Abstract
The lives of two men spanned the time from medieval superstition to the birth of modern science: Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. The stage was set for these two remarkable men by Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543), a Polish astronomer and mathematician (Figure 113). Copernicus overturned the well-entrenched astronomical system of Ptolemy that maintained Earth was at the center of the universe, with the Sun, planets, and stars revolving around Earth. In his 1543 publication, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Copernicus said the Sun was at the center, that Earth rotated on its axis, and claimed Earth and other heavenly bodies revolve around the Sun, following circular paths. The only problem: almost no one listened to Copernicus.
In the preceding books I have laid down the principles of philosophy; principles not philosophical but mathematical...
Isaac Newton, Principia1
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Endnote
Newton’s date of birth was December 25, 1642, according to the Julian calendar then in use. Today, in the Gregorian calendar, it would be January 4, 1643.
Jane Muir, Of Men and Numbers (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1961), p. 105.
Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 53.
Ibid., p. 55.
Muir, Of Men and Numbers, p. 106.
Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 60.
Ibid., p. 78.
Ibid., p. 181.
Ibid., p. 211.
George F. Simmons, Calculus Gems (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992), p. 134.
Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 290.
Ibid., p. 292.
This anagram works if we map the j from Jeova onto an i in Isaacus, and the v in Jeova onto a u.
Newton’s decoded anagram yields a statement in Latin. The English translation is, “given an equation involving any number of fluent quantities to find the fluxions, and visa versa.” Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 265.
Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 365.
Ibid., p. 595.
Carl B. Boyer, A History of Mathematics (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1991), p. 400.
Simmons, Calculus Gems, p. 148.
Ibid., p. 136.
Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 863.
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© 1999 Calvin C. Clawson
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Clawson, C.C. (1999). Isaac Newton (1642–1727). In: Mathematical Sorcery. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6433-5_10
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