeness of creation.  

When Apollo 15 landed on the moon, astronaut David Scott did an experiment, he had a hammer in one hand and a falcon feather in the other and he dropped both at the same time. The feather and the hammer drop to the ground as if in slow motion and hit the ground simultaneously, this would never happen on Earth as the atmosphere creates friction but, on the moon, there is no atmosphere. Aristotle had proposed that heavier objects would hit the ground faster than lighter ones, but Galileo disproved him with his Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment and Newton gave it an equation, F=MA or force = mass * acceleration. Mass is unlike weight and is the same anywhere in the universe whereas weight is local to our planet. Example, if a person weighs 70 kilograms his mass would be 70*9.8=686 newtons. The force of gravity would be weaker on the moon by about a sixth of Earth’s gravity and the same person would have a mass of 112 newtons on the moon. Of course, the object with a heavier mass would have a greater impact, like when you bang a coffee mug on a table the table will bang the mug back with equal force according to Newtons third law of motion, that is every action has an equal and opposite reaction, here the force of gravity exerted downwards by the mug is cancelled by the upward force of the table on the mug and the net effect is zero. You can do an experiment to test this on your weighing scales, stand on the scales flat and then stand on your toes quickly and then back flat on the heel and you will see the scales moving past your actual weight, then below and then settling down to your actual weight. What happens is that the scale measures the force it exerts against your weight and when you stand on your toes, there is an acceleration and when you drop down from your toes there is a deceleration which causes an increase, decrease and then a settling down to your actual weight. 

The Life of Isaac Newton: A Journey from Humble Beginnings

At the age of 12, Newton began formal schooling, but his education focused on the classics rather than science or mathematics. At 17, his mother pulled him out of school, intending for him to become a farmer. Fortunately for science, Newton had neither the interest nor the aptitude for farming. Since his mother refused to fund his higher education, he worked part-time to pay his college fees. One fateful day at a fair, he stumbled upon a mathematics book, which he struggled to comprehend but found fascinating. This curiosity led him to later develop calculus. 

Newton joined Trinity College, but the Great Plague forced its closure, compelling him to return home. It was during this period that he made groundbreaking discoveries in optics, motion, and gravity. Newton despised criticism and avoided publishing his work, but thanks to the persistence of astronomer Edmund Halley, the world eventually gained access to his Principia Mathematica. 

The Role of Edmund Halley: A Crucial Influence

Edmund Halley is best known for predicting the return of a comet, now called Halley’s Comet. In 1705, he identified that comets observed in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were the same and predicted its return in 1758. Though he did not live to see his prediction come true, his calculations were proven correct. 

However, Halley’s lesser known but equally significant contribution was his role in publishing Principia Mathematica. At the Royal Society, Halley, along with Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren, sought to understand planetary motion and hypothesized that a force kept planets in orbit, likely following an inverse-square law. Unable to provide mathematical proof, Halley visited Newton, who had already worked out the solution. With Halley’s encouragement and financial support, Newton completed Principia, laying the foundation of classical physics.  

Newton’s Vision of Gravity and the Universe

Newton described gravity as a force exerted between material bodies, explaining why the Moon orbits the Earth and why planets revolve around the Sun. However, he struggled to understand how this force acted across the vast emptiness of space. He marveled at the regularity of planetary motion, questioning why all planets orbit the Sun in the same plane and direction. Newton believed this order was established by divine intervention, setting the initial conditions for the solar system. 

Newton’s discoveries continue to shape our understanding of the universe, and his laws of motion and gravity remain fundamental to modern physics. From rainbows to planetary motion, his insights transformed the way we perceive the world, revealing the intricate balance of nature through the lens of science.