Download or read book The Dark Side of Isaac Newton written by Nick Kollerstrom and published by Pen & Sword History. This book was released on 2019-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton was accorded a semi-divine status in the 18th and 19th centuries, whereby his image linked together religion and science. The real human being behind the demi-god image has tended to be lost. He was a person who took credit from others, and crushed the reputations of those to whom he owed most. This most brilliant of mathematicians could alas be devious, deceptive and duplicitous. This work doesn't go looking at unpublished alchemical musings as is nowadays fashionable, rather it sticks to the historical record. At the time when the new science was born, we scrutinize the ways in which he failed to discover the law of gravity or invent calculus. What exactly did Leibniz mean by describing him as 'a mind neither fair nor honest'? Why did Robert Hooke describe him as 'the veriest knave in all the house' and why was the astronomer Flamsteed calling him SIN (Sir Isaac Newton)?We are here concerned to give him credit for what he did discover, which may not be quite what you had been told. This book redefines the genius of Isaac Newton, but without the heavily mythologised baggage of a bygone era. He believed in one God, one law and one bank.
Download or read book The Newton Papers written by Sarah Dry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as "unfit to be printed," and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton. Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.
Download or read book Isaac Newton written by James Gleick and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton was born in a stone farmhouse in 1642, fatherless and unwanted by his mother. When he died in London in 1727 he was so renowned he was given a state funeral—an unheard-of honor for a subject whose achievements were in the realm of the intellect. During the years he was an irascible presence at Trinity College, Cambridge, Newton imagined properties of nature and gave them names—mass, gravity, velocity—things our science now takes for granted. Inspired by Aristotle, spurred on by Galileo’s discoveries and the philosophy of Descartes, Newton grasped the intangible and dared to take its measure, a leap of the mind unparalleled in his generation. James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius, and one of the most acclaimed science writers of his generation, brings the reader into Newton’s reclusive life and provides startlingly clear explanations of the concepts that changed forever our perception of bodies, rest, and motion—ideas so basic to the twenty-first century, it can truly be said: We are all Newtonians.
Download or read book Newton and the Counterfeiter written by Thomas Levenson and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Already famous throughout Europe for his theories of planetary motion and gravity, Isaac Newton decided to take on the job of running the Royal Mint. And there, Newton became drawn into a battle with William Chaloner, the most skilful of counterfeiters, a man who not only got away with faking His Majesty's coins (a crime that the law equated with treason), but was trying to take over the Mint itself. But Chaloner had no idea who he was taking on. Newton pursued his enemy with the cold, implacable logic that he brought to his scientific research. Set against the backdrop of early eighteenth-century London with its sewers running down the middle of the streets, its fetid rivers, its packed houses, smoke and fog, its industries and its great port, this dark tale of obsession and revenge transforms our image of Britain's greatest scientist.
Download or read book Isaac Newton The Last Sorcerer written by Michael White and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First time in ebook format, this biography of Isaac Newton reveals the extraordinary influence that the study of alchemy had on the greatest Early Modern scientific discoveries. In this ‘ground breaking biography’ Michael White destroys the myths of the life of Isaac Newton and reveals a portrait of the scientist as the last sorcerer.
Download or read book You Wouldn t Want to be Sir Isaac Newton written by Ian Graham and published by Franklin Watts. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the life of the English physicist whose work on the laws of motion and gravity and invention of calculus had great influence on the understanding of the physical nature of the universe.
Download or read book The Dark Side of Isaac Newton written by Nick Kollerstrom and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton was accorded a semi-divine status in the 18th and 19th centuries, whereby his image linked together religion and science. The real human being behind the demi-god image has tended to be lost. He was a person who took credit from others, and crushed the reputations of those to whom he owed most. This most brilliant of mathematicians could alas be devious, deceptive and duplicitous. This work doesn't go looking at unpublished alchemical musings as is nowadays fashionable, rather it sticks to the historical record. At the time when the new science was born, we scrutinise the ways in which he failed to discover the law of gravity or invent calculus. What exactly did Leibniz mean by describing him as 'a mind neither fair nor honest'? Why did Robert Hooke describe him as 'the veriest knave in all the house' and why was the astronomer Flamsteed calling him SIN (Sir Isaac Newton)? We are here concerned to give him credit for what he did discover, which may not be quite what you had been told. This book redefines the genius of Isaac Newton, but without the heavily mythologised baggage of a bygone era. He believed in one God, one law and one bank.
Download or read book Life After Gravity written by Patricia Fara and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-02-24 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Isaac Newton's decades in London - as ambitious cosmopolitan gentleman, President of London's Royal Society, Master of the Mint, and investor in the slave trade. Isaac Newton is celebrated throughout the world as a great scientific genius who conceived the theory of gravity. But in his early fifties, he abandoned his life as a reclusive university scholar to spend three decades in London, a long period of metropolitan activity that is often overlooked. Enmeshed in Enlightenment politics and social affairs, Newton participated in the linked spheres of early science and imperialist capitalism. Instead of the quiet cloisters and dark libraries of Cambridge's all-male world, he now moved in fashionable London society, which was characterized by patronage relationships, sexual intrigues and ruthless ambition. Knighted by Queen Anne, and a close ally of influential Whig politicians, Newton occupied a powerful position as President of London's Royal Society. He also became Master of the Mint, responsible for the nation's money at a time of financial crisis, and himself making and losing small fortunes on the stock market. A major investor in the East India Company, Newton benefited from the global trading networks that relied on selling African captives to wealthy plantation owners in the Americas, and was responsible for monitoring the import of African gold to be melted down for English guineas. Patricia Fara reveals Newton's life as a cosmopolitan gentleman by focussing on a Hogarth painting of an elite Hanoverian drawing room. Gazing down from the mantelpiece, a bust of Newton looms over an aristocratic audience watching their children perform a play about European colonialism and the search for gold. Packed with Newtonian imagery, this conversation piece depicts the privileged, exploitative life in which this eminent Enlightenment figure engaged, an uncomfortable side of Newton's life with which we are much less familiar.
Download or read book The Religion of Isaac Newton written by Frank Edward Manuel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1974 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These lectures contend that the religion of Isaac Newton was primarily historical and scriptural, and that the metaphysical arguments about God and nature in which he became involved in the latter part of his career were not his central preoccupation as homo religiosus.
Download or read book Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids written by Kerrie Logan Hollihan and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isaac Newton was as strange as he was intelligent. In a few short years, he made astounding discoveries in physics, astronomy, optics, and mathematics— yet never told a soul. Though isolated, snobbish, and jealous, he almost single-handedly changed the course of scientific advancement and ushered in the Enlightenment. Newton invented the refracting telescope, explained the motion of planets and comets, discovered the multicolored nature of light, and created an entirely new field of mathematical understanding: calculus. The world might have been a very different place had Netwon's theories and observations not been coaxed out of him by his colleagues. Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids paints a rich portrait of this brilliant and complex man, including 21 hands-on projects that explore the scientific concepts Newton developed and the times in which he lived. Readers will build a simple waterwheel, create a 17thcentury plague mask, track the phases of the moon, and test Newton's Three Laws of Motion using coins, a skateboard, and a model boat they construct themselves. The text includes a time line, online resources, and reading list for further study. And through it all, readers will learn how the son of a Woolsthorpe sheep farmer grew to become the most influential physicist in history.
Download or read book An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture written by Isaac Newton and published by . This book was released on 1830 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Newton the Alchemist written by William R. Newman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book that finally demystifies Newton’s experiments in alchemy When Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment rationality, the legendary physicist suddenly became “the last of the magicians.” Newton the Alchemist unlocks the secrets of Newton’s alchemical quest, providing a radically new understanding of the uncommon genius who probed nature at its deepest levels in pursuit of empirical knowledge. In this evocative and superbly written book, William Newman blends in-depth analysis of newly available texts with laboratory replications of Newton’s actual experiments in alchemy. He does not justify Newton’s alchemical research as part of a religious search for God in the physical world, nor does he argue that Newton studied alchemy to learn about gravitational attraction. Newman traces the evolution of Newton’s alchemical ideas and practices over a span of more than three decades, showing how they proved fruitful in diverse scientific fields. A precise experimenter in the realm of “chymistry,” Newton put the riddles of alchemy to the test in his lab. He also used ideas drawn from the alchemical texts to great effect in his optical experimentation. In his hands, alchemy was a tool for attaining the material benefits associated with the philosopher’s stone and an instrument for acquiring scientific knowledge of the most sophisticated kind. Newton the Alchemist provides rare insights into a man who was neither Enlightenment rationalist nor irrational magus, but rather an alchemist who sought through experiment and empiricism to alter nature at its very heart.
Download or read book Famous Men of Science written by Sarah Knowles Bolton and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Portrait Of Isaac Newton written by Frank E. Manuel and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1990-03-21 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Newton s Tyranny written by David H. Clark and published by W. H. Freeman. This book was released on 2001-11-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great figures in history, Sir Isaac Newton personifies the triumph of scientific reason over ignorance. Yet for all his contributions to the Enlightenment, Newton was a deeply complex man who sometimes aggressively tried to obscure the intellectual achievements of others of others. Newton's Tyranny is the story of two men who felt the full wrath of the great man's hostility-the Reverend John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, and Stephen Gray, a humble dyer and amateur scientist. United not only by a love of science, but by a bitter and protracted conflict with Newton, the two men made significant contributions to science despite the observational astronomy and navigation. Drawing upon letters and historical documents, Newton's Tyranny vividly recreates the British scientific community of the early 18th century. It was an era of great achievement, but the crucible of science was often heated by Machiavellian intrigue, uncontrollable ambition, and larger-than-life personalities. Against this dramatic setting, the saga of Newton, Flamsteed and Gray unfolds, a story of loyalty and commitment against great odds. A fascinating look at a forgotten piece of science history, Newton's Tyranny exposes the dark side of flawed genius while celebrating the ultimate triumph of two unsung heroes.
Download or read book Sir Isaac Newton s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World written by Sir Isaac Newton and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1934.
Download or read book Out of the Shadow of a Giant written by John Gribbin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors of Ice Age “present a well-documented argument that [Newton] owed more to the ideas of others than he admitted” (Kirkus Reviews). Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose place in history has been overshadowed by the giant figure of Newton, were pioneering scientists within their own right, and instrumental in establishing the Royal Society. Although Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and the father of the English scientific revolution, John and Mary Gribbin uncover the fascinating story of Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose scientific achievements neatly embrace the hundred years or so during which science as we know it became established. They argue persuasively that, even without Newton, science would have made a great leap forward in the second half of the seventeenth century, headed by two extraordinary figures, Hooke and Halley. “Science readers will thank the Gribbins for restoring Hooke and Halley to the prominence that they deserve.”—Publishers Weekly “Engaging . . . They offer proof that Hooke was an important scientist in his own right, and often had physical insights that were borrowed (usually without acknowledgement) by Newton.”—Choice