Isaac Newton's Wonder Years

Kerrie Logan Hollihan
​Teaching the Power of Wonder

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           In spring 1665 a college student named Isaac Newton studied natural philosophy, what we call “science.” Back then, a good student could learn everything to know about the natural world. But plague, the Black Death, came to England. Cambridge University closed. Isaac went home to Woolsthorpe.

            For two years Isaac thought about his studies during four years at university.  He’d always been thoughtful—not the best at games, making friends, or minding sheep. But everybody knew Isaac Newton liked to think. Folks told time by the sundial he’d drawn on a wall.

            Home at Woolsthorpe, Isaac’s learning about science and math bubbled up in his head  like yeast rising in a loaf of bread. 

            So... Newton unplugged.  His mind roamed like that of an artist or composer. He was driven by the need to create—not paintings or symphonies, but questions.

            “Why do things always fall down?”

            “Why does the earth move around the sun?

            “Why doesn’t the moon fall onto the earth?”

            “Does everything ‘up there” work like things work ‘down here?’”

            Isaac Newton answered his questions with three science rules, Newton’s Laws of Motion.

            At Woolsthorpe, Newton grappled with the concept of moving objects.  He worked out the math to find the area under curves. He called this math fluxions. Today we call this calculus, useful for launching rockets or tracking TV signals.

            Once back at Cambridge, Newton said nothing until he read someone else’s paper on fluxions. Newton published a better paper. Soon he was Cambridge’s top math professor.

            Isaac Newton wondered another twenty years. He played with prisms in a dark room and theorized that white light comprises the visible spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He practiced alchemy and chemistry, looking for the legendary philosopher’s stone to turn base metals to gold. In 1687, Newton published our most important science book, the Principia.

            In the Principia, Newton showed how laws of gravity and motion work the same at great distances—far off in space, or in your classroom. We accept these ideas, but in 1687 many still had medieval beliefs that sun, moon, planets, and stars all traveled in their own crystal spheres.  

            Yes, Newton wondered about A LOT:
  

• Gravity
• Forces
• Mass
• Inertia
• Math
• Motion
• Light
• God
• ???

            Whatever interests you, I hope you’ll think about it—a lot! Like Isaac Newton, take time to WONDER!

 Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian, author and physicist who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution.  Based on a portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1702, via Wikimedia Commons

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Sir Isaac Newton's own first edition copy of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with his handwritten corrections for the twentieth edition. ​Photograph Andrew Dunn via Wikimedia Commons

Trinity College, the part of the University of Cambridge where Newton worked and lived.  Library of Congress

This statue of the young Isaac Newton stands at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Look carefully around his feet for a hint on what he is wondering about.  If you can’t figure it out, then read about Newton and gravity.
​Wikimedia Commons

Featuring 21 hands-on projects that explore the scientific concepts Isaac Newton developed, Kerrie Logan Hollihan's Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids  paints a rich portrait of the brilliant and complex man and provides readers with a hands-on understanding of astronomy, physics, and mathematics.  A time line, excerpts from Newton's own writings, online resources, and a reading list  enhance this unique activity book.

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MLA 8 Citation
Hollihan, Kerrie Logan. "Isaac Newton's Wonder Years." Nonfiction Minute, iNK
     Think Tank, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     isaac-newtons-wonder years.