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Science

The Greatest And The Luckiest Of Mortals 167

Posted by timothy from the what-about-the-mortalest dept.
sgant writes "So says the 18th-century French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange about Sir Isaac Newton. The New York Times has a piece on 'The Newtonian Moment: Science and the Making of Modern Culture' which is a new exhibit at the NY Public Library. It includes a number of Newton's manuscripts from the Cambridge University Library, including a first edition of his most famous work, "Principia," bearing the author's corrections and additions for the next printing, have never before been shown in the United States."
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The Greatest And The Luckiest Of Mortals More

The Greatest And The Luckiest Of Mortals

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  • I'm enduring college level calculus right now, and to think that one man, more or less invented a major area of mathematics that we use in a vast array of situations, is simply, incredible.

    Given the resources he had availible, it's simply amazing he accomplished what he did

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Informative)

      by phantasma6 ( 799340 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:26AM (#10484973)
      not invented, discovered

      also, Leibniz also independantly devised the system of calculus at the same time

      • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by slacktide ( 796664 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:36AM (#10485001)
        And of course, Archimedes pretty much a cat's whisker away from discovering the integral around 200 BC, as described in the nearly lost work "The Method"

      • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jim Starx ( 752545 ) <{JStarx} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday October 10, 2004 @07:49AM (#10485219)
        Keep in mind that calculus as we know it has been modified somewhat from their original formulation. For instance, both Newton and Leibinitz incorrectly used infintesimals in their definitions. It wasn't until the 1800's that Karl Weierstrass formulated the limit definition that we use today.

        • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Informative)

          by cletus_bojangles ( 750011 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @08:56AM (#10485396)
          For instance, both Newton and Leibinitz incorrectly used infintesimals in their definitions.

          That was the old view. There were some problems with their use of infinitesimals, but those problems have been cleared up more recently. The modern version of calculus via infinitesimals is known as nonstandard analysis [wolfram.com]. The landmark work on the subject is Robinson's 1966 book "Non-standard analysis".

          Moreover, that sort of hen-pecking at Newton and Leibniz is not really productive. No one cares more about precision and correctness in definitions than mathematicians, and yet mathematicians still assign credit to those two.

          Have you read the Principia? I have only read portions, but Newton does some pretty amazing stuff in there, besides just the use of calculus and the derivation of the inverse square law for gravity. For example, he proves that there is no closed form for elliptic integrals of a certain kind.

          • Moreover, that sort of hen-pecking at Newton and Leibniz is not really productive. No one cares more about precision and correctness in definitions than mathematicians, and yet mathematicians still assign credit to those two.

            Welcome to the point sherlock. I'm not henpecking, I'm just stating a fact. They're not perfect, knowone is. People seem to be under the impression that they are 100% responcible for calculus as we know it. They certainly deserve credit for the bulk of it, but they had help along

        • Re:infinitesimals (Score:5, Insightful)

          by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @09:12AM (#10485450) Homepage Journal
          For instance, both Newton and Leibinitz incorrectly used infintesimals in their definitions.

          And Latin. We now know Latin to be a dead language. What real scientist uses Latin?

          And the English system of weights and measures. He didn't even use the Metric system, or bother to convert the values!

          How the great learned history critics and scientists of the future will scoff at our inaccurate decimal system, our clunky wire-based infosystems, and our use of BASIC.

          We use the tools we have. The best of us modify them to fit our own needs. Every once in a while, someone comes up with a mod that everyone agrees is really cool. On that measure, Isaac Newton is the greatest hacker of all time. OK, maybe Edison was greater, or the woman who invented the stick.

          I picking on your fine post (a bit unfairly, to be sure) because if someone comes up with a mod, how does that make everything that went before it "incorrect"?

          • if someone comes up with a mod, how does that make everything that went before it "incorrect"?

            It doesn't. What makes it incorrect is the fact that it was incorrect. Incorrect might not be the right word, it was not mathematically rigorous. There were instances when he treated an infintesimal as a zero and discarded it, there were instances where he treated it as a non-zero and divided it. Math is rigorous. You need a set of rules that hold in all situations.

            Did you bother to read the rest of the po

            • >did you bother to read the rest of the post...

              Yes, and I'm sorry for slighting you for using the word "incorrect". I should have been more Charitable - and on Sunday, no less.

            • Re:infinitesimals (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Tony-A ( 29931 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @10:40AM (#10485821)
              Incorrect might not be the right word, it was not mathematically rigorous. There were instances when he treated an infintesimal as a zero and discarded it, there were instances where he treated it as a non-zero and divided it. Math is rigorous. You need a set of rules that hold in all situations. [Emphasis added]

              A set of rules that hold in all situations means that there are no paradoxes.
              There is nothing non-rigorous about infintesimals which behave in some cases identically with zero when added to something and in other cases behave like non-zeros when dividing two of them. What is non-rigorous and non-defensible is the attempted distinction between zero and non-zero. Not everything mathematical is a number. In fact most mathematical things are not numbers. It all has to do with functions from spaces to spaces that preserve interesting properties.
            • What makes it incorrect is the fact that it was incorrect. Incorrect might not be the right word

              So "incorrect" was incorrect then?? I'm confused ...

            • Re:infinitesimals (Score:2, Interesting)

              by Baudelaire76 ( 813799 )

              Math is rigorous. You need a set of rules that hold in all situations.

              Perhaps. But mathematical definitions are not necessarily rigorous. Try to formulate a rigorous definition of a set.

              Another interesting case of the non-rigorous use of mathematics was by Dirac. He used the delta-function comfortably for a while, while the mathematicians cried foul (IIRC, the great von Neumann was one of them). Eventually they realized that, while not rigorous, he was right. Of course, he knew he had to be.

              I

      • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by n3k5 ( 606163 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @10:36AM (#10485805) Journal
        not invented, discovered
        also, Leibniz also independantly devised the system of calculus at the same time
        In 'META MATH! -- The Quest for Omega [auckland.ac.nz]', Gregory Chaitin writes:
        Newton was a great physicist, but he was definitely inferior to Leibniz both as a mathematician and as a philosopher. And Newton was a rotten human being---so much so that Djerassi and Pinner call their recent book Newton's Darkness.


        Leibniz invented the calculus, published it, wrote letter after letter to continental mathematicians to explain it to them, initially received all the credit for this from his contemporaries, and then was astonished to learn that Newton, who had never published a word on the subject, claimed that Leibniz had stolen it all from him. Leibniz could hardly take Newton seriously!

        But it was Newton who won, not Leibniz.

        Newton bragged that he had destroyed Leibniz and rejoiced in Leibniz's death after Leibniz was abandoned by his royal patron, whom Leibniz had helped to become the king of England. It's extremely ironic that Newton's incomprehensible Principia---written in the style of Euclid's Elements---was only appreciated by continental mathematicians after they succeeded in translating it into that effective tool, the infinitesimal calculus that Leibniz had taught them!

        Morally, what a contrast! Leibniz was such an elevated soul that he found good in all philosophies: Catholic, Protestant, Cabala, medieval scholastics, the ancients, the Chinese... It pains me to say that Newton enjoyed witnessing the executions of counterfeiters he pursued as Master of the Mint.

        [The science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson has recently published the first volume, Quicksilver, of a trilogy about Newton versus Leibniz, and comes out strongly on Leibniz's side. See also Isabelle Stengers, La Guerre des sciences aura-t-elle lieu?, a play about Newton vs. Leibniz, and the above mentioned book, consisting of two plays and a long essay, called Newton's Darkness.]
      • Newton, outside of his professional work, suffered from depression most of his life. He was also very afraid of his own homosexual tendencies. To my knowledge he didn't have many long standing relationships. Greatest perhaps, though I'm not sure he would have thought himself one of the luckiest.

      • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Please keep your platonic beliefs to yourself; mathematics is not necessarily discovered. The philosophical reasons for this are numerous, and to say categorically that it must be discovered is naive at best.

    • I know Lucas isn't the most popular round here at the moment, but I still like this line by Sir Alec Guiness: "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck"
    • I agree completely, I gave up on university-level calculus and felt ashamed. How could someone "invent" this such a long time ago. Of course we (/.-ers) all read Neal Stephansons trilogy "The Baroque Cycle" so we know a bit about Newton and the likes. It wasn't just Newton, it was the atmosfere surrounding the Royal Society (assuming that part of the trilogy is not fiction). Still, a relatively small group of people accomplishing this is amazing...
      • > Neal Stephansons trilogy "The Baroque Cycle"

        To quote the author himself [about.com]:

        Obviously, the result here is my interpretation of these characters. It's a work of fiction, which shouldn't be confused with history. But I've tried to make the essence of these characters faithful to what appears in the historical records.

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Funny)

      by ggvaidya ( 747058 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:30AM (#10484981) Homepage Journal
      That was Leibnitz, you insensitive clod!

      (and thus, the science's oldest flame war is brought into the 21st century!)

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Informative)

      by bagel2ooo ( 106312 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:32AM (#10484991)
      Well, Archimedes discovered quite a few calculus-esque ideas such as adding up infinite slices to determine the area of something in a cube. This was of course quite some time ago. Although these different calculuses (calculii) vary quite a bit I think that some credit should also go to Archimedes.

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Maestro4k ( 707634 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:35AM (#10484998) Journal
      • I'm enduring college level calculus right now, and to think that one man, more or less invented a major area of mathematics that we use in a vast array of situations, is simply, incredible.
      Boy is that ever true, I remember when going through all my calc classes that I found it hard to conceive that someone could ever figure out all this stuff on their own. It's hard enough to remember/learn even now (unless you're really talened at math) after hundreds of years and countless refinement.

      It's not just Newton though. I had to take a math history class as part of my "capstone" courses to get my CS degree. It was a fascinating course and we learned of so many people who developed different areas of math. One thing I remember well because it was funny is that pretty much everyone who's done significant work on set theory has spent time in mental hospitals, most after they did the work. :)

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:58AM (#10485070)
      He did not "invent" or "discover" the thing by himself. It's like all research: people put brick after brick, and then someone puts the last one and says "here is a building", and gets all the credit. And many years later (30 for Albert, 300 for Isaac) some geeks put posters of the guy in their rooms and suddenly feel illuminated. :)

      • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by weierstrass ( 669421 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @07:28AM (#10485156) Homepage Journal
        Newton himself said of his work that he was only "standing on the shoulders of giants" meaning that if he had discovered new knowledge, it was from the ideas put down by euclid, archimedes etc before him.
        (This phrase is engraved round the edge of £2 coins in the UK, since Newton also invented milling the edges of coins to prevent people from clipping them.)
        However, he was probably being too modest. It wasn't just calc: this guy basically went away at some point in his life and came up with:
        His laws of motion, which explained pretty much every physical phenomenom then studied.
        His theory of gravity, which relates the movement of celestial bodies back to the laws of motion.
        and
        The differential calculus, which provided the maths necessary to apply all this.
        He also did work in optics and other fields, and invented the catflap.
        If anyone surpasses him as a physicist, it must be Einstein.
        If anyone surpasses him both as a physicist and a mathematician, it's news to me.
        Respect is due.
        • When he said that he was referring almost exclusively to Gallileo who formulated the laws of motion in a slightly different fasion many years before Newton did. That doesn't take anything away from the man's genius mind you. He did most of his work when he was 22 years old. Just slightly older then I am. Pretty amazing.
          • On the Other Hand, Stephen Hawking points out that the famous "On the Shoulders of Giants" remark was made in a letter to Robert Hooke, who actively despised Newton (and was despised back.).

            Hawking claims that this was a caustic remark on the shortness of physical build of Robert Hooke.

            As far as I know, it is not about his work on Mechanics that Newton said this, but about his work on Optics.

          • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:5, Informative)

            by flossie ( 135232 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @08:36AM (#10485346) Homepage
            When he said that he was referring almost exclusively to Gallileo who formulated the laws of motion in a slightly different fasion many years before Newton did.

            I have also read that Newton's phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" was a veiled insult to Robert Hooke, who was apparently not the tallest of people.

            • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:4, Informative)

              by tootlemonde ( 579170 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @02:47PM (#10487121)

              Newton's phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" was a veiled insult to Robert Hooke...

              This allegation is made almost every time Newton is mentioned on Slashdot but it has no historical basis.

              As this analysis [mathforum.org] points out, when Newton uses the phrase he is refering to both Descarte and Hook. The most obvious interpretation is that he is complementing Hook by comparing him to Descarte and referring to them both as giants.

              Furthermore, Hook was not especially short and in other cases where Newton engaged in scientific debate he specifically avoided what he called "oblique and glancing expressions".

              There is thus every reason to suppose that when Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants, he was acknowledging his debt to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes and Hook, who was at the time England's most eminent scientist.

          • > Pretty amazing.

            Not at all ! /. didn't existed at that time, so he didn't waste his time like you and I do :-)
        • I think it's fair to say that both Euler and Gauss surpass Newton as mathematicians, as well as some others. But you're right; as a jack of all trades, he is non pareil. In my humble opinion as a physicist and a mathematician :)
        • Descartes invented co-ordinate geometry Euclid gave us quite possibly the greatest base for mathematics of anyone, ever There are plenty of mathematical greats. Which is a good thing! :)
        • I remember a documentary on Newton in which it was stated that he came up with the phrase as a put down to Robert Hooke who disagreed with Newton's position on optics.

          Hooke was a hunchback and sensetive about his height. It was in a letter sent by Newton to his rival that he said:

          " If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

          • That's three posts now claiming the "shoulders of giants" remark was a dig at Hooke. The context doesn't really bear it out. Newton sent the letter to diffuse a dispute over attribution, really a simple apology, with this remark as a "no hard feelings" conclusion.

            They did have a serious row shortly before the publication of Principia Mathematica when Hooke provoked another argument in a more obnoxious way, and Newton responded by deleting all the (originally generous) citations to Hooke. From this poin

        • Or, as is the case for me and most others, "if I have failed to see further, it is because giants are standing on my shoulders".
        • You believe too much that you read in your HS/College textbooks. Do a little real historical survey of the scientists of his era and before him and see how much he gets credit for that he did very little work on.
        • He was also probably the most useless Member of Parliament ever, speaking in the House on only one occasion, and then to ask that a window be closed because there was a cold draught.
          • Oh come one !

            If you want to claim to be greatest physicist ever there is pretty serious competition, but the competition for most useless MP is several orders of magnitude harder.
        • Newton (...) came up with: [list of achievements]

          You omit his greatest contribution to science, which was establishing that the laws of nature are universal. He saw that the force of gravity which makes things fall to the ground is exactly the same force, obeying the same law, as the force of gravity between celestial bodies. It seems obvious today, but it was not at all obvious in the seventeenth century. Most people took it for granted that the celestial bodies were ruled by quite different laws from th

        • If anyone surpasses him both as a physicist and a mathematician, it's news to me.

          I think there's a few mathematicians that are contenders: Gauss and Poincare did incredible work in both mathematics and physics. Riemann is my favorite "also ran". I think he was fairly close to discovering general relativity more than half a century before Einstein. But alas, he died in his fifties.

      • I believe he gave credit to others:

        If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
        --Isaac Newton

        And let us not forget the greatest one-liner in the history of science:

        If I have not seen as far as others, it is because there were giants standing on my shoulders.
        --Hal Abelson

    • Re:'Greatest and Luckiest of Mortals' indeed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by syousef ( 465911 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @07:08AM (#10485092) Journal
      I'm enduring college level calculus right now, and to think that one man, more or less invented a major area of mathematics that we use in a vast array of situations, is simply, incredible.

      That's because they don't teach it the way it was developed. What you learn is a santised version and you learn it in the wrong order (compared to order of discovery and development).
    • I do agree that Newton discovered/invented a large part of our mathematics but when people mention Newton they always seem to forget that he didn't really think up everything out of thin air.

      The story about him and Robert Hooke [madasafish.com] is quite and interesting one and makes you think about how much he actually did do. Robert Hooke did infact accuse Newton of plagiarism but the charge was dropped because Hooke didn't have proof of his own theory and made some assumptions on intuitive grounds.

      Makes one think that if

  • luckiest? (Score:4, Funny)

    by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:31AM (#10484986)
    It's said that he died a virgin... so in at least one respect Newton was not, and did not get, "lucky".
      • It's said that he died a virgin... so in at least one respect Newton was not, and did not get, "lucky".
      Which just goes to prove that even back then the science types didn't impress the girls. He'd have been right at home on /., judging by many of the comments. :)

      • Re:luckiest? (Score:3, Funny)

        by flossie ( 135232 )
        He'd have been right at home on /., judging by many of the comments. :)

        Perhaps it was the fact that he didn't have access to /. that allowed him the time to make all those great discoveries.

    • Re:luckiest? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by melvster ( 756051 )
      As opposed to Leibniz, who was a womaniser, an alcoholic and in his spare time discovered differential calculus (simultaneously to newton, in fact, his 'Acta Eruditorum' was published 1 year before newton's 'Principia').
      • Also, IIRC, math was a second career for Leibniz -- he started out as a lawyer and diplomat, and did his work on calculus when he was in his later thirties or early forties. This is quite remarkable in math, where almost all the truly groundbreaking discoveries are made by people in their twenties. I have plenty of respect for Newton, but Leibniz was a much saner, more likable, and in many ways more admirable figure.
    • >>It's said that he died a virgin

      I guess that would explain how he got so much done. Remember the episode of Seinfield where George Crastansa decides to stop thinking about sex, and becomes some great intellectual?
    • But that makes him a true geek, doesn't it ?
  • ...he died a virgin and studied alchemy.
  • Dont you just love those latin cool new computer names... :)

  • Good BBC programme yesterday on Newton (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10, 2004 @06:59AM (#10485072)
    "Plague is sweeping across England, and a young Isaac Newton retreats to the isolation of Lincolnshire. Sitting in the family garden he watches an apple fall, and unlocks the secrets of gravity - or does he? Adam explores the truth behind this famous moment in the history of science, and discovers that Newton wrote his own account over forty years after the supposed event."

    Listen to it here (starts 1 min 50 secs in) [bbc.co.uk]

  • Various bits about Newton and my youth (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xirtam_work ( 560625 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @07:06AM (#10485084)
    I went to the same boys school as Newton originally went to, called the 'Kings School' in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England where Newton scratched his name into the wall of the old library. As was the custom at the time, many other students scratched and carved their names. His looks considerably less impressive than others. We were all taught that he attended the school and about his subsequent accomplishments. There is a garden named after him with a single apple tree in the middle, although it's not one he ever sat under. One of the various 'houses' in the school is also named after him. The town has a statue of him in front of the guildhall (equivalent to a town hall). However, in their rush to name things after him they have named a travisty of a shopping mall after him, which is awful, it's called the 'Isaac Newton Shopping Centre' and is particularlly down market with a big plastic apple hanging high near one of the entrances. Growing up asa kid I saw Newton's name and face everywhere as he adorned the back of the one pound note, the equivalent of a $1 bill. Sadly that was replaced by a coin with nobody on the reverse of the queens 'head' side. Even worse my home town is now remembered more for 'Maggie Thatcher' than Newton. I hope that one day the place will be associated more for Newton than Thatcher, but it is unlikely as he wasn't born there (he was born in Colsterworth nearby), only attending school there for a while when he was young. Lastly, I hope that Apple Computer bring back their Newton as it was a fantastic machine which deserved to bear the name of such an amazing man.
    • For a While I lived in the same house that Newton was born in (and did his famous light refraction experiment).

      It's a place with great "power", even though, over time the building has been greatly altered and the surrounding countryside is now covered in houses, there is still something magical about the place.
      Going out on windy days I knew I was possibly standing on the exact same spots where young Isaac did his own first rudimentary experiments (jumping into the wind, to see if affected how far he could

  • A weird guy (Score:1, Interesting)

    by noerej ( 412423 )
    I'm currently reading a book writte by Bill Bryson called ' A short Hisory of Nearly Everything'.
    In this book het tells how strang guy Newton was. Newton once poked with a needle behind his eyers becease he wanne know what happends. Just by sheer luck nothing happend. He also discovered some verry inportant things but he kept is secret for almost 30 years.

    He was briliant but he was also solitary,sombre and nearly paranoea.

    • Re:A weird guy (Score:2, Funny)

      by Elphin ( 7066 )
      You are weirder - you can't go five words without a spelling mistake.

      Although a work of fiction, Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver" mentions the needles-in-eyes incident and covers many other episodes in Newton's life (and much more besides, I should add) - I'm sure by now most SlashDot readers have either loved it or loathed it, but if you haven't tried, give it a whirl....

      Neal Stephenson is fond of using odd spellings in the book, so you should be right at home...
      • mmm five? That's verry good for me...

        Beceause English is not mine native language ..

        Many years ago there was a internet rule that it was rude to critize others about spelling mistakes, beceause English is not the native language of most people. Sadly that's changed beside many other things.

    • Re:A weird guy (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That was during his work on optics. Few people realise that the bulk of modern understanding of optics was discovered by Newton early in his career. This body of work is at least as important as The Principia and calculus.

  • Newton vs. Einstein (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sara Chan ( 138144 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @07:43AM (#10485200)
    Many people regard Einstein as having done greater work than Newton. So it's worth noting that a few people are now claiming that relativity is either derivable from Newtonian physics or wrong. See this site [newtonphysics.on.ca] for details.

    The author of the site is (or at least was) highly reputed. It was also him who first pointed out that the so-called gravitational anomaly [slashdot.org], found by Pioneer spacecrafts, probably has a simple (Newtonian) explanation: dust in the Kuiper Belt [newtonphysics.on.ca]--and this explanation has been entirely ignored by most physicists.

    Some physicists seem to prefer complicated explanations over simple ones.

    • I do not know the author of the site, but when reading things like "we present explanations, which are always compatible with conventional wisdom and logic" I become extremely wary. A great deal of the ideas that have changed our perception of the world was, at one time or another, considered at odds with "conventional wisdom".

      It was once conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, that black people were stupid and so on. Most people now scoff at such notions, but happily accepts the new "conventional wi

    • Many people regard Einstein as having done greater work than Newton.

      When making "top ten" lists of physics, usually Newton, Einstein and Maxwell are among the top three physicists of all time. But such lists are in general dubious; for one thing, Einstein needed the results by Newton and Maxwell to do his own work. Beside, the three worked in very different periods of time with different problems facing physics.

      What makes Newton unique, is that Newton would in general make the top ten list of all time

  • The Indian Roots of Calculus (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaalamaadan ( 639250 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @08:48AM (#10485379) Journal
    Certain aspects of calculus were developed two centuries prior to Newton in India by Madhava of Sangamagrama. This seems to be widely accepted [st-and.ac.uk] now. A few links to Madhava [st-and.ac.uk] and other Keralese mathematicians [st-and.ac.uk] are also present here.

  • It's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathemat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Sunday October 10, 2004 @10:17AM (#10485727)
    (Not enough room to get in the "You insensitive clod" as well.)


    Amazing how Newton's status has changed. In the early 70s the Cambridge Union Society actually sold off a copy of the Principia cheap (as the guy who beat me to it gloated at me at considerable length). They wouldn't do that nowadays when virtually every Latin edition is worth a great deal of money.
    Just as it's extremely difficult to spend any time in Florence without becoming aware of the Dante connection, it's quite difficult to spend time in Cambridge, England without encountering Newton. Whatever his faults - and he was clearly not an easy person to get on with - he made major contributions to optics, pure physics, chemistry, mathematics and the running of the Royal Mint. Other people around at the time did remarkable work - Hooke, Boyle, Liebniz - but Newton surpassed them al for sheer output, breadth and depth. Logically, nowadays, with a much larger and better educated population we should be throwing up lots of Newtons. Why aren't we? Is it because all the relatively easy science and maths has now been done and it takes large organisations and computing power to make any advance at all? Or is it because clever people get pulled off into business or celebrity before they really have a chance to do any work that will really endure?

    • NB: 'Liebniz' -> read: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

      [I]t's quite difficult to spend time in Cambridge, England without encountering Newton.

      Well, hard to not encounter anyone who has a King Kong sized statue in his old college's chapel.

      I wonder whether the discovery of the Turing Machine, the machine that can be all machines, at the very same place might not be an equally impressive achievement.

      --
      Try Nuggets [mynuggets.net], out mobile search engine: answer your questions via SMS, across the UK.

  • This really should've been done within the first few posts..

    The Man Who Grasped the Heavens' Gravitas
    By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

    Published: October 8, 2004

    If Einstein is today's personification of scientific genius, he inherited that exalted role from none other than Isaac Newton, of whom it was said that this was "the greatest and the luckiest of mortals."

    In the tribute, credited to the 18th-century French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Newton (1642-1727) was deemed the greatest because he discovered th

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