9 Things You May Not Know About Isaac Newton - HISTORY - 0 views
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The experience of being abandoned by his mother scarred Newton and likely played a role in shaping his solitary, untrusting nature.
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As an adult, Newton immersed himself in his work, had no hobbies and never married. He even remained silent about some of his scientific and mathematical discoveries for years, if he published them at all.
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However, at age 15 or 16, he was ordered to quit school by his mother (then widowed for a second time) and return to Woolsthorpe Manor to become a farmer
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In 1665, following an outbreak of the bubonic plague in England, Cambridge University closed its doors, forcing Newton to return home to Woolsthorpe Manor.
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While sitting in the garden there one day, he saw an apple fall from a tree, providing him with the inspiration to eventually formulate his law of universal gravitation.
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During his tenure at the mint, Newton supervised a major initiative to take all of the country’s old coins out of circulation and replace them with more reliable currency.
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Although he remained at Cambridge for nearly 30 years, Newton showed little interest in teaching or in his students, and his lectures were sparsely attended; frequently, no one showed up at all
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In 1669, Newton, then 26, was appointed the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, one of the world’s oldest universities, whose origins date to 1209.
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He also was focused on investigating counterfeiters, and as a result became acquainted with the city’s seedy underbelly as he personally tracked down and interviewed suspected criminals, receiving death threats along the way
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In addition to the scientific endeavors for which he’s best known, Newton spent much of his adult life pursuing another interest, alchemy, whose goals included finding the philosopher’s stone, a substance that allegedly could turn ordinary metals like lead and iron into gold
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From 1689 to 1690, Newton was a member of Parliament, representing Cambridge University. During this time, the legislative body enacted the Bill of Rights, which limited the power of the monarchy and laid out the rights of Parliament along with certain individual rights
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Newton served a second brief term in Parliament, from 1701 to 1702, and again seems to have contributed little.
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When it came to his intellectual rivals, Newton could be jealous and vindictive. Among those with whom he feuded was German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz; the two men had a bitter battle over who invented calculus