Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRSwas an English physicist and mathematicianwho is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for the development of calculus...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth4 January 1643
CityWoolsthorpe, England
assigned cause force heavens phenomena
I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity.
absolute determine dimension immovable nature position regard relative remains senses similar taken
Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces, which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space.
furnish hypotheses properties unless
Hypotheses should be subservient only in explaining the properties of things but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.
anyone appear certain hypotheses mere offers science since supply truth
If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.
divine introduce nor opinions preserved religion
Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.
author enlighten heat qualified sufficient system warm
Why there is one body in our System qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason but because the Author of the System thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.
dominion fancy god imagine relative respect word
'God' is a relative word and has a respect to servants, and 'Deity' is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants.
analogy certainly dreams evidence fictions nature nor recede relinquish sake vain
We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself.
business foreigners less love people printed teased time
I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king's business.
found method reducing rule series
In the beginning of the year 1665, I found the method of approximating series and the rule for reducing any dignity of any binomial into such a series.
bodies commonly impulse nor relatively taken truly
Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion, but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.
accurately considered manual mechanics practical proceeds respect took
The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name.
heavens hypothesis innate power reconcile spread
The hypothesis of matter's being at first evenly spread through the heavens is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and therefore, it infers a deity.
center estimated motion regard single state system takes whether
The same law takes place in a system, consisting of many bodies, as in one single body, with regard to their persevering in their state of motion or of rest. For the progressive motion, whether of one single body or of a whole system of bodies, is always to be estimated from the motion of the center of gravity.