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Sir Isaac Newton's Role in the Enlightenment Essay

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Isaac Newton had a huge impact on the Enlightenment, he influenced it scientifically in many ways and he influenced faith and reason in a tremendous way. He was known more for his scientific achievements then his religious works.His background and education affected when he made these great achievements. Isaac Newton born on December 25,1642 in Woolsthorpe, England grew up, he was the most important physicist and mathematician of all time.1 Newton attended Cambridge where he studied mathematics. Although he was considered a genious he was also considered an eccentric who was unsociable, vindictive, absent-minded and paranoid, he was considered to have a mid-life mental illness caused by the death of his mother.2Newton was very modest …show more content…

Copernicus Kepler, and Galileo provided the data and the background information and mathematical knowledge to aid Newton in finding and advancing science.9 Before Newton talked about gravitation the main knowledge of scientists was a elementary knowledge of optics, mechanics and astronomy.Copernicus Kepler and Galileo provided the background knowledge of the stars and planets, but Newton used their data to discover the whole gravitational system.10Newton reasoned that the planets and all other physical objects in the universe moved through mutual attraction of gravity.Newton said that every other object in the universe affected every other object through gravity.This explained why the planets move in an orderly fashion. Newton found that “the force of gravity towards the whole planet did arise from and was compounded of the forces of gravity towards all it’s parts, and towards every one part was in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances from this part.”Newton proves all of this mathematically. This was known to be the single most important contribution to physics that ever has been made.11 Newton and optics, in 1968 Newton made the first reflecting telescope, following the reflecting telescope in 1971 he discovered the spectrum, he finalized all his discoveries of optics in 1776.He wrote books on these discoveries defining optics,

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