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In Victorian Britain, every schoolboy knew that Sir Isaac Newton was an unrivalled mathematical and scientific genius, and most would have been able to give a basic account of his central discoveries. In optics, Newton found that white light was not a fundamental element within nature but was composed of more basic, primary rays being mixed together...
[...]... affectionate’ towards him, aware ‘that he had more 9 Playing philosophically local gentlewoman stopped to sit down on the way there, as they were certain the baby would be dead on their return Surviving against the odds, Newton was brought up by his mother until the age of 3, when she was approached with an offer of marriage by Barnabas Smith, an ageing vicar of a local parish Smith was wealthy, and they married... discovered the generalized binomial theorem, he was forced to undertake a protracted examination in more standard learning to qualify for his Bachelor of Arts degree A later tradition held that he almost failed this exam, although the story may be a confusion of this event with the scholarship examination of the previous year Plague devastated various parts of England in the middle of 1665 and, along with most... lecturer at Trinity Vigani got on well with Newton until, according to Catherine Conduitt, Vigari ‘told a loose story about a Nun’ John Conduitt had already received crucial information from the antiquarian William Stukeley, who had moved to Grantham shortly before Newton’s death Since this was where Newton had attended the local grammar school while lodging with the local apothecary, it was an ideal place... he deals ably with Newton’s intellectual accomplishments, it is apparent that Westfall’s great admiration for this part of Newton’s life does not extend to his personal conduct Ultimately Westfall came to loathe the man whose works he had studied for over 2 decades He was not the first to feel this way about the Great Man A national man 7 Chapter 2 Playing philosophically According to the calendar then... as ‘mass’ and ‘attraction’, Newton announced in his laws of motion (1) that all bodies continued in their state of motion or rest unless affected by some external force; (2) that the change in state of all bodies was proportional to the force that caused that change and took place in the direction exerted by that force; and (3) that to every action there was an equal and opposite reaction Investigating... such as books, paper, pen and ink, and the ordinary materials for living in 17th-century student accommodation, such as clothes, shoes, candles, a lock for his desk, a carpet for his room, and a chamberpot He bought a watch, a chessboard and later a set of chess pieces (according to Catherine Conduitt, he became extremely proficient at board games), and paid seven pence as his yearly subscription for access... life and work, for it was also known that Sir Isaac was both a committed alchemist and a radical heretic Incontrovertible evidence also showed that he had behaved in a reprehensible manner towards a number of his contemporaries Since then, explaining his personality and addressing the problem of reconciling the ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ aspects of his work have continued to challenge historians Moreover,... was read to the Académie in November 1727 He gave a good account of Newton’s scientific and mathematical development, accepting that virtually all of his great discoveries had been made in his early twenties He disagreed with many of the tenets found in the Principia, especially that of the notion of ‘attraction’, but he was effusive about its overall significance Although he realized that Newton disagreed... ‘to balls & barges’, repeated later on, indicates that not every moment was spent in study in his first year there Indeed, he created a separate list of ‘frivolous’ and ‘wasteful’ expenses, including the purchase of cherries, beer, marmalade, custard tarts, cake, milk, butter, and cheese Later, he graduated to apples, pears, and stewed prunes 17 Playing philosophically Very quickly – and uniquely among... later told the great French philosophe Voltaire that on his deathbed Newton had confessed he was a virgin Newton was also looked after in his final hours by his half-niece Catherine and her husband John Conduitt, who had acted as a sort of personal assistant to Newton in his final years Despite many demands on his time, Conduitt almost single-handedly organized the commemoration of the great man he had . 85 12 Newton s response 85 13 Flamsteed’s suggested path for the comet of winter 1680–1 87 Leen Ritmeyer 14 Newton s alternative path for the comet 89 15 Newton s. ‘Life’ of Newton, although he never completed the task. He had recorded details of some conversations he had had with Newton but for more detail on Newton s