The Interview of Sir Isaac Newton
Born: 4 Jan 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England
Died: 31 March 1727 in London, England
In this activity you will act both as the reporter and interviewee.
Using the following links you will make discoveries about Sir Isaac
Newton, the time period surrounding his life, and the major
contributions he made to mathematics and science.
After each interview question you will use the links provided in
order to form Mr. Newton’s responses to your interview questions.
Personal Information:
1. Sir Isaac our interview will begin with your telling me on
what major holiday, still celebrated today, were you born?
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95dec/newton.html
Response: According to the calendar at the time of my birth I was
born on December 25, 1642
2. Extension Question~ What is the date of your birth according
to the corrected Gregorian calendar we now use and that was
not adopted in England until 1752?
http://www-groups.dcs.stand.ac.uk/~history//Mathematicians/Newton.html
Response: Although by the calendar in use at the time of my birth I
was said to be born on Christmas Day 1642, the date of 4 January
1643 is used in my biography. This is the “corrected” Gregorian
calendar date bringing my birth date into line with your present
calendar.
3. What was your birthplace?
http://www-groups.dcs.stand.ac.uk/~history//Mathematicians/Newton.html
Response: I was born in the manor house of Woolsthorpe, near
Grantham in Lincolnshire.
4. Following the link below you may see a picture of the home I lived in
at the time of my birth. You are to right click on the photo, then
select Save Picture As. Using the drop down arrow find your H: drive.
The name of the photo will appear as Woolsthorpe, click save. Next
you should choose Insert from the file menu in your word document.
Scroll down to Picture then choose From File choose the picture and
press Insert.
http://www.touruk.co.uk/houses/houselincs_wools.htm
Response:
5. What were your parent’s names?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html
http://64.70.157.91/Literature/Biographies/Science/Newton.htm#Life
Response: My father’s name was also Isaac Newton. My mother’s name
was Hannah Ayscough.
6. Were both of your parents present at your birth?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html
Response: No my father died in October 1642 two full months before
my birth. Of course my mother was present on the day of my birth
what a silly question.
7.
Was yours a happy childhood?
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html
http://64.70.157.91/Literature/Biographies/Science/Newton.htm
Response: I lived south east of an area that was to become the
English industrial heartland, in a little village called
Woolsthorpe, I was prematurely born, and, was so small at my birth,
my mother used to say "he might then have been put into a quart
mug." My widowed mother - my father had died several months before
my birth - was to re-marry; and - there apparently was no room for a
two year old in the new Newton household – so I was a small
misplaced child who passed into the care of my grandmother.
My mother Hannah Ayscough remarried Barnabas Smith the minister of
the church at North Witham, in a nearby village, when I was two
years old. I was then as a young child left in the care of my
grandmother Margery Ayscough at Woolsthorpe. I was basically treated
as an orphan. So no I can not say mine was a have happy childhood.
My grandfather James Ayscough was never mentioned in my later life
and the fact that James (my grandfather) left nothing to me in his
will, which was made when I was ten years old, suggests that there
was no love lost between the two of us. There is no doubt that I
felt very bitter towards my mother and step-father Barnabas Smith.
When examining my sins at age nineteen, I listed: - Threatening my
father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them.
Educational Background:
8. You attended the Free Grammar School in Grantham in 1660 to
complete your school education. Whom did you lodge with during
this time?
http://www-groups.dcs.stand.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html
Response: When I was a very young child I was left in the care of of
my grandmother Margery Ayscough at Woolsthorpe.
9. Were you considered a good student?
http://64.70.157.91/Literature/Biographies/Science/Newton.htm#Life
Responses: I had a bad start with my schooling; I have been
described as having been one of the poorest performing students in
the grammar school in which my grandmother placed me.2 There is a
story that as a boy I suffered from a blow delivered by a schoolyard
bully; or was it that I was struck on the head by an apple: whatever
it was, an event occurred whereby "the hard shell which imprisoned
my genius was cracked wide open." I was then to make a dramatic turn
around, early in my scholastic career. I was to ask questions which
many of sooner or later have come to ask. What is light and how is
it transmitted? What keeps the moon in the orbit of the earth, and
the planets in the orbit of the sun? Why does the apple fall to the
ground? I came, in time, to answer these questions and was to give
positive proof of these answers, proofs and answers which serve many
still yet today.3
Information Regarding Mathematics and Scientific Contributions:
10.Sir Isaac, you made huge contributions in the area of
mathematics can you describe some of your inventions?
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95dec/newton.html
Responses: As mathematician, I invented the integral calculus, and
jointly with Leibnitz, the differential calculus. I also calculated
a formula for finding the velocity of sound in a gas which was
later corrected by Laplace.
11.You made a huge impact in the science of theoretical astronomy
defining the laws of what?
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95dec/newton.html
Responses: I defined the laws of motion and universal gravitation
which I used to predict precisely the motions of stars, and the
planets around the sun. Using my discoveries in optics I was able to
construct the first reflecting telescope.
12.You also aided in our understanding the Universe. How many
laws did you develop within this study?
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html
Responses: There were three laws of motion in discovered in my
studies.
13.Please copy and paste Sir Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of motion.
I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that
state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
II. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a,
and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors
(as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in
this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction
of the acceleration vector.
III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Extension:
14.Research the History of the Gregorian Calendar
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/GregorianCalendar.html
The calendar currently in worldwide use for secular purposes based on a cycle of 400
years comprising 146,097 days, giving a year of average length 365.2425 days. The
Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar in which leap years are
omitted in years divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400. By this rule, the year
1900 was not a leap year (1900 is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400), but the
year 2000 will be a leap year (2000 is divisible by 400). The total number of days in
400 years is therefore given by
This also gives an exact number of
weeks per 400-year cycle.
The Gregorian calendar was constructed to give a close approximation to the tropical
year, which is the actual length of time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit
around the Sun.
The Julian calendar was switched over to the Gregorian starting in 1582, at which
point the 10 day difference between the actual time of year and traditional time of
year on which calendrical events occurred became intolerable. The switchover was
bitterly opposed by much of the populace, who feared it was attempt by landlords to
cheat then out of a week and a half's rent. However, when Pope Gregory XIII decreed
that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582, the Catholic countries
of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy complied. Various Catholic German countries
(Germany was not yet unified), Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland followed
suit within a year or two, and Hungary followed in 1587.
Because of the Pope's decree, the reform of the Julian calendar came to be known as
the Gregorian calendar. However, the rest of Europe did not follow suit for more than
a century.
The Protestant German countries adopted the Gregorian reform in 1700. By this time,
the calendar trailed the seasons by 11 days. England (and the American colonies)
finally followed suit in 1752, and Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was immediately
followed by Thursday, September 14, 1752. This traumatic change resulted in
widespread riots and the populace demanding "Give us the eleven days back!"
English Calendar:
September 1752
Su M Tu W Th
&; &;
1
F Sa
2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Sweden followed England's lead in 1753. Russia, however, did not follow suit until
1918, when January 31, 1918 was immediately followed by February 14th. In fact,
however, the USSR is not on the Gregorian calendar, but on a more accurate one of
their own devising. The USSR calendar is designed to more closely approximate the
true length of the tropical year, thus has one additional rule for when a year is a leap
year. It will remain in synchronization with the Gregorian calendar for thousands
more years, by which time one or both will have probably fallen into disuse.
Similarly, Iranian calendar is also a more accurate version of the Gregorian calendar
(Ross).