Isaac+Newton

=Isaac Newton=

“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.”
Sir Isaac Newton lived from the year 1642 to 1727. During this period of time, he made several discoveries and findings which have changed the way we view the world of Physics, hence considered as one of the greatest physicists to have ever lived.



Newton made great contributions to the field of astronomy and laid the foundation for physics. He also published his discoveries in two books named - "Opticks" and "Principia".

Newton (N), the SI unit for force is named after him in recognition of his work on classical mechanics, which basically concerns the set of physical laws governing the motions of bodies.

Newton later also defined the **three Newton's laws of motion**.

Newton's First Law - A body is either at rest or moves with constant velocity when there is no net force. Newton's Second Law - The net external force on a body is equal to its mass times acceleration, **//F = ma//**, provided that mass is constant. Newton's Third Law - For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This interactive video will seek to let you understand better about these three Newton's laws of motion. media type="youtube" key="NWE_aGqfUDs?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

From 1670 to 1672, Newton made discoveries about optics.



He studied the refraction of light and discovered that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of several colours. He also discovered that a lens and another prism can recompose that very same multi-coloured spectrum back into white light.

It was with this knowledge which enabled Newton to construct the world's first reflecting telescope.



Newton was also the one who discovered Gravity.

When he was hit by an apple falling from an apple tree, he understood that there was a force which caused the apple to drop. And with this knowledge, Newton established the **Law of Universal Gravity**.

He discovered that gravity was an attractive force between two objects, and that the object with a greater mass exerted a greater force on the smaller object. Hence, the large mass of the Earth pulled the apple towards it rather than away from it.

Newton also realised that gravity was not just limited to Earth; and made discoveries about how the moon orbited around Earth due to the pull of Earth's gravity on the moon.