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The Contributions of Isaac Newton Essay

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Of all of the early scientists of the scientific revolution I am most impressed by Sir Isaac Newton. Newton is important because he contributed more to the development of science than any other person in history. Isaac Newton is remembered as the greatest scientific genius who ever lived. His discoveries about physics, light, and mathematics changed the world. I am even more impressed by what he overcame to reach his goals. He came to surpass even his own expectations. I am more impressed with the man than with the discoveries. So many people in history are viewed as larger than life, which can be dehumanizing. Newton was very much a human with very human emotions. Isaac Newton came from a family of …show more content…

Isaac was allowed to return to the Free Grammar School to complete his education. From there he went to Trinity College Cambridge in 1661. He was older than most of the other students. Despite the fact that his mother was very well off he was entered as a sizar, a student who receives and allowance toward college expenses for acting as a servant to another student. Isaac's goal at Cambridge was a law degree. Education at Cambridge was dominated by the philosophy of Aristotle. He also studied the philosophy of Gassendi, Hobbes, Descartes, and Boyle. He was attracted to the mechanics of Coperican astronomy of Galileo. He also studied Keeper's Optics. Isaac wrote his thoughts in a journal which he called Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae (Certain Philosophical Questions). It is an account of how Newton's brilliant ideas were already forming. The text was headed with a Latin statement which read "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth" presenting himself as a free thinker from an early age. In 1663, Isaac's awareness in mathematics began when he bought a book at a fair in Cambridge and found that he could not understand the mathematics in it. Attempting to read a trigonometry book, he found that he lacked the knowledge of geometry and so decided to read Euclid's Elements. Isaac Newton was elected a

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