READING 1.2.3 ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727 CE) VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE Macquarie University Big History School: Core Lexile® measure: 800L MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY BIG HISTORY SCHOOL: CORE - READING 1.2.3. VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE: ISAAC NEWTON - 800L 2 Newton was from a farming family in England. His father died before he was born and his mother remarried to a well-off clergyman. ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727 CE) VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE By David Baker Newton spent his teens living with an apothecary. He went to a school in Grantham. He developed an interest in chemistry but did not have much time for school. Eventually, in his later teen years he gave school a little more attention. He either worked a bit harder at school or accepted his fate of becoming a farmer. Newton despised farming. In 1661 Newton began his studies at Cambridge University. He had a special arrangement with the University, where Newton had to wait tables and clean the student rooms. This meant that the University would financially support Newton. Over the following 9 years Newton studied the works created in the early scientific revolution. This included the work of Copernicus and Galileo. In true fashion of collective learning, Newton was to build on their ideas. Newton gradually developed his laws of motion. These are still used in many forms of physics and engineering today. These laws were the foundations for scientific understanding in physics before the 20th century. MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY BIG HISTORY SCHOOL: CORE - READING 1.2.3. VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE: ISAAC NEWTON - 800L 3 Newton’s interests extended far and wide. He explored the physics of light, the use of lenses, the nature of chemistry and complex mathematics. Newton was made a professor of mathematics at Cambridge in 1670. In 1687, Newton published the Principia Mathematica. It was the sum of his work on the laws of motion. In particular, it laid forth his explanation of the law of gravitation. It also was one of the first works to use mathematics to underpin these laws. Newton managed to explain the movements of planets in a few simple equations. He estimated that it was driven by a universal force called gravity. Newton had just provided humanity with the key to understanding the Universe. It had a huge influence on how humanity viewed the Universe. By 1700, most scientists accepted the idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun. They were continually developing better models for how the Universe worked. Newton was very much a man of his time. At this time there was not a clear division between disciplines of science. Therefore as a result of Newton’s expansive interests he did extraordinary work across many disciplines. His discoveries were genius, but somewhat strange. Newton gave the world proof that the Earth did indeed revolve around the Sun. He showed how the entire Universe ran on laws of motion. These could be shown by mathematics. These laws opened up the door to accurate calculation of the workings of the Universe. Newton’s work directly led to the astronomical advancements we are exploring currently. Before Newton, we had but a tiny glimmer of understanding of how the Universe worked. After Newton, our notions of the cosmos became ironclad with the laws of physics. MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY BIG HISTORY SCHOOL: CORE - READING 1.2.3. VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE: ISAAC NEWTON - 800L 4 REFERNCES Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Christian, David and Cynthia Stokes Brown and Craig Benjamin. Big History: Between Nothing and Everything. New York: McGraw Hill, 2014. Newton, Isaac. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. trans. Andrew Motte. London: Benjamin Motte, 1729. Available from: https://books.google.com.au/ books?id=Tm0FAAAAQAAJ Westfall, Richard. The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. IMAGE CREDITS ‘Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton’ Credit: Godfrey Kneller, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Sir_Isaac_Newton_(1643-1727).jpg Public Domain Mark 1.0 (https://creativecommons. org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/deed.en). ‘Statue of Isaac Newton in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge’ Credit: Andrew Dunn, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StatueOfIsaacNewton.jpg Creative Commons (/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en). ‘Newton’s Reflecting Telescope (p. 46, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, 1855’ Credit: David Brewster/Bavarian State Library, https://books.google.com.au/ books?id=4hY6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA46&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false THE LEXILE FRAMEWORK® FOR READING The Lexile Framework® for Reading evaluates reading ability and text complexity on the same developmental scale. Unlike other measurement systems, the Lexile Framework determines reading ability based on actual assessments, rather than generalized age or grade levels. Recognized as the standard for matching readers with texts, tens of millions of students worldwide receive a Lexile® measure that helps them find targeted readings from the more than 100 million articles, books and websites that have been measured. Lexile measures connect learners of all ages with resources at the right level of challenge and monitors their progress toward state and national proficiency standards. More information about the Lexile Framework can be found at lexile.com © 2018 Macquarie University.