Jakarta, Borneo24.com – Isaac Newton was 20 years old when the Great Plague of London hit. He had not earned the title “Sir” and was not wearing a large white formal wig. Newton was just a student at Trinity College Cambridge, London. Newton received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity in January 1665 just as the plague was descending on London. Cambridge University closed on August 7, 1665 and prompted its resident scholars to flee to the less densely populated countryside.
Newton returned to his family farm at Woolsthrope Manor until the University reopened in late 1666. It was then that Newton unleashed his genius, writes biographer Philip Steele. Those days became Newton’s productive period in the development of optics and light, calculus, and the laws of motion and gravity. According to John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis, those years were a miracle.
Being at home didn’t seem to have left Newton at his wits end. Newton tried to solve math problems from college. The paper he wrote is considered to be the forerunner of calculus as we know it today. That’s when Newton got a prism and experimented in his room. He even made a small hole in the window which allowed a small ray of light to enter the room. From here he thought to develop the science of optics and light.
Just outside the window of his house in Woolsthrope was an apple tree. That tree became the legend of Newton discovering the theory of gravity when the apples fell on his head. Although many think that the story is apocryphal (its authenticity is doubtful). John Conduitt’s notes confirm the existence of an element of truth in the story. Assistant Newton’s expression was quoted in The Washington Post as follows.
“…While he was contemplating in the garden, it occurred to him that the force of gravity (which makes an apple fall from a tree to the ground) is not limited to a certain distance from the earth. But extends further. ‘Why not as high as the Moon?’ said Newton to himself.” The Great Plague of London, was an epidemic of plague that lasted from 1665 to 1666. City records in Britannica show about 68,596 people died from the plague.
Although the actual death toll is estimated to exceed 100,000 people. The outbreak was caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium associated with previous outbreaks. It started in the London suburb of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and other places where many areas are densely populated where the majority are poor. Then came the suspicion that the winter of 1664 did not spread intensively until the spring of 1665. Due to this incident, King Charles II and his court fled London in the early summer and did not return until the following February.
The death toll declined in December 1665 to the beginning of 1666. Until 1667 there had been no epidemic of plague in any part of England. The disappearance of the plague from London is associated with the Great Fire of London in September 1666. Many say that this event led to a decline in plague cases. But the decline is also ascribed to effective quarantine.
Sir Isaac Newton has been credited as a scientist who contributed more than any other individual in history to the development of modern science. Newton’s most significant contribution to physics and astronomy was found in his great work “Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica” which he published in 1687 at his own expense.
It contains the principle of universal gravitation, which explains the movement of celestial bodies and the fall of objects on earth. The Principia describes Newton’s laws of motion, namely fluid mechanics, the motion of the planets and their satellites, the motion of comets, and the phenomenon of tides. In 1704, he also published another influential work called Opticks which detailed the revolutionary experiments he had carried out on the properties of light during endemic times. Until 1705, Queen Anne bestowed Knighthood on Isaac Newton.
Sir Isaac Newton died in Kensington, London on March 31, 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Some of the names of the discoveries were given in honor of the figure of Newton. Like the asteroids 8000 Isaac Newton and 662 Newtonia. And the asteroid 2653 Principa which commemorates his monumental treatise, Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica.(***)
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