What Am I Looking At – Part VIII

“Newton”

     by Aaron Clevenson

 

This is the eighth in a series of interviews with famous astronomers of the ages.  Our ultimate goal is to trace our understandings of the physical universe.  This month we are going to talk to Newton.

 

NORTHSTAR:  Newton, you have been able to make great advances in astronomy.  Can you tell us about yourself?

NEWTON:  I had a very strange beginning.  I was the son of an illiterate yeoman.  My father died before I was born, which was on Christmas Day.  I was very premature and tiny.  They were sure that I would no survive, but I did.  I built clocks and sundials as a child.  I once launched a “hot-air flying saucer” by attaching candles to a wood frame under a wax-paper canopy.  People got very excited.

NORTHSTAR:  Is it true that you were hit in the head by an apple, and from that understood gravity?

NEWTON:  No, that is not a true story.  I do remember seeing an apple fall from a tree, and thinking that the moon is sixty times as far from the center of the Earth as the apple.  If gravity decreases by the square of the distance, then the moon is subject to a force that is only 1/3600 that of the apple.  So, the moon should fall 1/3600 as far in a second as does the apple.  It does!

NORTHSTAR:  What other significant accomplishments did you do?

NEWTON:  Well I liked telescopes, but a large and high quality refractor is very expensive, and quite long.  I designed and built a reflector telescope.  It was a great improvement.

NORTHSTAR:  What are these laws we hear about?

NEWTON:  Well I have three.  The first is that a body will stay at rest or on a straight course at a set velocity, unless it is acted upon by some force.  My second law is that the force is equal to the mass times an acceleration:  f = ma.  The last law is that for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction.  These laws are critical to understanding the motion of heavenly bodies.

NORTHSTAR:  Well thank you Sir Isaac Newton.  Your contributions to our understanding of the universe and of course the development of the reflector telescope have brought astronomy to many more people.