Whether or not an apple falling to the ground provided Isaac Newton with the key to the discovery of the Law of Gravitation is of little importance. What does matter is that in 1687, when Newton published his discovery, it explained why an apple falls to the ground. Through this and many other discoveries, Isaac Newton came to be regarded as the greatest scientist of his time, and his contributions to Mathematics and Astronomy are marked as the greatest in the history of science.
Whether or not an apple falling to the ground provided Isaac Newton with the key to the discovery of the Law of Gravitation is of little importance. What does matter is that in 1687, when Newton published his discovery, it explained why an apple falls to the ground. Through this and many other discoveries, Isaac Newton came to be regarded as the greatest scientist of his time, and his contributions to Mathematics and Astronomy are marked as the greatest in the history of science.
Newton showed that the laws of Gravity are universal, affecting objects on earth and in space. He was able to explain and confirm theories made by previous scientists like Kepler and Galileo. But more important than all, he provided the foundation to Modern Physics and space travel.
Isaac Newton was born on 25th December 1942, in Wilsthorpe, England. He was educated at Cambridge. From his early youth he revealed an interest in the natural sciences by making clocks, toys and sundials. He spent a lot of time watching the movement of stars and planets.
His early experiments with light and color led in 1668 to the invention of the reflecting telescope, the first of many astronomical contributions. At the age of twenty-nine he was the youngest man ever elected to the Royal Society of Scientists.
Newton never married. In appearance he was of average height, with handsome, rather sharp features, a clean ruddy complexion and flashing eyes. He was moderate in all his habits. Once when asked why he did not smoke, he replied, “because I do not want to create any new necessities.”
He had a talent for making money and was so successful that he left an estate of about Rs. 40,000.
Newton has another first to his honor: In 1705 he was Knighted by Queen Anne. The first scientist to be so honored.
Isaac Newton died in his eighty-fifth year and is laid to rest in West Minister Abbey. Here his name still remains the greatest in that company the great of the world But he himself had a very humble opinion of himself; he wrote, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea shore, diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a curious shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undisturbed before me.”