Newton

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) is one of the most influential scientists who ever lived. He completed the revolution started by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, allowing us to understand why planets move as they do. The orbits of spacecrafts are safely calculated from Newton’s laws. He also created a new scientific method pivotal for future researchers; experimental testing became a partner to induction and deduction. Newton emphasized observation and experiment. The idea is to infer mathematical theories from empirical data and to compare values obtained from the theories with new measurements. A good theory not only explains the original observations, but in addition, it predicts phenomena allowing it to be tested. If there is a contradiction, one must adjust or perhaps even discard the theory. As the president of Royal Society, Newton wrote “Natural Philosophy consists of discovering the frame and operations of Nature, and reducing them, as far as may be, to general Rules or Laws — establishing these rules by observations and experiments, and thence deducing the causes and effects of things.…”