Sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries And Inventions
Sir Isaac Newton
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| Sir Isaac Newton Great Mathematicians of Scientist |
Died : 31 March 1727, Kensington , London, United Kingdom
Education : Trinity College(1667-1668)
Most Famous Sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries And Inventions
1)His discovery of the gravitational force gave man the ability to predict movement of celestial objects, while simultaneously validation Kepler's laws and the heliocentric Copernican model of the solar system.
2)Newton's three laws of motion set the foundation in modern classical mechanics.
3)His co-discovery of calculus provided a potent mathematical tool, aiding the precise analytical treatment of the physical world.
4)The Reflecting Telescope
5)The Refraction of light
6)The Father of Calculus
Newton's discovery
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| Sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries And Inventions |
Newton gave the account of this discovery to several acquaintances who include: Voltaire (French philosopher and essayist), John Conduitt (his assistant at Royal Mint), Catherine Barton (his niece), William Stewkeley (friend and antiquarian) and Christopher Dawson (a student at Cambridge) among others.
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| First written notes |
The first written account appears in notes on Newton's life collected by John Conduitt in 1726, the year of Newton's death. It states that: "he first thought of his system of gravitation which he hit upon by observing an apple fall from a tree".
The event occurred in the late summer of 1666. Other accounts state that Newton was sitting in his garden at Woolsthorpe Manor when the event occurred. The first account of there being a specific tree in his garden from which Newton saw the apple fall appears in the book A History of the Town and Soak of Grantham by Edmund Turnor FRS (1806), in the footnote of page 160: 'The tree is still remaining and is showed to strangers'.
Edmund Turnor's brother, Rev. Charles Turnor, drew the accompanying picture of the tree in 1820 showing its position with respect to the manor house.
Although Newton did not specify which tree he observed the apple fall from, there was only one tree growing in Newton’s garden. This is first noted by Sir David Brewster when he visited the house in 1830, mentioned in an account given by George Forbes (Professor of Physics, University of Glasgow).
Generations of the Woolerton family cared for the tree; they were tenant farmers and lived in the house from 1733 to 1947. Sadly, in 1816 despite their best efforts, the tree was blown down in a storm. Some branches were removed but a large portion of the tree was left and re-rooted. Surprisingly, this tree is still growing at Woolsthorpe Manor today and now is over 350 years old.
Our tree at the University of York remains rooted in the present day, but it serves as a reminder that questioning the conventional can lead to extraordinary discoveries. Our apple tree is a slice of history, but Isaac Newton's thinking resonates to this day.
The Law of Gravitation
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| Law of Gravitation |
Using this law and making extrapolations based on it, Newton derived Kepler’s empirical laws of planetary motion, which naturally emerged from his gravitational theory. Many people may have observed apples and all kinds of other things falling down, before Newton, but none of them followed the broad generalization that it represented. Even moon falls towards the Earth and Earth towards the Sun, in the same way! That is what Newton figured out. For the first time, man could understand the motion of planets and satellites and give it a rational explanation.
Newton validated Kepler’s laws and the heliocentric model of the solar system
A paradigm shift brought about by Newton’s law of gravitation was the concept of action at a distance. A gravitational force acts between two particles even though they are not in contact with each other. That is, it manifests as an action at a distance. This concept proved to be the undoing of Newton’s theory later and which was overthrown by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity there are sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries and Inventions.
Even though now superseded by general relativity, Newton’s idea of gravitation serves well in understanding the motion of planets and stars to incredible accuracy.
The First Law of Motion
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| First law of motion |
First Law of Motion Newton’s first law states that if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. In fact, in classical Newtonian mechanics, there is no important distinction between rest and uniform motion in a straight line; they may be regarded as the same state of motion seen by different observers, one moving at the same velocity as the particle and the other moving at constant velocity with respect to the particle. This postulate is known as the law of inertia.
The law of inertia was first formulated by Galileo Galilei for horizontal motion on Earth and was later generalized by René Descartes. Although the principle of inertia is the starting point and the fundamental assumption of classical mechanics, it is less than intuitively obvious to the untrained eye. In Aristotelian mechanics and in ordinary experience, objects that are not being pushed tend to come to rest. The law of inertia was deduced by Galileo from his experiments with balls rolling down inclined planes.
For Galileo, the principle of inertia was fundamental to his central scientific task: he had to explain how is it possible that if Earth is really spinning on its axis and orbiting the Sun, we do not sense that motion. The principle of inertia helps to provide the answer: since we are in motion together with Earth and our natural tendency is to retain that motion, Earth appears to us to be at rest. Thus, the principle of inertia, far from being a statement of the obvious, was once a central issue of scientific contention. By the time Newton had sorted out all the details, it was possible to accurately account for the small deviations from this picture caused by the fact that the motion of Earth’s surface is not uniform motion in a straight line (the effects of rotational motion are discussed below). In the Newtonian formulation, the common observation that bodies that are not pushed tend to come to rest is attributed to the fact that they have unbalanced forces acting on them, such as friction and air resistance.
Inertia and Mass
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| Inertia and Mass |
All the examples and activities given so far illustrate that there is a resistance offered by an object to change its state of motion. If it is at rest it tends to remain at rest; if it is moving it tends to keep moving. This property of an object is called its inertia. Do all bodies have the same inertia? We know that it is easier to push an empty box than a box full of books. Similarly, if we kick a football it flies away. But if we kick a stone of the same size with equal force, it hardly moves. We may, in fact, get an injury in our foot while doing so! Similarly, Recall that the Law of Inertia states that any object that is not experiencing a net force will continue in its current state of motion. So how exactly would one define inertia? Inertia can be defined as the tendency or ability of an object to resist change in motion. In fact, mass is usually defined in terms of inertia. Mass is the quantity or measure of inertia in an object. The more mass found in an object, the more inertia it contains and therefore the greater its tendency to resist change. That is precisely why applying a net force on two objects of different masses will cause the lighter mass to accelerate more than the object that has a higher mass. For example, if we apply a net force on a truck that has a mass ten times that of a small car, that net force will accelerate the truck ten times less than the smaller car. Although we use mass and weight interchangeably in everyday language, a clear distinction exists between mass and weight in physics. Mass is a scalar while weight is a vector and represents the force of gravity on an object, usually close to the surface of the earth. A person has the same exact mass on the moon as he or she has on earth. However, that person's weight is different on the moon (less than on the earth).
The Second Law of Motion
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| Second law of motion |
According to Newton's second law of motion, force acting on a body is equal to the rate of change of momentum. For a body with a constant mass ‘m’, force is given by,
F = ma
Where,
a = acceleration produced in the body.
The above equation describes that, if the force is doubled, the acceleration also gets doubled, and if mass is doubled, acceleration becomes half.
Sir Isaac Newton published his works about the laws of motion in 1687, in his book "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), in which he described how objects with different masses move under the influence of applied force.
The first study regarding the laws of motion was done by Galileo Galilei. Based on Galileo's experiments, all objects accelerate at the same rate regardless of their size and mass. Rene Descartes also published some laws regarding the motion of objects in 1644. Later Sir Isaac Newton expanded the works of both these scientists and formulated his laws of motion.
Acceleration and Velocity
Newton's second law of motion describes that, when a force is applied to an object, it produces acceleration in the object (i.e rate of change of velocity). For an object at rest, the applied force produces acceleration in the object and makes the object move in the direction of applied force.
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| Acceleration and Velocity |
For an object which is already in motion, the direction of the applied force matters to determine its state. If external force is applied in the direction in which the object is moving, the acceleration of the object increases. If external force is applied in the direction opposite to the motion of the object, the acceleration of the object decreases and finally comes to stop.
Force and acceleration are vector quantities, i.e they have both magnitude and direction. Multiple forces can also act in a body at a time.
Hence,
ΣΣF = ma
Where;
ΣΣ= vector sum of all the forces acting on a body (net force).
Where;
ΣΣ= vector sum of all the forces acting on a body (net force).
For Changing the Mass
For this let’s assume that we have a car at a point (0) which is defined by the location X0 and time t0. The car has a mass of m0 and travels with a velocity of v0. Here, after being subjected to a force ‘F’, the car starts to move to point 1, defined by location X1 and the time by t1. The mass and the velocity of the car changes during the travel to values m1 and v1 respectively. Thus, Newton's second law helps to determine the new values of m1 and v1 if we already know the value of the acting force.From the difference of point 1 and point 0, an equation for the force acting on the car is formed as follows:
F=m1v1−m0v0t1−t0
The second law then decreases to a more common form as follows:
F=ma
The above equation conveys to us that an object will accelerate if it is subjected to an external force. While the amount of force is directly proportional to the acceleration and inversely proportional to the object’s mass.
When we kick the ball we exert force in a specific direction, which is the direction the ball will move. In addition, the more forcefully the ball is kicked, the more force we apply to it and the further away the ball is.
F=m1v1−m0v0t1−t0
Now, let’s assume the mass to be constant here. This assumption is helpful for a car as the only change in the mass would be the fuel burned while moving between point “1” and point “0”. Here, the weight of the fuel is probably very small as compared to the rest of the car, especially looking at the small changes in time. Meanwhile, if we discuss the flight of a bottle rocket, then the mass does not remain constant here, and only the changes in momentum can be looked at.For Constant Mass
For a constant mass, Newton’s second law can be equated as follows:
F=mv1−v0t1−t0
F=mv1−v0t1−t0
We know, acceleration is defined as the change in velocity which is divided by the change in time.The second law then decreases to a more common form as follows:
F=ma
The above equation conveys to us that an object will accelerate if it is subjected to an external force. While the amount of force is directly proportional to the acceleration and inversely proportional to the object’s mass.
Application of Newton’s Second Law of Motion
Some applications of Newton's second law of motion are mentioned below:
Kick the ball
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| kick the ball |
Two people walking
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| Two people walking |
Of the two walking people, if one is heavier than the other, the one who weighs the heaviest walks slower because the acceleration of the one who weighs the lighter is more.
Driving a car
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| Driving a car |
In simple terms, Newton’s second law of motion states that if force is applied to any object that has mass, it will result in the production of an equivalent amount of acceleration in the object. For instance, when we turn on the ignition system of the car, the engine of the car produces sufficient force that enables the car to move with proportionate acceleration.
The Third Law of Motion
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| Third law of motion |
In the year 1687, Sir Isaac Newton announced his laws of motion, where he standardized how large objects move due to the effect of forces applied externally. Moreover, the third law of motion, also known as the law of action and reaction proved to be the most significant one.
Law of Action And Reaction or Newton's Third Law of Motion Definition
This law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For example, if body A puts force Fa on body B, then B at the same time exerts force Fb on body A. Moreover, both the forces acting on each body have the same magnitude and are in the reverse direction Fa = - Fb
Furthermore, in some instances, direction and magnitude are decided entirely by one body between these two. For example, consider object A is putting force on object B. Then, the force acting on object B is "action", and this opposite force on object A is "reaction." As said before, this law is also referred to as action-reaction pair law where Fa and Fb are action and reaction, respectively.
However, in some cases, both bodies together determine direction and magnitude. In this scenario, it is not relevant to point out which force is "action” and which one is "reaction." Moreover, action and reaction occur concurrently, and both of them belong to a sole interaction, and none of them occurs without each other.
Your Earth pulls down on you, as you probably already know. The Earth is also pulling upon you, but you don't realize it. A gravity force of 500 N is exerted by the Earth on you, similarly, you exert a gravitational force of 500 N on the Earth. The third law of motion explains this remarkable fact.
Your Earth pulls down on you, as you probably already know. The Earth is also pulling upon you, but you don't realize it. A gravity force of 500 N is exerted by the Earth on you, similarly, you exert a gravitational force of 500 N on the Earth. The third law of motion explains this remarkable fact.
The law of symmetry in nature says that force always occurs in pairs, and one cannot exert force on another body without experiencing it. This law is sometimes loosely referred to as action-reaction, where the force exerted is the action, whilst the force experienced is the reaction.
Additionally, the action-reaction pair law is seen in everyday life. Take a look at some of Newton's third law of motion examples below:
Newton’s Discoveries in Mathematics
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| Mathematics |
Binomial Theorem
Under the tutelage of Isaac Barrow at Cambridge, Newton’s mathematical genius flowered. His first original contribution to mathematics was the advancement of binomial theorem. Through the usage of algebra of finite quantities in an infinite series, he included negative and fractional exponents in the binomial theorem.Calculus
Isolated during the plague years (1665-1666) at Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton came up with his greatest breakthroughs in physics and mathematics. Through invention of Infinitesimal Calculus, (credit for which also belongs to Leibniz), Newton provided a mathematical framework which enabled the study of continuous changes. He called it the Science of Fluxions. The invention of calculus ranks right up there with invention of fire or the building of the first steam engine. His approach to calculus was geometrical, in contrast to Leibniz, who was inclined more towards the analytical side.
Newton-Raphson Method
He also made contributions to numerical analysis in the form of the Newton-Raphson method. In the book, De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas (Latin for On analysis by infinite series), published in 1771, Newton described this iterative method of approximation to calculate roots of real-valued functions. The method is described by the following formula.xn+1 = xn – f(xn) / f'(xn)
where xn+1 is the root calculated from the n+1th iteration, xn is approximate root from the previous iteration, f(xn) is the function to be solved and f'(xn) is the derivative of the function.
Newton Inventions
Newton and the Reflecting Telescope
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Reflecting Telescope |
As an improvement, Newton proposed the use of reflecting mirrors rather than refracting lenses. A large mirror would capture the image, then a smaller mirror would bounce it into the viewer's eye. Not only does this method produce a clearer image, it also allows for a much smaller telescope.
Granted, a Scottish mathematician proposed the idea of a reflecting telescope first, but Newton was the guy who actually mustered the energy to build one. Grinding the mirrors himself, Newton assembled a prototype and presented it to the Royal Society in 1670. Merely 6 inches (15 centimeters) long, the device eliminated color refraction and boasted 40x magnification.
To this day, nearly all astronomical observatories use a variant of Newton's original design.
Newton and the Refraction of Light
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| Refraction of light |
Scientists of the day knew that rainbows formed when light was refracted and reflected in raindrops, but they didn't know why rainbows were so colorful. When Newton first began his studies at Cambridge, the common theory was that the water somehow dyed the sun's rays different colors.
Using a lamp and a prism, Newton experimented by running white light through a prism to separate it into a rainbow of colors. The prism trick was nothing new, but scientists assumed the prism colored the light. By reflecting the scattered beams into another prism, however, Newton reformed them back into white light, proving that the colors were a characteristic of the light itself the sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries and Inventions .
So eat it, rainbows. Newton saw right through you, and he used the knowledge to create the next invention on our list.
Newton Father of Calculus
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| Calculus |
Whether your high school calculus class blew your mind or crushed your spirit, you can blame it all on Isaac Newton. See, mathematics is the system by which we gauge the interworking of the cosmos, but like many scientists of his age, Newton found that existing algebra and geometry simply weren't sufficient for his scientific needs. Let that sink in for a moment: Existing math wasn't advanced enough for sir Isaac Newton's Discoveries and Inventions .
Mathematicians of the day could calculate the speed of a ship, but they couldn't figure out the rate at which the ship was accelerating. They could measure the angle of a sailing cannonball, but they had no way of calculating which angle would send the cannonball the farthest. What they needed was a mathematical means to calculate problems that involved changing variables.
This was the problem facing Newton when an outbreak of bubonic plague hit England in spring of 1665. As plague-stricken citizens dropped dead in the streets, Cambridge closed up shop, and Newton spent 18 months formulating the origins of what he called "the science of fluxions."
Today we know it as calculus, a critical tool for physicists, economists and probability scientists. In the 1960s, it even enabled Apollo engineers to chart a course from Earth to the moon.
Of course, Newton can't take all the credit. He typically shares the accomplishment with German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, who independently developed calculus around the same time.
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