Newton Lesson
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) was an English scientist who made great contributions to physics, optics, maths and astronomy. He is known for his Three Laws of Motion and the Universal Law of Gravitation.
When Sir Isaac Newton was a boy, he was more interested in making mechanical devices than in studying. He made a windmill which could grind wheat and corn, and he made a water clock and a sundial. His teachers thought he was not a very intelligent student because he didn’t do very well.
He wanted to go to college, but he didn't have the money to go, so at university, he had to serve the other students by doing chores for them. He even ate the leftovers of their meals, but he would do anything to get an opportunity to learn. Even when he was in college, he was not outstanding and received no awards.
When the university shut down because of the plague, an illness where people caught diseases and died suddenly, he went home and continued to study on his own.
He had a notebook with blank pages and he began to fill them with notes as he read and experimented about different things around him.
One day when he was drinking tea in the garden, he saw an apple fall to the ground. He started thinking about why it fell. Why did the apple fall out of the tree? Does everything fall? What makes things fall? Can anything stop things from falling? Are the sun, moon, and stars falling? Why don't they ever fall to the ground? He finally decided that a force called gravity, which caused the apple to fall also kept the moon in the sky around the earth. This same force called gravity, also kept the planets in the sky around the sun.
The apple incident led to his three basic laws of motion:
- A moving object keeps moving unless an outside force stops it.
- An object moves in a straight line unless some force makes it change direction; and
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Isaac Newton is well known as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived.
