Newton Day (04/01)





Isaac Newton (1643—1727) — internationally recognized genius — personality, to whom today's holiday is dedicated — Newton Day. Newton's life from birth to his deathbed was more filled with accidents and coincidences that led to patterns and logical discoveries. Scientists around the world still use the Newton-Leibniz theorem, Newton's law of viscosity, Newton's first, second and third laws, the Newton binomial, Newton's interpolation formulas, not to mention Newton's literally legendary law of universal gravitation.

By the way, it is interesting that the story about an apple falling from a tree, which led Newton to think about the free fall of bodies, is considered true. S.I. Vavilov in his biography «Isaac Newton» quotes the words of one of Newton’s close acquaintances, Stackley:

«After lunch (in London, near Newton) the weather was hot; we went into the garden and drank tea under the shadow of several apple trees; there were only the two of us. By the way, Sir Isaac told me that he was in exactly the same environment when the thought of gravity first occurred to him. It was caused by the fall of an apple while it was sitting, immersed in thoughts. Why does an apple always fall vertically, he thought to himself, why not to the side, but always to the center of the Earth. There must be an attractive force in matter concentrated at the center of the Earth. If matter pulls another matter so much, then there must be proportionality to its quantity. Therefore, the apple attracts the Earth in the same way as the Earth attracts the apple. There must, therefore, be a force like the one we call heaviness, extending throughout the Universe».

Although many of the patterns and theories developed by Newton have been significantly supplemented over the past three centuries, scientists, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students of the natural sciences, simply lovers of scientific knowledge and experimentation, celebrate Newton's Day every year on January 4 — on the birthday of the great Englishman.

One of the places visited on Newton's Day is the scientist's grave at Westminster Abbey in London. The inscription on the grave monument concentrated only some aspects of the scientist’s activities, but these words are enough to understand the depth of his greatness:

«Here lies Sir Isaac Newton, a nobleman who, with an almost divine mind, was the first to prove with the torch of mathematics the movement of the planets, the paths of comets and the tides of the oceans. He studied the difference in light rays and the various properties of colors that appear, which no one had previously suspected. A diligent, wise and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity and St. Scripture, he affirmed with his philosophy the greatness of the almighty God, and with his disposition expressed gospel simplicity. Let mortals rejoice that there was such a decoration of the human race...».

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