Sir Isaac Newton: President Of The Royal Society

Isaac Newton was born January 4 1643 (December 25 Julian Calendar), in Woolsthorpe, England. He was the only child, and his father (a wealthy farmer, also named Isaac) died three months prior to his birth. When Newton was barely three years old, his mother (Hannah Asycough) remarried and lived with her new husband (Reverend Barnabas Smith). This left Newton under the care of his maternal grandmother (Margery Ayscough). Newton hated his stepfather, even threatening him at one point that he would burn his house down. When Newton was twelve years old, his stepfather died and Newton lived with his mom once again and the three kids she had with his stepfather. At this time, she pulled him out of school to help earn money for the family by farming. Newton had an aversion towards farming, and found it very monotonous. His uncle (Rev William Ayscough) persuaded his mother to let him go back to school to finish basic

April 16, 1705, Newton is Knighted by Queen Anne in Cambridge, and is now known by: Sir Isaac Newton. According to Wikipedia, this was most likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than Newton’s scientific achievements. In 1706, Newton publishes Opticks. From 1710-1716, Newton was consumed by the Leibniz – Newton calculus controversy. Both Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that they invented calculus first. In 1712, the Royal Society appointed a committee to investigate the controversy, and concluded that Newton had priority over the discovery. Since Newton was President of the Royal Society at the time, he was able to appoint the members of the committee that sided with him. Modern historians credit both mathematicians for developing calculus independently of each other although most people associate calculus with Newton most of the