Aleksandra Bojović
ISAAC NEWTON
Publishing House PČELICA Kolubarska 4, Čačak, Serbia office@pcelica.rs www.pcelica.rs
H
e explained why the Moon orbits around the Earth and why a thrown object always falls to the ground. There are numerous legends about his life, but the one with the apple will forever be associated with his name. He is Isaak Newton, and the story that follows will take us to the 17th and 18th century England.
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Isaac Newton
to a Nobleman From an Orphan and Scientist
I saac Newton was born in 1643 in Woolsthorp, county
Lincolnshire in England. His father, who he was named after, was a wealthy farmer but he didn’t live to see his son because he died three months before Isaac was born. When young Isaac was three years old, his mother, Hannah Ayscough, remarried and left Isaac with his grandmother Margery Ayscough. Even without parental love, a stimulating environment and someone to encourage and advise him, Isaac Newton nevertheless became a respected man, received high functions in the government, was given a noble title of Sir and, what is most important, he became a great name in the world of science. He was first and foremost a successful physicist and mathematician, but also studied astronomy1, alchemy2 and history. Astronomy is a science which studies celestial objects. Alchemy is concerned with transforming matter, for example metal into gold.
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School Days Isaac Newton started his education in the local school in
Woolsthorp. After that he entered The King’s School in Grantham, not far from his birthplace. There is information indicating that he wasn’t a very good student, but he did show an extraordinary talent for natural sciences, due to which he received a recommendation from his teachers to continue his education in this field of study. Thoughts on Curiosity of Scientists To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.
Isaac Newton
Some of Newton’s biographers1 claim that he was engaged to Anne Storer while at school in Grantham. It seems the girl was the stepdaughter of the apothecary William Clarke, who provided Newton with boarding in Grantham. 1
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A biographer is a person who writes about the life of someone famous.
After Newton finished school, no mention of Anne Storer can be found in his biography. His story continues at Cambridge1. ยน Cambridge University, together with Oxford, is the most elite and oldest English university. It was founded by a group of professors who left Oxford in 1209. A long-lasting rivalry exists between these two universities.
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A Poor Student At the age of nineteen Newton was admitted to the prestigious
Trinity College, Cambridge. As he didn’t have the funds to pay for tuition, he worked as a server and assistant in the kitchen. However, this did not prevent him from studying diligently. In addition to regularly attending lectures, which were generally based on the already outdated teachings of the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, Newton also had personal interests. During that period he mostly enjoyed reading the works of modern philosophers and revolutionary physicists and astronomers such as Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler. All of them were brilliant scientists who, as a result of their progressive ideas, came into conflict with the church and its teachings about God as the creator of all visible things and the Earth as the centre of the universe. Four years after graduation, Isaac Newton became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. 10
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Aleksandra Bojović
ISAAC NEWTON
Publishing House PČELICA Kolubarska 4, Čačak, Serbia office@pcelica.rs www.pcelica.rs