Sir Isaac Newton 

      Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was one of the greatest Philosophers, Mathematicians, and Scientists (along with many other things) ever to live.  He was born in the same year the famous astronomer, Galileo Galalei, died, and followed him in studying motion.  He is remembered for the discovery of the principles of gravity, which are well known for being discovered while sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell to the ground beside him.  He was knighted in 1705, and when he died in 1727 from bladder stones, he became the first scientist to get buried in Westminster Abbey.

Physics

      One of Newton's most well known discoveries is his Law of Gravity.  His law says that every physical object has a certain amount of pull, and the amount depends on the mass of the object.  The mass is the amount of matter that an object possesses. 

      This applies to the moon in that the earth's pull is stronger than the moon's, and because of this, the moon is stuck in orbit.  The apple fell because the earth's gravity pulled the apple down from the tree, the earth having obvious superiority in size.

Newton's Three Laws of Motion

     Recording the three laws of motion was probably one of Newton's greatest accomplishments.  These three laws have not been proven wrong to this day, and apply to most everything in the universe.  The three laws are as follows:

   1.  An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted upon by and outside force.  This basically means that something moving will continue to move unless it is stopped by something.  Why then, does a ball not move endlessly when thrown, since there is no force acting upon it?  The answer is that there is something stopping it: the air.  So in outer space, a ball would continue to move forward as long as its path remained clear, since there is no air in space. 

   2.  Force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma). This is a simple equation to figure out the force (F) of an object.  Just multiply the mass (m) by the acceleration (a), to get the force.  This is just a simplified version of this law.

   3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is possibly the most famous of the three and goes with the other two laws.  For example, when you kick a soccer ball, the action is the kick, and the reaction is the ball being propelled forward.

Mathematics

      Newton made many advances in concepts of math.  He helped to create calculus, an advanced branch of mathematics that is used to solve problems that algebra cannot solve alone.  Newton is famous for having started the concept of calculus, although he called it "The science of fluxions". 

      However, there was a dispute between Newton and another mathematician named Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. When Leibniz released studies of calculus to the public, Newton claimed to have developed his idea first, and simply had not released his discoveries yet.  Newton also said that Leibniz had stolen the information from Newton's secret notes, which had been shared only with a few privileged individuals one of whom had been Leibniz.  They never really came to an agreement.  When people looked at the situation today, they discovered that Newton and Leibniz had developed the concept almost simultaneously, and had just presented it from two different views.

Resources

Newton's Three Laws of Motion. http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html. 8/25/07.

Isaac Newton.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Isaac_Newton. 8/25/07.

Sir Isaac Newton, Scientist. http://www.answers.com/topic/sir-isaac-newton?cat=technology. 8/25/07.

Galileo Galilei. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei. 8/25/07.

Isaac Newton. www.dkimages.com/.../Scientists-36.html.8/30/07.

KAF Sky Gazer. www.astronomi-kaf.se/pages/Spanaren_Eng.html. 8/30/07.

Bower, Bert and Lobdell, Jim. History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond. Student Edition. Palo Alto, California, Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2005.