I don't know what kind of person I am in the eyes of others; But in my own opinion, I am like a child playing by the sea. From time to time, I am complacent about finding a pebble smoother than usual or a shell more beautiful than usual, but I have never found the vast ocean of truth in front of me.

newton

1643 65438+1October 4th, Newton was born in a farmer's family in Wolthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. Newton was a premature baby, weighing only three pounds at birth. The midwife and his relatives are worried about whether he will survive. No one expected that this seemingly insignificant little thing would become a giant of science and live to be 85 years old.

Three months before Newton was born, his father died. When he was two years old, his mother remarried to a priest and left Newton to his grandmother. 1 1 years old, my mother's step hubband passed away, and my mother returned to Newton with a son and two daughters born with step hubband. Newton was taciturn and stubborn since childhood, which may come from his family situation.

From about the age of five, Newton was sent to public schools. Newton was not a child prodigy when he was a teenager. He has average qualifications and average grades, but he likes reading books, reading books that introduce various simple mechanical model making methods, and being inspired by them, he makes some strange gadgets by himself, such as windmills, wooden clocks, folding lanterns and so on.

Legend has it that young Newton made a model of the mill after thoroughly understanding the mechanical principle of the windmill. He tied the mouse to a treadmill with wheels, and then put a corn in front of the wheel, just out of the mouse's reach. The mouse wants to eat corn, so it keeps running, so the wheel keeps turning; Once again, when he was flying a kite, he hung a small lamp on the rope. In the evening, the villagers were surprised to find that a comet appeared. He also made a small water clock. Every morning, the water bell will automatically drop water on his face to wake him up. He also likes painting and carving, especially carving sundials. His sundial was placed in the corner of his house and everywhere on the windowsill to observe the movement of the shadow.

Newton entered Grantham Middle School not far from home at the age of 12. Newton's mother had hoped that he would become a farmer, but Newton himself had no intention of doing so and loved reading. As he grew older, Newton became more and more fond of reading, meditating and doing small scientific experiments. When he was studying in Grantham Middle School, he lived in a pharmacist's house, which influenced him by chemical experiments.

Newton's academic performance in middle school is not outstanding, but he just loves reading and is curious about natural phenomena, such as colors, the movements of the four seasons, especially geometry, Heliocentrism of Copernicus and so on. He also takes reading notes in different categories and likes to make ingenious gadgets, tricks, inventions and experiments.

At that time, English society was permeated with new Christian ideas, and two relatives of Newton's family were priests, which may affect Newton's religious life in his later years. From these ordinary environments and activities, we can't see that Newton is a gifted child.

Later, forced by life, his mother asked Newton to drop out of school and farm at home to support his family. But Newton buried a book whenever he had the chance, so that he often forgot to work. Every time, when his mother told him to go to the market with his servant and get familiar with the trade business, he begged the servant to go shopping alone, while he hid behind a tree and read a book. Once, Newton's uncle became suspicious and followed Newton to the listed town. He found his nephew sprawled on the grass, absorbed in a math problem. Newton's studious spirit touched his uncle, so he persuaded his mother to let Newton go back to school and encouraged him to go to college. Newton went back to school and drew nutrition from books.

Years of study

16 1 year, 19-year-old Newton entered Trinity College of Cambridge University as a student with reduced tuition fees, paid for his tuition by doing chores for the college, 1664 became a scholarship winner, and 1665 received his bachelor's degree.

/kloc-In the mid-7th century, the education system of Cambridge University was still permeated with a strong flavor of medieval scholasticism. When Newton entered Cambridge, there were also some courses of scholasticism, such as logic, ancient prose, grammar, ancient history, theology and so on. Two years later, Trinity College took on a new look. Lucas created a unique lecture, which stipulated that natural science knowledge should be taught, such as geography, physics, astronomy, mathematics and so on.

The first professor of the lecture, Isaac? Barrow is a learned scientist. The scholar had a unique vision and saw that Newton had profound observation and keen understanding. So he taught Newton all his mathematical knowledge, including the method of calculating the area of curve graphics, and led Newton to the research field of modern natural science.

During this period of study, Newton mastered arithmetic and trigonometry, and read Kepler's Optics, Descartes' Principles of Geometry and Philosophy, Galileo's Dialogue between Two World Systems, Hooke's Micro Atlas, and the historical and early philosophical journals of the Royal Society.

Newton's time under Barrow's door was the key period of his research. Barrow is older than Newton 12 years old. He is good at maths and optics. He admired Newton's talent very much and thought Newton's mathematics was better than himself. Newton later recalled: "Dr. Barrow taught courses in kinematics at that time, and perhaps it was these courses that prompted me to study this problem."

Newton relied heavily on teaching himself mathematics at that time. He studied Euclid's Elements of Geometry, Descartes' Geometry, Wallis' arithmetica infinitorum, Barrow's lectures on mathematics and the works of many mathematicians. Among them, Descartes' Geometry and Wallis' arithmetica infinitorum had a decisive influence on Newton, and Newton quickly moved to the forefront of mathematics at that time-analytic geometry and calculus. 1664, Newton was elected as Barrow's assistant, and the next year, the Council of Cambridge University passed the decision to grant Newton a bachelor's degree.

1665 to 1666, a serious plague swept through London, and Cambridge was not far from London. Because of fear, the school was closed, and Newton left school and went home in June 1665.

Because Newton was influenced and influenced by mathematics and natural science in Cambridge, he had a strong interest in exploring natural phenomena, and the quiet environment in his hometown made his thoughts spread their wings and fly. The short period from 1665 to 1666 became the golden age of Newton's scientific career. He is full of thinking in the field of natural science, brilliant and productive, thinking about problems that his predecessors have never thought about, stepping into fields that his predecessors have never set foot in, and creating unprecedented amazing achievements.

At the beginning of 1665, Newton established the approximation method of series and the law that binomial with arbitrary power is transformed into series; In June of the same year 165438+ 10, the forward serial number method (differential) was established; The following year (65438+ 10), the color theory was studied with prism; In May, I began to study the reverse flow number method (integral). During this year, Newton began to think of studying gravity and wanted to extend the theory of gravity to the orbit of the moon. He also deduced from Kepler's law that the force that keeps planets in orbit must be inversely proportional to the square of their distance from the center of rotation. The legend that Newton didn't realize gravity until he saw the apple fall to the ground was also an anecdote that happened at this time.

In a word, during his two years in his hometown, Newton engaged in scientific creation with more vigorous energy than before and cared about natural philosophy. His three great achievements: calculus, gravitation and optical analysis were conceived and formed at this time. It can be said that Newton at this time has begun to describe the blueprint of most scientific creations in his life.

1667 Shortly after Easter, Newton returned to Cambridge University. 1 June1day was elected as a specialist partner of Trinity College, and he obtained his master's degree on March 16 the following year, and became a specialist partner at the same time. 1669, 10 year1October 27th, Barrow resigned as a professor to help Newton. At the age of 26, Newton was promoted to professor of mathematics and served as Professor of Lucas. Barrow paved the way for Newton's scientific career. Without the help of Uncle Newton and Barrow, Newton, a swift horse, might not have galloped on the road of science. Barrow gave way to a wise man, which was told as a story in the history of science.

Great achievement ~ establishing calculus

Among all Newton's scientific contributions, mathematical achievements occupy a prominent position. The first creative achievement in his mathematical career was the discovery of binomial theorem. According to Newton's own recollection, he discovered this theorem when he tried to modify his series of finding the area of a circle while studying Dr. Wallis' arithmetica infinitorum in the winter of 1664 and 1665.

Descartes' analytic geometry maps the functional relationship describing motion to geometric curves. Newton found a new way out under the guidance of his teacher Barrow and on the basis of studying Descartes' analytic geometry. The speed at any moment can be regarded as the average speed in a small time range, which is the ratio of a small distance to a time interval. When this small time interval is reduced to infinity, it is the exact value of this point. This is the concept of differentiation.

Derivation is equivalent to finding the tangent slope of the relationship between time and distance at a certain point. The distance traveled by a variable-speed moving object in a certain time range can be regarded as the sum of the distances traveled in a very small time interval, which is the concept of integration. Integration is equivalent to finding the area under the curve of time and speed. Newton established calculus from these basic concepts.

The establishment of calculus is Newton's most outstanding mathematical achievement. Newton founded this mathematical theory, which is directly related to physical concepts, in order to solve the problem of motion. Newton called it "flow counting". Some specific problems it deals with, such as tangent problem, quadrature problem, instantaneous velocity problem, maximum and minimum value of function, have been studied before Newton. But Newton surpassed his predecessors. From a higher angle, he integrated the scattered efforts in the past, unified all kinds of skills to solve infinitesimal problems since ancient Greece into two common algorithms-differential and integral, and established the reciprocal relationship between these two operations, thus completing the most critical step in the invention of calculus, providing the most effective tool for the development of modern science and opening up a new era of mathematics.

Newton did not publish the research results of calculus in time. He may have studied calculus earlier than Leibniz, but Leibniz adopted a more reasonable expression, and his works on calculus were published earlier than Newton.

Between Newton and Leibniz, when arguing about who is the founder of this subject, it actually caused an uproar. This quarrel lasted for a long time among their students, supporters and mathematicians, which caused the long-term opposition between European continent mathematicians and British mathematicians. British mathematics was closed to the outside world for a period of time, limited by national prejudice, and too rigidly adhered to Newton's "flow counting", so the development of mathematics fell behind for a whole hundred years.

It should be said that the establishment of a science is by no means a person's achievement. It must be completed by one person or several people through the efforts of many people and the accumulation of a large number of achievements. The same is true of calculus, which was independently established by Newton and Leibniz on the basis of predecessors.

1707, Newton's algebra lecture notes were compiled and published, named "General Arithmetic". He mainly discussed the basis of algebra and its application in solving various problems. This book states the basic concepts and operations of algebra, illustrates how to transform various problems into algebraic equations with a large number of examples, and deeply discusses the roots and properties of equations, thus achieving fruitful results in equation theory. For example, he drew the relationship between the root of the equation and its discriminant, and pointed out that the power sum of the root of the equation can be determined by the coefficient of the equation, that is, Newton's power sum formula.

Newton contributed to both analytic geometry and synthetic geometry. In Analytic Geometry published by 1736, he introduced the center of curvature, gave the concept of closed line circle (or curve circle), and put forward the curvature formula and the curvature calculation method of curve. And summed up many of my own research results into a monograph "Counting Cubic Curves", which was published in 1704. In addition, his mathematical work involves numerical analysis, probability theory, elementary number theory and many other fields.

Great achievements ~ three major contributions of optics

Before Newton, Mozi, Bacon and Da? Finch and others studied optical phenomena. The law of reflection is one of the optical laws that people have long known. When modern science rose, Galileo discovered a "new universe" through a telescope, which shocked the world. Dutch mathematician Hans sneer first discovered the law of refraction of light. Descartes proposed the particle of light. ...

Newton and his contemporaries, such as Hooke and Huygens, studied optics with great interest and enthusiasm, just like Galileo and Descartes. 1666, when Newton was on vacation at home, he got a prism, and he made a famous dispersion experiment with this prism. After a beam of sunlight passes through a prism, it is decomposed into several color spectral bands. Newton blocked the light of other colors with a slit baffle, and only let the light of one color pass through the second prism, resulting in only the light of the same color. In this way, he found that white light is composed of different colors of light, which is the first major contribution.

In order to verify this discovery, Newton tried to combine several different monochromatic lights into white light, and calculated the refractive index of different colors of light, which accurately explained the dispersion phenomenon. The mystery of the color of matter has been solved. It turns out that the color of matter is caused by the different reflectivity and refractive index of different colors of light on the object. In A.D. 1672, Newton published his research results in the Journal of Philosophy of the Royal Society, which was his first paper.

Many people study optics in order to improve refractive telescopes. Newton discovered the composition of white light and thought that the dispersion phenomenon of refractive telescope lenses could not be eliminated (later, some people eliminated the dispersion phenomenon with lenses made of glass with different refractive indexes), so he designed and manufactured reflective telescopes.

Newton was not only good at mathematical calculation, but also able to make all kinds of experimental equipment and do fine experiments by himself. In order to make a telescope, he designed a grinding and polishing machine and tested various grinding materials. 1668, he made the first prototype of reflective telescope, which is the second largest contribution. 167 1 year, Newton presented the improved reflective telescope to the royal society, which made him famous and was elected as a member of the royal society. Reflecting telescope's invention laid the foundation of modern large-scale optical astronomical telescope.

At the same time, Newton also carried out a lot of observation experiments and mathematical calculations, such as studying the abnormal refraction phenomenon of glacier stone discovered by Huygens, the color phenomenon of soap bubbles discovered by Hooke, the optical phenomenon of Newton's ring and so on.

Newton also put forward the "particle theory" of light, thinking that light is formed by particles and takes the fastest straight-line motion path. His "particle theory" and Huygens' "wave theory" later formed two basic theories about light. In addition, he also made Newton color wheel and other optical instruments.

Great achievement ~ building a mechanics building

Newton is a master of classical mechanical theory. He systematically summarized the work of Galileo, Kepler and Huygens, and got the famous laws of gravity and Newton's three laws of motion.

Before Newton, astronomy was the most prominent subject. But why do planets have to orbit the sun according to certain rules? Astronomers cannot fully explain this problem. The discovery of gravity shows that the movements of stars in the sky and objects on the ground are governed by the same law-mechanical law.

Long before Newton discovered the law of gravity, many scientists had seriously considered this problem. For example, Kepler realized that there must be a force at work that makes the planet move along an elliptical orbit. He thinks this force is similar to magnetic force, just as a magnet attracts iron. 1659, Huygens found that a centripetal force was needed to keep the object moving in a circular orbit by studying the movement of the pendulum. Hooke and others thought it was gravity, and tried to deduce the relationship between gravity and distance.

1664, Hooke found that when comets approached the sun, their orbits were curved due to the sun's gravity. 1673, huygens deduced the law of centripetal force; 1679, Hooke and Halley deduced from centripetal force law and Kepler's third law that the gravitational force for maintaining planetary motion is inversely proportional to the square of distance.

Newton himself recalled that around 1666, he had considered the problem of gravity when he lived in his hometown. The most famous saying is that Newton often sits in the garden for a while during holidays. Once, as it happened many times before, an apple fell from the tree. ...

The accidental landing of an apple is a turning point in the history of human thought, which opens the mind of the person sitting in the garden and causes him to ponder: What is the reason why almost all objects are attracted by the center of the earth? Newton mused. Finally, he discovered the gravity which is of epoch-making significance to mankind.

Newton's genius lies in that he solved the mathematical argument problem that Hooke and others could not solve. 1679, Hooke wrote to Newton and asked him if he could prove that the planet moves in an elliptical orbit according to the law of centripetal force and the law that gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance. Newton didn't answer the question. 1685, when Harley visited Newton, Newton had discovered the law of universal gravitation: there is gravitation between two objects, which is inversely proportional to the square of the distance and directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two objects.

At that time, accurate data such as radius of the earth and the distance between the sun and the earth were available for calculation. Newton proved to Harley that the gravity of the earth is the centripetal force that makes the moon move around the earth, and also proved that the planetary motion conforms to Kepler's three laws of motion under the action of solar gravity.

At the urging of Harley, at the end of 1686, Newton wrote an epoch-making masterpiece, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. The Royal Society is short of funds to publish this book. Later, one of the greatest works in the history of science was published in 1687 with Harley's support.

In this book, from the basic concepts of mechanics (mass, momentum, inertia, force) and basic laws (three laws of motion), Newton not only demonstrated the law of universal gravitation mathematically, but also established classical mechanics as a complete and rigorous system, unified celestial mechanics with ground object mechanics, and realized the first large-scale synthesis in the history of physics.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Newton's research field is very extensive. In addition to his outstanding contributions in mathematics, optics and mechanics, he also spent a lot of energy on chemical experiments. He often stays in the laboratory for six weeks, working day and night. He spent a lot of time in chemistry, but he made little remarkable achievements. Why is the same great Newton so different in different fields?

One of the reasons is that various disciplines are at different stages of development. In mechanics and astronomy, with the efforts of Galileo, Kepler, Hooke, Huygens and others, Newton may build a magnificent mechanical building with prepared materials. As he himself said, "If I see far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants". In chemistry, Newton couldn't go where he could cut materials because he didn't cut the right path.

Newton summed up his life before his death: "I don't know what kind of person I am in the eyes of others;" But in my own opinion, I am like a child playing by the sea. From time to time, I am complacent about finding a pebble smoother than usual or a shell more beautiful than usual, but I have not found the vast ocean of truth in front of me. "

This is of course Newton's humility.

Weird Newton

Newton was not good at teaching. He taught the newly discovered calculus, which the students could not accept. But his ability to solve difficult problems is far superior to others. When he was a student, Newton found a way to calculate infinity. He used this secret method to calculate the hyperbolic area to 250 digits. He once bought a prism at a high price as a tool for scientific research and used it to test the decomposition of white light into colored light.

At first, he didn't want to publish his observations. His discovery is just a personal pastime, in order to amuse himself in quiet research. He wandered alone in the super world he created. Later, under the persuasion of his good friend Harley, he reluctantly agreed to publish his own manuscript, and the epoch-making masterpiece Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy came out.

As a university professor, Newton was often too busy to be slovenly. He often walks into the university dining room without a tie, garter and breeches. Once, when he proposed to a girl, he was distracted again and only remembered the infinite binomial theorem. He grabbed the girl's finger, mistook it for a pipe, and forced it into the pipe, causing the girl to leave him screaming. Newton never got married because of this.

Newton took his time to observe the little things in daily life and made great discoveries in the history of science. He was sloppy and made a lot of jokes. On one occasion, he boiled eggs while reading a book. When he opened the pot to eat eggs, he found a pocket watch in the pot. On another occasion, he invited a friend to dinner. When the meal was ready, Newton suddenly thought of a problem and went into the back room alone. My friend waited for him for a long time, but he didn't come out. My friend ate all the chicken by himself and left the chicken bones on the plate without saying goodbye. Newton remembered and came out and found the bones on the plate. He thought he had eaten them, so he turned back to the back room and continued to study his problems.

Newton's later years

But due to the limitation of the times, Newton was basically a metaphysical mechanical materialist. He thinks that movement is only the movement of mechanical mechanics, and it is the change of spatial position; The universe, like the sun, has not developed and changed; Because of gravity, the star is always in a fixed position. ...

With the improvement of scientific prestige, Newton's political status has also been improved. 1689 was elected as a university representative in the National Assembly. As a congressman, Newton gradually began to alienate the science that brought him great achievements. From time to time, he expresses his disgust at the field he represents. At the same time, he spent a lot of time arguing with Hooke, Leibniz and other famous contemporary scientists about the priority of science.

Newton lived a splendid life in London in his later years. 1705, he was made an aristocrat by Queen Anne. Newton was very rich at this time and was generally regarded as the greatest scientist alive. He was the chairman of the Royal Society. During his twenty-four years in office, he ruled the society with an iron fist. No one can be elected without his consent.

In his later years, Newton began to devote himself to theological research. He denied the guiding role of philosophy, sincerely believed in God, and buried himself in writing theological works. When he met the inexplicable celestial movement, he put forward the fallacy of "God is the first driving force". He said, "God rules all things, and we are his servants, so we fear him." .

1March 20, 727 Great Isaac? Newton passed away. Like many other outstanding Englishmen, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. His tombstone is engraved with:

Let people cheer that there was such a great human glory in the world.