Typically, science does not form part of what is called General Culture. If you ask anyone by the name of famous scientists, everyone agrees with Einstein and Newton pointed out, perhaps Darwin, and very few Hawking. But if we sum up and call names of mathematicians will be a silent ("Pythagoras?). And yet, the most famous scientist in history, became famous precisely for its discoveries in this field. Newton's greatest contribution to science was a paper on Matemáticas.Isaac Newton was born in the family home in Woolsthorpe, near Nottingham, on Christmas Day 1642, but in continental Europe it was January 4 by the difference in calendars . His father was an illiterate peasant, his mother belonged to the rural petty bourgeoisie and economic position enjoyed a well off. Unfortunately, the father died three months before Isaac was born, and that made the rest of his life.
His mother, a widow before the age of 30, had to marry again, this time with an Anglican priest named Barnabas Smith, who accepted the condition as a wife to get rid of the small Newton, 4 years old. Legend (false) that Newton invented the telescope, and developed his theory on the lens to get to see her mother who had moved to the parsonage a few miles away. Among the papers Newton's posthumous found a handwritten letter which tells an account of sins of those who repent, among which is:
"To have threatened your father and mother Smith to burn them and their house with them inside."
Mrs. Newton (now Smith) was again widowed six years later and returned with his son and three new siblings, but this period of separation caused a deep impression on the boy, who suffered lifelong emotional disorders, rage uncontrollable and a morbid desire to be loved and accepted. However
mother could see in your child your intellectual capacity and arrange for their training suited to their abilities. But Newton said the school more fights, indiscipline and his fondness for taverns and brothels for his brilliant academic results. So at age 17 his mother decided that enough was enough and made him return to the family farm for him to do something useful. As a farmer, Newton was even worse as a student: An absolute disaster. Nevertheless, the boredom led him to the most important habit he acquired in his life: reading and writing. He spent whole days before the books without food or sleep. Completely self taught so learned to speak and write in Latin and Hebrew (persistence in the Bible had to read it in its original language).
After two years of chaos on the farm, Mrs. Newton, a little advice of a cousin who had studied at Trinity College and a lot to get rid of such useless Isaac sent to Cambridge University, he entered Trinity recommended by his uncle. At that time, because of the Civil War of 1641 (which ended with the execution of Charles I and Cromwell's rise) all Cambridge professors were "purged" and replaced by upstarts who do not quite measure up. That was the academic landscape that Newton was found to go to college. For him it was a paradise, could excel in almost no studies esfuerzo, y repartía su tiempo entre la biblioteca y (sobre todo) los burdeles.
Como mamá Newton le había cerrado el grifo del dinero, orientó sus estudios hacia una nueva ciencia que estaba de moda por entonces y que ofrecía las mejores becas: La Óptica, en la que sobresalió, hasta el punto de que se considera a Newton padre de esta ciencia. Complementaba sus ingresos con un trabajillo que no abandonó jamás: Prestamista. Prestaba dinero a sus compañeros y con los intereses que cobraba se pagaba los vicios.
Pero el golpe de suerte de su vida se lo dio la epidemia de peste de 1665, que le hizo regresar a la casa familiar durante casi dos años. Se instaló en su habitación con una montaña de books brought from Cambridge and locked there. In those 20 months Newton developed the basic ideas that would guide all his scientific career. In particular, the theory of gravity (Universal Gravitation). On Newton
are many legends, most of them false, however, the apple story is absolutely true: One autumn night, while resting under an apple tree, saw an apple fall to the ground and wondered why the fruit is always followed this path and not another, then looked up, looked at the moon and wondered why the moon did not follow the example of the apple, but remained stable in the sky instead of crashing against the land. Many people had seen the moon on summer nights, many people had seen apples fall to the ground, but it took a genius to relate the two events.
frenzy was two years, in which Newton was sleeping in periods of 30 - 40 minutes spread over six or seven daily naps missed sitting in his chair. In two years I never used the bed. He worked about 20 hours a day, and this custom has left him in his life. In a letter to Locke admits:
"When I wrote you had not slept for one hour each day from a fortnight ago and for five consecutive nights or a blink. I remember writing, but I do not remember what I said of your book. "
This was undermining their mental health (already shaky) and crisis led him to madness, depression that is repeated at least five times throughout his life. In two of them even burned all his papers.
In the spring of 1667 Newton returned to Cambridge and meets an old friend, Isaac Barrow, another major of mathematics, which is Professor, holder of the Lucasian Chair (later, in the twentieth century would take Stephen Hawking .) Legend has it that Barrow, dazzled by the knowledge and skills of Newton resigned from the chair in favor of his pupil. But that is only a legend, the reality is that Charles II was called Barrow for court astronomer, a position much better paid than the professor and used as a platform to achieve his real ambition: Being dean of Cambridge. The unique, age and knowledge that could occupy that chair was Newton. Newton
always wanted to thrive socially, remember that although his family lived vent, its origins were humble, peasant, and that will close the doors of high society, however it was a professor at Cambridge. Newton wanted to hobnob with the powerful nobles of the time, so I turned to one of the hobbies of his youth to be enforced. It seems that Newton got social recognition among the nobles of the time to organize the best orgies in all of England ..
Newton got his first public position of responsibility as Controller of the Mint, and that also left his mark. He became obsessed with counterfeiters and clippers of coins, wove a network of informants who informed him about the places and people involved in counterfeiting and is documented more than 100 arrests in just about London.
Another feature of Newton's personality was his almost pathological reluctance to publish any of his writings, or books, or articles, or conferences. Never taught anybody his findings until he was absolutely convinced correction, rewritten again and again the results hide intermediate steps and offering only the endpoints, so much so that his writings become cryptic and almost unreadable even for the more initiated. Newton himself said of himself:
"My working method is the same as that of foxes, which are tail erasing tracks left in the field."
What little life that was published after much urging your friends, or through private correspondence. That attitude brought him many problems throughout his life, the best known and more unfortunate is the controversy with Leibniz over the discovery of calculus.
WG Leibniz was a German mathematician, contemporary of Newton. Initially trained as a diplomat and was posted to Paris for peace talks between France and Austria-Hungary for the sovereignty of Alsace and Lorraine. Working sessions were unbearable so you boring, so I ran away and was served in the meetings of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, where he had his first contact with mathematics. From there, a self-taught, following a path different from that of Newton was able to develop all the Differential Calculus ... ten years after it!. However, as Newton had not made public even among his friends (Barrow, for example) Leibniz wrote and published a treatise on the subject completely original. When this new calculation method came to the attention of Newton, English was furious and rushed to publish their own ideas in a monumental work called Principia Mathematica, much more complete and a way to write things much clearer and simpler. The way of Leibniz was simpler, but Newton's notation was more useful. From here set off a bitter controversy between the two geniuses who fell as low as that has gone before in modern science. They exchanged mutual accusations of plagiarism, was insulted in public and private scientific society was divided into supporters of one another. Legend has it (again falsely) that Newton came to write a pamphlet "anonymous" in which Leibniz was accused of being gay, impotent, zoophilic and many other niceties, and Leibniz, in turn, sent some thugs to poison.
Newton revolutionized science and the revolution still persisted in the twentieth century. However, most efforts were devoted to an activity a little less scientific. Obsessed with religion, rationalist methods used and alchemy in search for the presence of God on earth. It is the only research that never left: The proof of the existence of God by chemical means.
Those are the only shadow in the life of a genius, the most important scientist in history and certainly one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived.
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