ASSIGNMENT

HISTORY OF SCIENCE
SUBMITTED TO SIR IMRAN KAMYANA

ROLL NO BSSC-20-11

DEPARTMENT CHEMISTRY

SEMESTER 4th

SESSION 2020-2024

DATED 16-11-22
ROLE OF SCIENTISTS IN THE FIELD OF PHYSICS
ISAAC NEWTON
Sir Isaac Newton was born on 4th January 1643 in a small village of England called Woolsthorpe-by-
Colsterworth. He was an English physicist and mathematician, and one of the important thinkers in the
Scientific Revolution.

➢ One of the greatest physicists and mathematicians of all

time, Isaac Newton’s discoveries and inventions widened
the reaches of human thought and demonstrated the
power of the scientific way of thinking.
➢ This thought offers a rare insight into the workings of great minds like Newton. An inherent curiosity
about the world, an appreciation of beauty, the excitement of exploring a mystery and a relentless
pursuit of truth are the prime driving forces of a creative mind.

➢ One of the greatest scientists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries led to a deeper
understanding of nature and gave physics (known as Natural Philosophy in his time) a firm physical
and mathematical foundation.
Most Famous Discoveries
▪ Newton’s three laws of motion set the foundation for
modern classical mechanics.

▪ His discovery of the gravitational force gave man the ability

to predict movements of celestial objects, while
simultaneously validating Kepler’s laws and the heliocentric
Copernican model of the solar system.

▪ His co-discovery of calculus provided a potent mathematical

tool, aiding the precise analytical treatment of the physical
world.
Newton’s Discoveries in Theoretical Physics
Newton’s Magnum Opus – The Principia
Sir Isaac Newton contributed to many branches of human thought, among which physics and
mathematics were the fields in which he contributed substantially. In 1687, the sum total of his
discoveries in mechanics were published in the legendary book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica (Latin for Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).

In this book, (fondly referred to as the Principia by scientists), he synthesized what was known, into a
logically whole and consistent theoretical framework, through his laws of motion and theory of
gravitation. Creating the great generalizations which bind all the loose threads of clues into a coherent
whole, is an art that has been mastered by only a few till date. Sir Isaac Newton was one of them.
The greatest of Newton’s discoveries came when he experienced pristine solitude, in which he could
meditate on his vague ideas and assimilate them together into a logically coherent whole. The principle
that guided Newton’s discoveries was simplicity. Like Newton, another theoretical physics giant, Albert
Einstein was also guided by simplicity and elegance in his thinking about physical laws. One of Newton’s
quotes, precisely proves the point;

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not

in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
The Laws of Motion
▪ First Law of Motion:
An object will continue moving (or staying still) unless acted upon by an
external force

▪ Second Law of Motion:

Force = Mass x Acceleration

F=ma
Newton’s second law of motion defines a ‘Force’

▪ Third Law of Motion:

When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body
simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in
direction to that of the first body.
Newton’s laws of motion defined the concept of inertia and force. They are stated as follows:

1. Every object stays in its state of rest or uniform motion, unless disturbed by an external force.
(Law of Inertia)

2. The force acting on a body is defined as the rate of change of its linear momentum, with time.
(Force Law)

3. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. (Action-Reaction Law)

❖ These laws define the effect that the absence or presence of a force has on objects. This troika
of axioms defined the framework of mechanics, through which the dynamics of forces and their
effects can be analyzed. With these laws, physics made the transition from an empirical field to a
science with sound theoretical foundations.
Discovery of the Law of Gravitation
A falling apple supposedly made Newton think about the ‘Gravity’ of
the situation! (though this may just be a myth started to make his
discovery a better story)

While the three laws of motion define a type of mechanics, Newton’s

law of gravitation defines the universal force of gravity, whose
implications can be studied in the mechanical framework that he
created through the laws of motion. The Newton’s law of universal
gravitation states that:

Every particle of matter attracts every other particle with a force along the
straight line joining them and is directly proportional to their masses, while
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
The Law of Gravitation
❑ Using this law and making extrapolations based on it, Newton derived Kepler’s empirical laws of
planetary motion, which naturally emerged from his gravitational theory. Many people may have
observed apples and all kinds of other things falling down, before Newton, but none of them followed
the broad generalization that it represented. Even moon falls towards the Earth and Earth towards the
Sun, in the same way! That is what Newton figured out. For the first time, man could understand the
motion of planets and satellites and give it a rational explanation.

❑ Newton validated Kepler’s laws and the heliocentric model of the solar system

❑ A paradigm shift brought about by Newton’s law of gravitation was the concept of action at a
distance. A gravitational force acts between two particles even though they are not in contact with
each other. That is, it manifests as an action at a distance. This concept proved to be the undoing of
Newton’s theory later and which was overthrown by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.

❑ Even though now superseded by general relativity, Newton’s idea of gravitation serves well in
understanding the motion of planets and stars to incredible accuracy.
Discoveries in Optics
Inquiry into the nature of light – Optics
➢ Newton was fascinated with the field of optics and not surprisingly, made some major discoveries. His
prime focus was unraveling the nature of light and its properties. Using prisms and lenses, he studied
the refraction and diffraction of light. Here are some of his most important findings.

➢ He discovered white light to be composed of component color wavelengths. He demonstrated this

with the use of a prism which dispersed a beam of white light into wavelengths of different hues. It’s
the same effect which leads to the formation of rainbows in the sky. Through this finding, he
overturned the prevalent notion since Aristotelian times which stated that light was inherently white
and colorless.

➢ One of the fundamental problems which Newton explored was – ‘How do various colors arise?’. His
experiments revealed that color arose from reflection and transmission of light and primarily from
selective absorption of light by materials. From observation of the different angles at which individual
wavelengths of light dispersed from a prism, he concluded that color arises from a fundamental
property of light itself, though revealed only through interaction with matter.
➢ A major discovery was the fact that most colors are created from
overlapping of certain color components. He also stated the fact
which most neuroscientists will agree with today, that human
perception of color is essentially a mental phenomenon or subjective
experience.

➢ He predicted the dispersion and aberration of light in telescopes and

suggested remedies to correct the same. In the process, he invented
a new kind of telescope. Newton promoted the concept of a universal
ether through which light propagates. This was later proved wrong by
experimental tests of the special theory of relativity.

➢ Newton showed white light to be made of component colors.

➢ He also put forward the theory that light is made up of corpuscles,

which was later proved wrong by Huygens’ wave theory of light.
However, the idea got a sort of new life when Einstein introduced
light to be made of photons which are energy corpuscles. However,
photons are far different from the corpuscles that Newton imagined.
Nevertheless, he provided the impetus to new lines of thought.
Newton’s Law of Cooling
Among his other stellar discoveries, Newton also came up with an empirical theory
explaining the rate at which your hot cup of coffee cools. The law discovered by him states
that the rate of cooling in a body is directly proportional to temperature difference between
the body and its surroundings. Mathematically, it can be stated as follows:

dT/dt = – K (T – Ts)

where, T is temperature of the body, K is a constant, dT/dt is a time derivative representing

change of temperature and Ts is the temperature of surroundings. (The derivative is
‘negative’ as the body is cooling).
Newton’s Inventions
Newton wasn’t just an abstract theoretician, but also a practical experimenter, as his
research in optics reveals. Here are some of his widely and lesser known inventions,
besides his lofty theoretical physics triumphs.

Most Famous Inventions

1. One of Isaac Newton’s inventions is the reflecting telescope, which was his entry card
into the premier Royal Society of London.

2. The perfect coin

Reflecting Telescope

Newton’s Reflecting Telescope

During his investigation in optics, Newton also developed an alternative
telescope design, which side-stepped some of the inherent flaws of the
prevalent refraction-based design. What is now known as the Newtonian
telescope is designed with a paraboloid mirror at the base which reflects the
incoming light onto a slanted flat secondary mirror. This flat mirror ultimately
reflects the collected light to an eyepiece for observation. Besides solving the
problem of chromatic aberration – the bane of refracting telescopes, it is also
comparatively cheaper to build.