A hero for their times: early biographies of Newton

You have accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Osler Margaret J 2006A hero for their times: early biographies of NewtonNotes Rec. R. Soc.60291–305http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0156SectionYou have accessEssay reviewA hero for their times: early biographies of Newton Margaret J Osler Margaret J Osler [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Margaret J Osler Margaret J Osler [email protected] Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:08 September 2006https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0156Though biography be no longer an act of worship, it is not yet a solemn and impartial judgment: we are in the intermediate stage, in which advocacy is the aim, and in which the biographer, when a thought more candid than usual [arises], avows that he is to do his best for his client.Augustus De Morgan1Biography is a difficult genre for historians. The evidence has been sifted and selected at every stage. The subject of the biography selects which of his or her documents are to be passed along to posterity. The first biographers sift through the subject's literary remains, deciding what is important and what can or should be ignored. And later biographers must sort through these earlier selections to understand what presuppositions informed them. In the end, assumptions, values and presumptions riddle the entire enterprise.2 There is no getting away from admiration, denunciation or judgement.Biographies of Isaac Newton (1642–1727) illustrate the general rule in exemplary fashion. Newton's stature in the history of science is heroic. He was proclaimed a hero and a genius in his lifetime.3 His earliest biographers and his literary executor sought to preserve that image untarnished, including the notion that the hero should be as distinguished in morals and character as he was in mathematics and physics. As new sources emerged, Newton's biographers struggled to deal with a series of revelations about episodes that seemed to cast shadows on his character. That is the theme of the materials published in these two volumes of early biographies.The story of Newton's manuscripts is the key to all that followed. Newton died intestate. At the time of his death, his papers and manuscripts went to Catherine Barton Conduitt, Newton's niece, who had married John Conduitt, one of his earliest biographers, for safekeeping. Dr Thomas Pellet FRS and a number of other individuals close to Newton examined the papers to determine which ones were suitable for publication. Other than The chronology of ancient kingdoms, which was published immediately, Pellet labelled the bulk of the manuscripts—particularly those on alchemy and those revealing Newton's heretical theology—‘Not fit to be printed’. They ultimately passed to the descendents of Catherine Conduitt, where they languished for almost 200 years. Her grandson became the Earl of Portsmouth.4 Eventually the family gave the scientific papers to the University of Cambridge, where they are now known as the Porstmouth Collection. The family sold the remaining papers—those ‘not fit for publication’, including most of Newton's theological and alchemical manuscripts—in 1936 in an auction handled by Sotheby's in London. Although the papers were widely dispersed as a result of that sale, John Maynard Keynes managed to retrieve about one-third to one-half of them, and he left them to the library of King's College Cambridge.5 Consequently, it was only after the middle of the twentieth century that scholars had access to the full range of Newton's thought.6 At the present time, Rob Iliffe and Scott Mandelbrote are directing a team of scholars who are publishing all of Newton's theological and alchemical manuscripts.7 Increasing knowledge of the manuscripts since Newton's death has challenged his biographers as their assumptions about the nature of science, genius, and heroism have collided with the intricacies of Newton's own preoccupations.Newton's lifeThe outlines of Newton's life are well known. He was born on Christmas day, 1642, in the village of Colsterworth in Lincolnshire. Newton's father died three months before Isaac was born. Legend has it that ‘when he was born he was so little they could put him into a quart pot.’8 When Newton was three years old, his mother married Barnabus Smith, the rector in a neighbouring village. Newton went to school in the nearby town of Grantham when he was 12 years old, remaining there until he went to Cambridge in 1661. Many anecdotes about his years at Grantham describe his solitary nature and his remarkable skill at constructing mechanical devices.9Although Newton studied the prescribed Aristotelian curriculum at Trinity College, Cambridge, his interests turned to the new natural philosophy. In a notebook preserved from his undergraduate days, Newton kept notes from his readings in the required texts. Significantly, no set of these notes is complete. In the middle of the notebook he started a new section with the title ‘Questiones quaedam Philosophicae’ (‘Certain Philosophical Questions’).10 Probably begun in 1664, this notebook reveals Newton's acquaintance with the major writings of the new philosophy, those of René Descartes, Walter Charleton, Galileo, Robert Boyle, Thomas Hobbes, Kenelm Digby, Joseph Glanvill, Henry More and others. Organized by topics, the entries in the notebook contain both reading notes and questions about the claims of the natural philosophers whose works he had read. In many cases he designed thought experiments to test their claims. The notebook covers a wide range of topics, many of which would occupy Newton for the rest of his life.11Newton reported that during his undergraduate years at Cambridge, he bought a book on judicial astrology, desiring to know whether there was anything of value in that subject. He realized that to understand astrology, he needed to know mathematics. He quickly read Euclid's Elements, initially finding it trivial, and then turned to Descartes' Geometry. He found Descartes challenging and returned to Euclid, whose work he mastered, before once again tackling Descartes' mathematics. He concentrated on mathematics almost completely during the year and a half ending in 1666, during which time he developed the beginnings of his theory of fluxions as he addressed the problem of generating curves by means of motion.12When the plague arrived in Cambridge in 1665, the university closed, and Newton returned to his now twice-widowed mother's farm in Lincolnshire. During the 18 months he spent there—known as his Annus mirabilis—he developed most of the major ideas in natural philosophy that he pursued for the rest of his life. It was during this period that he was supposedly inspired by a falling apple to consider problems of impact and orbital motion. He proposed that gravitational attraction is the result of a force of mutual attraction that varies inversely as the square of the distance between two bodies. He based his proof on Christiaan Huygens's (1629–95) analysis of circular motion and Johann Kepler's (1571–1630) laws of planetary motion. He attempted to test his theory by considering the motion of the moon but was stymied by inaccurate data. He took up the theory of colours, first addressed in ‘Questiones quaedam Philosophicae’.13 After returning to Cambridge in 1667, Newton was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College, guaranteeing him a permanent position at the university. In 1669, Newton's mentor, Isaac Barrow (1630–77), resigned from the Lucasian Chair, to which Newton was then appointed. The statutes governing the Chair required that the Lucasian Professor lecture on some mathematical subject during the three academic terms. Newton pursued his studies in natural philosophy, mathematics, optics, theology, and alchemy and chymistry14 intensely and by all accounts led a rather solitary life:Thinking all Hours lost, yt was not spent in his Studyes, to wch he kept so close, yt he seldom left his Chamber unless at Term Time, when he read in ye Schools, as being Lucasianus Professor, where so few went to hear Him, & fewer yt understood him, yt oftimes he did in a manner, for want of Hearers, read to ye Walls.15He published his study of colours in the first paper he sent to the Royal Society in 1671/2. The paper, which challenged the traditional understanding of colours, provoked serious criticisms by a wide range of thinkers, including traditional Aristotelians such as Francis Linus (1595–1675) and Ignace Gaston Pardies (1636–73) on the one hand, and major advocates of the new philosophy such as Robert Hooke (1635–1703) on the other. Newton despised controversy and retreated from the public after this episode.In August 1684 the young Edmund Halley (1656–1742) visited Newton in Cambridge. The mathematician Abraham De Moivre (1667–1754?) reported Newton's account of the visit:In 1684 Dr Halley came to visit him at Cambridge, after they had been some time together, the Dr asked him what he thought the Curve would be described by the Planets supposing the force of attraction towards the Sun to be reciprocal to the square of their distance from it. Sr Isaac replied immediately that it would be an Ellipsis, the Doctor struck with joy & amazement asked him how he knew it, why saith he I have calculated it, whereupon Dr Halley asked him for his calculation without any further delay, Sr Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it, but he promised him to renew it, & then to send it to him.16Fulfilling that promise led Newton to write his magnum opus, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), a task that took him a mere 18 months.Newton held the Lucasian Chair until he became Master of the Mint in 1696, at which time he moved to London. After Hooke's death in 1703, Newton was elected President of the Royal Society, a position he held until his death. In 1704, he published his other great book in natural philosophy, Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. He probably delayed publishing this book, which contains the results of research mostly done during the 1670s, until Hooke died, wishing to avoid further controversy. He was knighted in 1705.17 He died on 19 March 1727 of what was thought to be the stone.Newton's achievementsNewton's reputation rests on his accomplishments in three areas: physics, mathematics and optics.18 In each of these areas he formulated new concepts, solved outstanding problems and pushed the discipline into previously uncharted waters. The Principia and the Opticks combined mark Newton as the culmination of a century and a half of developments in physics, astronomy and optics.Copernican astronomy, which had removed the Earth from the centre of the cosmos and set it into motion, produced a cascade of fundamental changes in natural philosophy. Aristotelian natural philosophy depended on a geocentric and geostatic cosmology. The Earth was at the centre of the cosmos. All the planets, as well as the Sun and the Moon, moved in circular orbits, embedded in spheres, all of which had the Earth as their centre. The sphere of the Moon's orbit formed the boundary between the terrestrial and celestial regions, which contained different kinds of matter and were characterized by different kinds of motion. Matter in the terrestrial region consisted of the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. All terrestrial bodies were composed of combinations of these four elements, which endowed them with their particular qualities. Terrestrial bodies underwent qualitative change, such as growth and decay. All terrestrial bodies were characterized by their natural motions, either towards the centre, for naturally heavy bodies like earth, or towards the circumference, for naturally light bodies like fire. Bodies in the celestial region consisted of another kind of matter, quintessence, which could not undergo qualitative change. All natural motions in the heavens were uniformly circular, around the centre of the cosmos, which coincided with the centre of the Earth. Thus, the Copernican challenge to geocentrism in astronomy challenged Aristotle's theory of motion, his theory of matter, and ultimately the metaphysics that underpinned all of these theories. In addition to introducing major changes into mathematical astronomy, the Copernican theory exacerbated the need for a new philosophy of nature and a new physics.Following Copernicus, Kepler demonstrated that the orbits of the planets are elliptical. Galileo's new science, based on an inertial definition of motion, answered the traditional objections to the Earth's motion and accounted for the motions of bodies on the Earth's surface. These developments raised two fundamental questions that remained unanswered through the seventeenth century: What holds the planets in their orbits? And is there a physics that can account for both the motions of the heavenly bodies and the motions of bodies on Earth?Newton's theory of universal gravitation provided a powerful answer to both of these questions. In the Principia he demonstrated that the planets obeying Kepler's laws are attracted to the Sun by a force inversely proportional to the square of their distance from the Sun. Using his new concept of gravitational force, he provided explanations for several hitherto unexplained phenomena: the ebb and flow of the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, the motions of comets, and the variations of lunar motions. He extrapolated from the case of the Solar System to the universe at large, arguing that every body in the universe attracts every other body by such a force. This theory gave future generations of physicists a powerful method for solving problems in physics and cosmology.Newton's accomplishments in physics depended on his invention of the calculus, what he called his ‘method of fluxions’. He achieved his major mathematical insights during his Annus mirabilis, but did not publish them at the time. His method of fluxions had a critical role in the demonstrations of propositions in the Principia, although he disguised the new methods behind a veil of Euclidean geometry. Among other things, his theory of fluxions enabled him to derive the forces causing orbital motion and to calculate the areas called for by Kepler's second law.The Opticks contains the results of Newton's experimental studies of light, most of which he accomplished in the 1670s. His most famous result is his reconceptualization of the nature of colours and white light. In a tradition going back to Aristotle, colours had been considered to be caused by modifications of white light. Seventeenth-century natural philosophers such as the Jesuit Francesco Maria Grimaldi, and the mechanical philosophers, Descartes, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke, continued to assume that white light was fundamental, although their explanations of the production of colours were couched in terms of the new philosophy. Newton's famous experiments with prisms led him to turn this understanding of colours inside out. He demonstrated that white light is, in fact, composed of rays of spectral colours and that these rays cannot be modified by passing them through prisms. The rays of each colour possess characteristic degrees of ‘refrangibility’, the angle to which they are refracted when passed through a prism. Using a converging lens, he produced white light by causing all the coloured rays to converge into a single ray. In addition to redefining colour, Newton addressed the so-called ‘Newton's rings’ produced by thin films. He carefully measured and analyzed this phenomenon and developed a theory of vibrations in the interparticulate aether to explain it.Later editions of the Opticks contained a series of ‘Queries’, or speculative essays, in which he attempted to explain various phenomena that had resisted explanation in terms of the orthodox mechanical philosophy that natural philosophers had adopted to replace Aristotelianism. He postulated the existence of attractive and repulsive forces acting between the small particles composing macroscopic bodies. He also addressed some theological questions that he thought could be resolved with the use of natural philosophy.The Principia and the Opticks became models for the sciences in the generations that followed. Eighteenth-century mathematical physics and the experimental sciences modeled themselves on these books. They formed the foundation on which Newton's heroic reputation was built.Newton became the model for what the scientist should be. However, unknown to most of his contemporaries, he also devoted himself to theology and alchemy, leaving about a million words in manuscript in each of these areas. His anti-Trinitarianism and his alchemical pursuits remained largely undocumented before the Sotheby sale in 1936. In addition to his heterodoxy, several unpleasant episodes cast shadows on his character. During the first decade of the eighteenth century, Newton kept asking John Flamsteed (1646–1719), the Astronomer Royal, for sight of his star catalogue—the results of his careful observations based on new instruments and techniques—that Newton needed to correct his own lunar Flamsteed kept to publish the Newton his as President of the Royal Society to an from the to which he then to his own and The between the two was The second that his image was his with about the invention of the The was a he in and some of his that he had his to have an with Catherine his who with him for many in for his position at the of these episodes were unknown during his into the light of his image and challenged the assumptions of both biographers and about the nature of this scientific genius and the nature of science Newton's two volumes biographies of Newton for the The first contains the materials from the eighteenth century, mostly in that formed the of all The second contains selections from several along with of the two volumes reveals the of Newton the hero and genius and the to that image as more of his manuscripts became known. Although these volumes the story only into the century, the of in the of evidence to this after Newton died, a and who had in Grantham in the few remaining who had known Newton as a He also into Newton's the claims of some that Newton was an that Newton was a of the of He that Newton was and the from Newton's for many years in Cambridge, that he had Newton only of asking a to he had to what he had in that author & how he he answered by desiring to know what use & in life that study would be to which was several to John and who had a of His work was published in from were published in in the eighteenth The writings of both and became the sources on which later biographers before the and Keynes became to of by John and Catherine and her The in the in in new from of of John and Catherine with Isaac Newton's on the in new of apple from of Isaac Newton's the Royal in new account of Newton's early life is an for understanding the of his have known that the so called are the for his life and his after in of of biographies of Newton of various of and to it, manuscript of which has not previously been of the manuscripts of also find a in this addition to these fundamental the contains of manuscript that John Flamsteed about the by and accounts of Newton's life by and the these works in with the manuscripts by and the between Newton's reputation in and on as well as the and by some of his a image of Newton's genius, his remarkable in he described in some the of Newton's is the that the genius of After on Newton's and at Cambridge, he that Newton of this was year He at that time himself in & that he his & in his did the of Newton's at every to sources to Newton on a His account was in by of the who for his of Newton as a scientific genius, the in the with and that both his life and work were of that he was a of the of and that he was of He described Newton's early that he had the foundation for all of his before he was years old, & most of them in & to the Royal He that at the university of a by the Royal in new the of his time in his & when he was with his studies of his only & was going to some other study as & all wch he examined and as by the many papers he as left on those described him as a & of that a story would from a book published the year after Newton's death, who had the Lucasian Chair in Cambridge after Newton's to challenged the image of Newton as a He that in his writings Newton had his a that and second contains several biographies of including those by De and The the well as of several biographies of the materials for biographies of the questions. can be read as important sources the of a critical to the history of science and to scientific by & the Royal in new to during the first half of the century, some of the sources that raised questions about Newton's and came to light, to a more critical to the history of science and the nature of scientific of sources was to the the biographers their own assumptions to on their accounts of Newton's first full biography of Newton was of Isaac Newton a and a was to the image of Newton as the of whose science the existence of the and whose he could be as a hero and of This first of works heroic of Newton as a of science, his scientific to his and of of family access to the Among the manuscripts he found most proof that was an that has his can the this in he continued to that the manuscripts only to his found that Newton's to alchemy, so in the which contain about words on the was completely to between alchemy, in and in from what he considered the by Newton and his Robert Boyle and John to test the claims of the In the end, he was to contain his so as Newton's were to the and of and to the of the universal we find some for his but we cannot understand how a of such and so with the of and the study of the could to be the of the most alchemical and the of a the production of a and a of Newton's alchemical studies remained until in the twentieth his in his article in the of the and in his of the writings and of Isaac Newton it was the hero in his early work that became the of the criticisms that the materials in this about Newton's life and were by the of an of of Isaac Newton first published in in In this published a in which Christiaan had a that around Newton had what would now be a He the to after the work of the As a of the of mathematical physics as from Newton's physics and mathematics, but had little for Newton's with theology and in that Newton had turned to these only after the of Francis of the John Flamsteed that Newton had in a and This led later biographers to the to which his in to Flamsteed on his mathematician and De Newton but the hero by and the earlier He that Newton's stature as an into the laws of had no for scientific of the which he his contemporaries, and his own general

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