Table Of Content
Isaac Newton
And the Scientific Revolution
Owen Gingerich
General Editor
Isaac Newton
And the Scientific Revolution
Gale E. Christianson
Oxford University Press
New York • Oxford
To Ms. Rhonda and Miss Lilly—miladies
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1996 by Gale E. Christianson
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
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Design: Design Oasis
Layout: Loraine Machlin
Picture research: Lisa Kirchner
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Christiansen, Gale E.
Isaac Newton and the scientific revolution / Gale E. Christianson.
p. cm. — (Oxford portraits in science)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-509224-4
1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642-1727—Biography—-Juvenile literature.
2. Physics—History—-Juvenile literature.
3. Science—History—-Juvenile literature.
4. Physicists—Great Britain—Biography—-Juvenile literature.
[1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642-1727. 2. Physicists.]
I. Tide. II. Series.
QC16.N7C52 1996
530.'092—dc20 96-13179
CIP
987654321
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Frontispiece: An 18th-century engraving celebrating Newton's life.
On the coven A portrait of Newton done in 1689 by Godfrey Kneller. Inset: Newton
in 1703.
Contents
Chapter I. "To Play Philosophically" 8
Chapter 2. "My Greater Friend" 20
Chapter 3. Of Genius, Fire, and Plague 34
Chapter 4. The Revolutionary Professor 45
Chapter 5. "Kindling Coal" 54
Chapter 6. The Alchemist 66
Chapter 7. "A Book Nobody Understands" 77
Chapter 8. "Your Most Unfortunate Servant" 92
Chapter9. Mark of the Lion 102
Chapter 10. The Royal Society 117
Chapter I I. War 126
Chapter 12. "Like a Boy on the Seashore" 139
Chronology 147
Further Reading 149
Index 153
Charles Babbage
Alexander Graham Bell
Nicolaus copernicus
Francis Crick
& James Watson
Marie Curie
Enrico Fermi
Thomas Edison
Albert Einstein
michael Faraday
Enrico Fermi
Benjamin Franklin
Sigmund Freud
Galileo Galilei
William Harvey
Joseph Henry
Edward Jenner
Johannes Kepler
Othniel Charles Marsh
& Edward Drinker Cope
Margaret Mead
Gregor Mendel
Isaac Newton
Louis Pasteur
Linus Pauling
Ivan Pavlov
Ernest Rutherford
Fortunate Newton, happy childhood of science!
Nature to him was an open book, whose letters
he could read without effort.
Albert Einstein
Isaac Newton
CHAPTER
1
"To Play
Philosophically"
At a little before ten o'clock the drum roll began, first dis-
tant and then ever louder as the thousands that were gather-
ing to see a king die wound their way through the choked
streets of London to the palace of Whitehall. It was January
30, 1649. The weather was exceedingly cold, the sky gray
with scattered patches of sunshine, the frost so sharp that
great chunks of ice floating in the river Thames clogged the
arches of London Bridge.
The previous day 59 judges had signed the death war-
rant of King Charles I, many of them badgered and bullied
by the rebel leader Oliver Cromwell, who was about to
assume the title of Lord Protector and rule as a king in
everything but name. It was Cromwell and his
Roundheads, who cut their hair short in defiance of the
wigged nobility and practiced the Puritan religion, who
most wanted the king to die. They had fought Charles and
his supporters, many of whom were sympathetic to the
outlawed Catholic religion, ever since 1642, when civil war
erupted in the north of England and spread across the land.
8
"To Play Philosophically"
Now the leader of the defeated
forces had to pay.
Fearing that the cold would
cause him to shiver and give his
enemies the false impression that
he was afraid, Charles donned
two sets of underclothes before
putting on his best suit. Flanked
by the Bishop of London and his
personal attendant, Herbert, the
king stepped out of the palace of
St. James and headed through the
surrounding park toward White-
hall and the scaffold, whose con-
struction the night before had dis-
turbed his sleep. He walked so fast
between the double line of sol-
diers guarding the way that his
escorts could barely keep pace.
Once at Whitehall he ate a little bread and drank some King Charles I was
wine. beheaded in 1649 after
At two o'clock there was a break in the clouds. The his forces were defeated
by those of Oliver
crowd, which was kept at a distance by several rows of sol-
Cromwell in a bloody civil
diers, could just make out figures passing rapidly behind the
war that raged across
windows of the banquet hall. Suddenly the king emerged
England for seven years.
by stepping through a long window and onto the scaffold.
He knelt down and laid his head upon the wooden block.
The masked executioner tucked the long royal hair beneath
a cap, then stepped back while the prisoner spent a
few minutes in prayer. When he was finished, the king
stretched out his arms to signal that he was ready to meet
his God, and the ax descended in a swift arc. The assistant
executioner lifted the severed head for all to see and
exclaimed, "Behold, the head of a traitor!"
9
