Isaac Newton and Gravity: Alex Woolf’s Illustrated Life of the Boy Who Explained the Universe
Isaac Newton and Gravity is a biography of Isaac Newton from his birth on 25 December 1642 to the end of his life. You will follow the adventures of this child prodigy, the most important moments of his personal life and his greatest discoveries. This great mathematician described the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion.
Author: Alex Woolf
Title: Isaac Newton and Gravity (The Eureka Moment series)
Format: English paperback (Salariya), 128 pages, illustrated by Annaliese Stoney
Scope: Illustrated biography for young readers
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/1912904055 (ASIN 1912904055)
A Difficult Childhood
Of humble origins, his father dead before he was born and left by his mother at a very early age, Newton showed his restlessness and hunger to learn. His curiosity led him to carry out many experiments, and with his grandmother’s help he gradually got on in life. After years apart, his mother returned with three children, his half-siblings. Newton adapted and kept calm in this new situation, amusing himself by building machines and toys for his new brothers and sisters.
His mother made him leave school to work on the farm and become a sheep farmer. He showed no talent for the work, found it boring, and finally went back to school to finish his education.
Cambridge and the Plague Years
A few years later Newton entered Trinity College, Cambridge, first as a student who paid his way by serving others and then as a scholar. An epidemic of plague interrupted his studies again, and it was during those years at home that he carried out many studies and made new discoveries in optics, physics and mathematics.
The Apple and the Moon
The famous apple is not entirely a legend. Late in life, Newton told his friend and biographer William Stukeley that the idea of gravitation had come to him as he sat in a garden at Woolsthorpe and saw an apple fall. The insight was not that things fall, which everyone knew, but that the same force pulling the apple to the ground might reach out to the Moon and hold it in its orbit. Working out that idea mathematically took Newton the best part of twenty years.
The Principia
When the astronomer Edmond Halley visited Newton in 1684 to ask about the orbits of planets, he discovered that Newton had already solved the problem and urged him to publish. The result, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, appeared in 1687, with Halley paying for the printing himself. It set out the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, and for more than two centuries, until Einstein, it was the foundation of physics.
A Complicated Man
Newton was secretive, quarrelsome and easily wounded. He fought bitter disputes with Robert Hooke over light and gravity, and with the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz over who had invented calculus. He also spent years on alchemy and biblical prophecy. Later he became Warden and then Master of the Royal Mint, where he pursued counterfeiters with zeal, and President of the Royal Society; he was knighted in 1705. When he died in 1727 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, and Alexander Pope wrote: "Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."
For Young Readers
Woolf’s book, with its illustrations, is a good way to bring these stories to children of about nine to twelve.
The Principia and Beyond
Later he became a professor and presented his reflecting telescope to the Royal Society. The publication of the Principia, with the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, was his greatest contribution. He also calculated the speed of sound and developed his method of fluxions, known today as calculus. Another famous book is his Opticks (1704). This short, illustrated book is a lovely introduction for young readers, and adults will enjoy it too.
As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
Part of the reading recommendations featured on books.sapiensverbum.com.
