ArticleTitle stringclasses 109 values | Question stringlengths 4 586 ⌀ | Answer stringlengths 1 926 ⌀ | ArticleFile stringclasses 57 values | EvidencesAvailable stringclasses 120 values |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Guitar | What is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body? | headstock | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | What are most electric guitar bodies made of? | Wood | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | What are most electric guitar bodies made of? | wood | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | Why do some people believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars as right-handed people do? | to standardise the instrument | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | Why do some people believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars as right-handed people do? | to standardise the instrument | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | How old is the oldest known representation of a guitar-like intrument being played? | 3,300 years old | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | How old is the oldest known representation of a guitar-like intrument being played? | 3,300 years old | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | What is the point called that is bolted or glued to the body of the guitar? | Neck Joint | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Guitar | What is the point called that is bolted or glued to the body of the guitar? | Neck joint or 'Heel' | data/set2/a7 | Guitar
The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten and twelve string guitars also exist.
Guitars are recognized as one of the primary instruments in blues, country, flamenco, rock music, and many forms of pop. They can also be a solo classical instrument. Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Such electric guitars were introduced in the 20th century and continue to have a profound influence on popular culture.
Traditionally guitars have usually been constructed of combinations of various woods and strung with animal gut, or more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". Kasha, Dr. Michael (August 1968). "A New Look at The History of the Classic Guitar". Guitar Review 30,3-12 Instruments similar to the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The six string classical guitar first appeared in Spain but was itself the product of a long and complex history of diverse influences. Like virtually all other stringed European instruments, the guitar ultimately traces back thousands of years, via the Near East, to a common ancient origin from instruments then known in central Asia and India. It is distantly related with contemporary instruments such as the tanbur, setar, and the Indian sitar. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying all the essential features of a guitar being played is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. [A Brief History of the Guitar The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra (German Gitarre, French Guitare), loaned from the Andalusian Arabic qitara and Latin cithara, which in turn was derived from the earlier Greek word kithara, Kithara appears in the Greek New Testament four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into English as harp. Strong's Concordance Number: 2788 which is related to Old Persian sihtar.
Illustration from a Carolingian Psalter from the 9th century, showing a guitar-like plucked instrument.
The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Summerfield, Maurice J. (2003). The Classical Guitar, It's Evolution, Players and Personalities since 1800 (5th ed.) Blaydon on Tyne: Ashley Mark Publishing. ISBN 1-872-63946-1. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent. Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther (also known as Gunnar), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried. [Viking Art & Architecture By 1200 AD, the four string "guitar" had evolved into two types: the (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole and a narrower neck. [A Look At The History Of The Guitar
The Spanish vihuela or " ", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries is, due to its many similarities, usually considered the immediate ancestor of the modern guitar. It had lute-style tuning and a guitar-like body. Its construction had as much in common with the modern guitar as with its contemporary four-course renaissance guitar. The vihuela enjoyed only a short period of popularity as it was superseded by the guitar; the last surviving publication of music for the instrument appeared in 1576. It is not clear whether it represented a transitional form or was simply a design that combined features of the Arabic oud and the European lute. In favor of the latter view, the reshaping of the vihuela into a guitar-like form can be seen as a strategy of differentiating the European lute visually from the Moorish oud.
The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin, and may have built the oldest surviving six string guitar. Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 â after 1831) The Classical Mandolin by Paul Sparks (1995) has his signature on the label of a guitar built in Naples, Italy for six strings with the date of 1779. Early Romantic Guitar The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era by James Tyler (2002) This guitar has been examined and does not show tell-tale signs of modifications from a double-course guitar although fakes are known to exist of guitars and identifying labels from that period.
The dimensions of the modern classical guitar (also known as the Spanish guitar) were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892), working in Seville in the 1850s. Torres and Louis Panormo of London (active 1820s-1840s) were both responsible for demonstrating the superiority of fan strutting over transverse table bracing.
The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric:
An acoustic guitar is one not dependent on an external device to be heard but uses a soundboard which is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitar's body. The acoustic guitar is quieter than other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras so when playing within such groups it is often externally amplified. Many acoustic guitars available today feature a variety of pickups which enable the player to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.
There are several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars; steel string guitars, which include the flat top or "folk" guitar; twelve string guitars and the arch top guitar. The acoustic guitar group also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers such as the acoustic bass guitar which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.
;Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with ivory or wood inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
;Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon strings, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado (1817-1892). Classical guitars are sometimes referred to as classic guitars. In recent years, the series of guitars used by the Niibori Guitar orchestra have gained some currency, namely:
;* Sopranino guitar (an octave and a fifth higher than normal); sometimes known as the piccolo guitar
;* Soprano guitar (an octave higher than normal)
;* Alto guitar (a 5th higher than normal)
;* Prime (ordinary classical) guitar
;* Niibori bass guitar (a 4th lower than normal); Niibori simply calls this the "bass guitar", but this assigns a different meaning to the term than other parts of the community use, as his is only a 4th lower, and has 6 strings
;* Contrabass guitar (an octave lower than normal)
;The modern Ten-string guitar:
The Modern/Yepes 10-string guitar (a classical guitar) adds four strings (resonators) tuned in such a way that they (along with the other three bass strings) can resonate in unison with any of the 12 chromatic notes that can occur on the higher strings; the idea behind this being an attempt at enhancing and balancing sonority.
;Portuguese guitar:
In spite of the name, it is not a guitar, but rather a cittern.
;Flat-top (steel-string) guitars: Similar to the classical guitar, however, within the varied sizes of the steel-stringed guitar the body size is usually significantly larger than a classical guitar and it has a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design. This allows the instrument to withstand the additional tension of steel strings. The steel strings produce a brighter tone, and according to many players, a louder sound. The acoustic guitar is used in many kinds of music including folk, country, bluegrass, pop, jazz and blues.
;Archtop guitars: These are steel string instruments in which the top (and often the back) of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Guitar Corporation introduced the violin-inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop is a deep, hollow body guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by both jazz and country musicians and have remained particularly popular in jazz music, usually with flatwound strings.
Ellis 8 string baritone tricone resonator guitar.
;Resonator, resophonic or Dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the banjo. The original purpose of the resonator was to amplify the sound of the guitar. This purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive sound. Resonator guitars may have either one resonator cone or three resonator cones. Three-cone resonators have two cones on the left above one another and one cone immediately to the right. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood, or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and larger in size. Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal spider bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section â called "square neck" â is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.
;12 string guitars: The twelve string guitar usually has steel strings and is widely used in folk music, blues and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each, like a mandolin or lute. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves. The 12-string guitar is also made in electric forms.
;Russian guitars: These are seven string acoustic guitars which were the norm for Russian guitarists throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The guitar is traditionally tuned to an open G major tuning.
;Acoustic bass guitars: Have steel strings or gut strings and often the same tuning as an electric bass guitar.
;Tenor guitars: A number of classical guitarists call the Niibori prime guitar a "Tenor Guitar" on the grounds that it sits in pitch between the alto and the bass. Elsewhere the name is taken for a 4-string guitar with a scale length of 23" (585 mm) â about the same as a Terz Guitar. The tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, C G D A, as is the tenor banjo and the cello. It is generally accepted that the tenor guitar was created to allow a tenor banjo player to follow the fashion as it evolved from Dixieland Jazz towards the more progressive Jazz that featured guitar. It allows a tenor banjo player to provide a guitar-based rhythm section with little to learn. A small minority of players (such as Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio) close tuned the instrument to D G B E to produce a deep instrument that could be played with the 4-note chord shapes found on the top 4 strings of the guitar or ukulele. The deep pitch warrants the wide-spaced chords that the banjo tuning permits, and the close tuned tenor does not have the same full, clear sound.
;Harp guitars: Harp Guitars are difficult to classify as there are many variations within this type of guitar. They are typically rare and uncommon in the popular music scene. Most consist of a regular guitar, plus additional 'harp' strings strung above the six normal strings. The instrument is usually acoustic and the harp strings are usually tuned to lower notes than the guitar strings, for an added bass range. Normally there is neither fingerboard nor frets behind the harp strings. Some harp guitars also feature much higher pitch strings strung below the traditional guitar strings. The number of harp strings varies greatly, depending on the type of guitar and also the player's personal preference (as they have often been made to the player's specification). /ref> The Pikasso guitar; 4 necks, 2 sound holes, 42 strings] and also the Oracle Harp Sympitar; 24 strings (with 12 sympathetic strings protruding through the neck) are modern examples.
;Extended-range guitars: For well over a century guitars featuring seven, eight, nine, ten or more strings have been used by a minority of guitarists as a means of increasing the range of pitch available to the player. Usually, it is bass strings that are added. Classical guitars with an extended range are useful for playing lute repertoire, some of which was written for lutes with more than six courses.
;Guitar battente: The battente is smaller than a classical guitar, usually played with four or five metal strings. It is mainly used in Calabria (a region in southern Italy) to accompany the voice.
This Fender Stratocaster has features common to many electric guitars: multiple pickups, a whammy bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies, and produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electrical signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of pickup, single and double coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard) and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to some techniques which are less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.
Seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an 8 string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common 7-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12 string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12 string elements in standard 6 string playing.
The electric bass guitar is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.
Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as guitars with two, three, The Official Steve Vai Website - www.vai.com > The Machines > Steve's Guitars or rarely four necks, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (used almost exclusively on bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), 5.1 surround guitar, and such.
Some electric guitar and electric bass guitar models feature Piezoelectric pickups, which function as transducers to provide a sound closer to that of an acoustic guitar with the flip of a switch or knob, rather than switching guitars.
225px210px
# Headstock
# Nut
# Machine heads (or pegheads, tuning keys, tuning machines, tuners)
# Frets
# Truss rod
# Inlays
# Neck
# Heel (acoustic) â Neckjoint (electric)
# Body
# Pickups
# Electronics
# Bridge
# Pickguard
# Back
# Soundboard (top)
# Body sides (ribs)
# Sound hole, with Rosette inlay
# Strings
# Saddle
# Fretboard (or Fingerboard)
Guitars can be constructed to meet the demands of both left and right-handed players. Traditionally the dominant hand is assigned the task of plucking or strumming the strings. For the majority of people this entails using the right hand. This is because musical expression (dynamics, tonal expression and colour etc) is largely determined by the plucking hand, while the fretting hand is assigned the lesser mechanical task of depressing and gripping the strings. This is similar to the convention of the violin family of instruments where the right hand controls the bow. A minority, however, believe that left-handed people should learn to play guitars strung in the manner used by right-handed people, simply to standardise the instrument.
The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.
The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is one of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.
Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with metal frets that comprises the top of the neck. It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against the fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly made of rosewood, ebony, maple, and sometimes manufactured or composite materials such as HPL or resin. See below on section "Neck" for the importance of the length of the fretboard in connection to other dimensions of the guitar.
Frets are metal strips (usually nickel alloy or stainless steel) embedded along the fretboard and located at exact points that divide the scale length in accordance with a specific mathematical formula. Pressing a string against a fret determines the strings' vibrating length and therefore its resultant pitch. The pitch of each consecutive fret is defined at a half-step interval on the chromatic scale. Standard classical guitars have 19 frets and electric guitars between 21 to 24 frets (though Ibanez has issued guitars with as many as 36 frets.)
Frets are laid out to a mathematical ratio that results in equal tempered division of the octave. The ratio of the spacing of two consecutive frets is the twelfth root of two. The twelfth fret divides the scale length in two exact halves and the 24th fret position divides the scale length in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave. In practice, luthiers determine fret positions using the constant 17.817, which is derived from the twelfth root of two. The scale length divided by this value yields the distance from the nut to the first fret. That distance is subtracted from the scale length and the result is divided in two sections by the constant to yield the distance from the first fret to the second fret. Positions for the remainder of the frets are calculated in like manner.
There are several different fret gauges, which can be fitted according to player preference. Among these are "jumbo" frets, which have much thicker gauge, allowing for use of a slight vibrato technique from pushing the string down harder and softer. "Scalloped" fretboards, where the wood of the fretboard itself is "scooped out" between the frets allows a dramatic vibrato effect. Fine frets, much flatter, allow a very low string-action but require other conditions such as curvature of the neck to be well maintained in order to prevent buzz.
On steel-string guitars, frets are eventually bound to wear down; when this happens, frets can be replaced or, to a certain extent, leveled, polished, recrowned, or reshaped as required.
The truss rod is a metal rod that runs along the inside of the neck. It is used to correct changes to the neck's curvature caused by the neck timbers aging, changes in humidity or to compensate for changes in the tension of strings. The tension of the rod and neck assembly is adjusted by a hex nut or an allen-key bolt on the rod, usually located either at the headstock, sometimes under a cover, or just inside the body of the guitar underneath the fretboard and accessible through the sound hole. Some truss rods can only be accessed by removing the neck. The truss rod counteracts the immense amount of tension the strings place on the neck, bringing the neck back to a straighter position. Turning the truss rod clockwise will tighten it, counteracting the tension of the strings and straightening the neck or creating a backward bow. Turning the truss rod counter-clockwise will loosen it, allowing string tension to act on the neck and creating a forward bow. Adjusting the truss rod affects the intonation of a guitar as well as the height of the strings from the fingerboard, called the action. Some truss rod systems, called "double action" truss systems, tighten both ways, allowing the neck to be pushed both forward and backward (standard truss rods can only be released to a point beyond which the neck will no longer be compressed and pulled backward). Classical guitars do not require truss rods as their nylon strings exert a lower tensile force with lesser potential to cause structural problems.
By : ANTO C-Balln3k Bengkayang Club
Inlays are visual elements set into the exterior surface of a guitar. The typical locations for inlay are on the fretboard, headstock, and on acoustic guitars around the soundhole, known as the rosette. Inlays range from simple plastic dots on the fretboard to intricate works of art covering the entire exterior surface of a guitar (front and back). Some guitar players have used LEDs in the fretboard to produce a unique lighting effects onstage.
Fretboard inlays are most commonly shaped like dots, diamond shapes, parallelograms, or large blocks in between the frets. Dots are usually inlaid into the upper edge of the fretboard in the same positions, small enough to be visible only to the player. Some older or high-end instruments have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, coloured wood or other exotic materials and designs. Simpler inlays are often made of plastic or painted. High-end classical guitars seldom have fretboard inlays as a well trained player is expected to know his or her way around the instrument.
In addition to fretboard inlay, the headstock and soundhole surround are also frequently inlaid. The manufacturer's logo or a small design is often inlaid into the headstock. Rosette designs vary from simple concentric circles to delicate fretwork mimicking the historic rosette of lutes. Bindings that edge the finger and sound boards are sometimes inlaid. Some instruments have a filler strip running down the length and behind the neck, used for strength and/or to fill the cavity through which the trussrod was installed in the neck.
Elaborate inlays are a decorative feature of many limited edition, high-end and custom-made guitars. Guitar manufacturers often release such guitars to celebrate significant or historic milestones.
A guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod, all attached to a long wooden extension, collectively constitute its neck. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch during tuning or when strings are fretted. The rigidity of the neck with respect to the body of the guitar is one determinant of a good instrument versus a poor one. The shape of the neck can also vary, from a gentle "C" curve to a more pronounced "V" curve. There are many different types of neck profiles available, giving the guitarist many options.
Some aspects to consider in a guitar neck may be the overall width of the fingerboard, scale (distance between the frets), the neck wood, the type of neck construction (for example, the neck may be glued in or bolted on), and the shape (profile) of the back of the neck. Other type of material used to make guitar necks are graphite (Steinberger guitars), aluminium (Kramer Guitars, Travis Bean and Veleno guitars), or carbon fiber (Modulus Guitars and ThreeGuitars).
Double neck electric guitars have two necks, allowing the musician to quickly switch between guitar sounds.
This is the point at which the neck is either bolted or glued to the body of the guitar. Almost all acoustic guitars, with the primary exception of Taylors, have glued (otherwise known as set) necks, while electric guitars are constructed using both types.
Commonly used set neck joints include mortise and tenon joints (such as those used by CF Martin & Co. guitars), dovetail joints (also used by CF Martin on the D28 and similar models) and Spanish heel neck joints which are named after the shoe they resemble and commonly found in classical guitars. All three types offer stability. Bolt-on necks, though they are historically associated with cheaper instruments, do offer greater flexibility in the guitar's set-up, and allow easier access for neck joint maintenance and repairs.
Another type of neck, only available for solid body electric guitars, is the neck-through-body construction. These are designed so that everything from the machine heads down to the bridge are located on the same piece of wood. The sides (also known as wings) of the guitar are then glued to this central piece. Some luthiers prefer this method of construction as they claim it allows better sustain of each note. Some instruments may not have a neck joint at all, having the neck and sides built as one piece and the body built around it.
Modern guitar strings are constructed of metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials.
Instruments utilising "steel" strings may have strings made of alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Classical and flamenco instruments historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon materials. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.
In acoustic guitars, string vibration is transmitted through the bridge and saddle to the body via sound board. The sound board is typically made of tone woods such as spruce or cedar. Timbers for tone woods are chosen for both strength and ability to transfer mechanical energy from the strings to the air within the guitar body. Sound is further shaped by the characteristics of the guitar body's resonant cavity.
In electric guitars, transducers known as pickups convert string vibration to an electric signal, which in turn is amplified and fed to speakers, which vibrate the air to produce the sound we hear. Nevertheless, the body of the electric guitar still performs a role in shaping the resultant tonal signature.
In an acoustic instrument, the body of the guitar is a major determinant of the overall sound quality. The guitar top, or soundboard, is a finely crafted and engineered element made of tonewoods such as spruce and red cedar. This thin piece of wood, often only 2 or 3mm thick, is strengthened by differing types of internal bracing. The top is considered by many luthiers to be the dominant factor in determining the sound quality. The majority of the instrument's sound is heard through the vibration of the guitar top as the energy of the vibrating strings is transferred to it.
Body size, shape and style has changed over time. 19th century guitars, now known as salon guitars, were smaller than modern instruments. Differing patterns of internal bracing have been used over time by luthiers. Torres, Hauser, Ramirez, Fleta, and C.F. Martin were among the most influential designers of their time. Bracing not only strengthens the top against potential collapse due to the stress exerted by the tensioned strings, but also affects the resonance characteristics of the top. The back and sides are made out of a variety of timbers such as mahogany, Indian rosewood and highly regarded Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Each one is primarily chosen for their aesthetic effect and can be decorated with inlays and purfling.
The body of an acoustic guitar has a sound hole through which sound is projected. The sound hole is usually a round hole in the top of the guitar under the strings. Air inside the body vibrates as the guitar top and body is vibrated by the strings, and the response of the air cavity at different frequencies is characterised, like the rest of the guitar body, by a number of resonance modes at which it responds more strongly.
Instruments with larger areas for the guitar top were introduced by Martin in an attempt to create louder volume levels. The popularity of the larger "dreadnought" body size amongst acoustic performers is related to the greater sound volume produced.
Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pick guard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 70's, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made of two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the centre line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish.
Other alternative materials to wood, are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material (such as polycarbonate) and aluminium alloys.
Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are tightly wrapped in a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed right underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electrical generator. The vibration of the strings causes a small voltage to be created in the coils surrounding the magnets; this signal voltage is later amplified.
Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced from electric fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s did away with this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in a reverse polarity orientation.
The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnetâcoil assemblies attached to each other are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.
Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower DC resistance) = brighter sound, more wire = "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.
Fender Stratocaster type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.
Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated.
Some piezo-equipped guitars use what is known as a hexaphonic pickup. "Hex" is a prefix meaning six. In a hexaphonic pickup separate outputs are obtained from discrete piezoelectric pickups for each of the six strings. This arrangement allows the signal to be easily modified by on-board modelling electronics, as in the Line 6 Variax brand of electric guitars; the guitars allow for a variety of different sounds to be obtained by digitally manipulating the signal. This allows a guitar to mimic many vintage models of guitar, as well as output alternate tunings without the need to adjust the strings.
Another use for hexaphonic pickups is to send the output signals to a MIDI interpretation device, which determines the note pitch, duration, attack and decay characteristics and so forth. The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) interpreter then sends the note information to a sound bank device. The resulting sound can closely mimic numerous types of instruments.
On guitars that have them, these components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.
The top, back and ribs of an acoustic guitar body are very thin (1-2 mm), so a flexible piece of wood called lining is glued into the corners where the rib meets the top and back. This interior reinforcement provides 5 to 20 mm of solid gluing area for these corner joints. Solid linings are often used in classical guitars, while kerfed lining is most often found in steel string acoustics. Kerfed lining is also called kerfing (because it is scored, or kerfed to allow it to bend with the shape of the rib).
During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled with binding material on the outside corners and decorative strips of material next to the binding, which are called purfling. This binding serves to seal off the endgrain of the top and back. Purfling can also appear on the back of an acoustic guitar, marking the edge joints of the two or three sections of the back.
Binding and purfling materials are generally made of either wood or plastic.
The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings.
On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down. The whammy bar is sometimes also referred to as a "tremolo bar" (see Tremolo for further discussion of this term â the effect of rapidly changing pitch produced by a whammy bar is more correctly called "vibrato"). Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.
On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge is adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the bridge forward and sharp notes by moving it backwards. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle will be slightly but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.
Also known as a scratchplate. This is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Vigorous performance styles such as flamenco, which can involve the use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, call for a scratchplate to be fitted to nylon-string instruments.
The Vibrato (pitch bend) unit found on many electric guitars has also had slang terms applied to it, such as "tremolo bar (or arm)", "sissy bar", "wang bar", "slam handle", "whammy handle", and "whammy bar". The latter two slang terms led stompbox manufacturers to use the term 'whammy' in coming up with a pitch raising effect introduced by popular guitar effects pedal brand "Digitech".
Leo Fender, who did much to create the electric guitar, also created much confusion over the meaning of the terms "tremolo" and "vibrato", specifically by misnaming the "tremolo" unit on many of his guitars and also the "vibrato" unit on his "Vibrolux" amps. In general, vibrato is a variation in pitch, whereas tremolo is a variation in volume, so the tremolo bar is actually a vibrato bar and the "Vibrolux" amps actually had a tremolo effect. However, following Fender's example, electric guitarists traditionally reverse these meanings when speaking of hardware devices and the effects they produce. See vibrato unit for a more detailed discussion, and tremolo arm for more of the history.
A distinctly different form of mechanical vibrato found on some guitars is the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, commonly called Bigsby. This vibrato wraps the strings around a horizontal bar, which is then rotated with a handle by the musician.
Another type of pitch bender is the B-Bender, a spring and lever device mounted in an internal cavity of a solid body electric, guitar that allows the guitarist to bend just the B string of the guitar using a lever connected to the strap handle of the guitar. The resulting pitch bend is evocative of the sound of the pedal steel guitar.
Strip of fabric with a leather or synthetic leather piece on each end. Made to hold a guitar via the shoulders, at an adjustable length to suit the position favoured by the guitarist.
Self-tuning guitars are computerized guitars programmed to tune themselves. The Gibson Robot guitar, released in 2007, was the first of this kind. Gibson is currently working on a new self-tuning model called the Dark Fire.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
A variety of different tunings may be used. However, the most common by far is known as "Standard Tuning," which has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two octave range â EADGBE.
The pitches are as follows:
The table below shows pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A table to depict pitch names found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.
A guitar using this tuning can tune to itself using the fact, with a single exception, that the 5th fret on one string is the same note as the next open string; that is, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. The exception is the interval between the second and third strings, in which the 4th-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.
Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement. Uniquely, the guitar's tuning allows for repeatable patterns which also facilitates the ease in which common scales can be played. There are also a variety of commonly used alternate tunings â most of which are open tunings that create entire chord voicings without fretting any strings. Many open tunings, where all of the strings are tuned to a similar note or chord, are popular for slide guitar playing. Alternate tunings are used for two main reasons: the ease of playing and the variation in tone that can be achieved.
Many guitarists use a long established, centuries-old tuning variation where the lowest string is 'dropped' two semi-tones down. Known as Drop-D (or dropped D) tuning it is, from low to high, DADGBE. This allows for open string tonic and dominant basses in the keys of D and D minor. It also enables simple fifths (powerchords) to be more easily played. Eddie Van Halen sometimes uses a device known as a 'D Tuna,' the patent for which he owns. It is a small lever, attached to the fine tuner of the 6th string on a Floyd Rose tremolo, which allows him to easily drop that string's tuning to a D. Many contemporary rock bands detune all strings by several semi-tones, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings, However this terminology is inconsistent with that of "drop-D" as "drop-D" refers to dropping a single string to the named pitch. Often these new tunings are also simply referred to as the "Standard" of the note in question e.g. â "D Standard" (DGcfad').
Some guitarists tune in straight fourths, avoiding the major third between the third and second strings. While this makes playing major and minor triads slightly more difficult, it facilitated playing chords with more complicated extended structures . One proponent of the straight fourth tuning (EADGCF) is Stanley Jordan.
As with all stringed instruments a large number of scordatura are possible on the guitar. A common form of scordatura involves tuning the 3rd string to F# to mimic the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing renaissance repertoire originally written for the lute.
Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.
A capo (short for capotasto) is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fret board with the aid of spring tension, or in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fret board just below the first fret. Their use allows a player to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch." Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the renaissance lute.
A slide, (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal bar) used in blues and rock to create a glissando or 'hawaiian' effect. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel, depending on the weight and tone desired. An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner, (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so called Dobro guitar.
Some performers that have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters and Rory Gallagher.
A variety of guitar picksA "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material which is generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick solely with their finger nails, the "pick" is often used for electric and some acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick making but as tortoises became more and more endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise shell picks are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use.
Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between .2 and .5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between .7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick. Retired session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrum.
Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the finger tips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles.
* Flamenco! The Guitar and the Music â An Indiana University research paper on Flamenco, the indigenous music of the Gypsies of southern Spain, written by Jeff Foster, 1987.
* Physics of the guitar string - at blogspot.com
* Parts of a guitar
* List of guitarists
* List of guitar manufacturers
* List of compositions for guitar
* Luthier
* 3rd Bridge
* Electric guitar
* Acoustic guitars
* Steel-string acoustic guitar
* Guitar solo
* Guitar harmonics
* Guitar effects
* Guitar amplifier
* Double-neck guitjo
* Prepared guitar
* Tablature
* Tonewood
* Fretless guitar
* Stringed instrument tunings
* Instruments In Depth: The Guitar An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
* Stalking the Oldest Six-String Guitar
* Guitar physics
* International Guitar Research Archive
* The first rock guitars
* allGuitarists.com â Web forum and online magazine about guitar.
* Guitar Albums Collection - World of Instrumental Music
*
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did Becquerel study science at the École des Ponts et Chaussées? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did he become chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways in 1892? | No | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Did he become chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways in 1892? | yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Becquerel a French physicist? | Yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Was Becquerel a French physicist? | yes | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Whom did he share the Nobel Prize with? | Pierre and Marie Curie | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Whom did he share the Nobel Prize with? | Pierre and Marie Curie | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | When did he die? | 1908 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | When did he die? | 1908 | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | What is the SI unit for radioactivity called? | becquerel | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | What is the SI unit for radioactivity called? | the becquerel (Bq) | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | When Becquerel discovered radioactivity, whose work did he investigate? | Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | When Becquerel discovered radioactivity, whose work did he investigate? | Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Where are there craters named Becquerel? | Moon and Mars | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Where are there craters named Becquerel? | on the moon and on mars | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Why did Bequerel win the Nobel Prize in Physics? | discovery of spontaneous radioactivity | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Henri_Becquerel | Why did Bequerel win the Nobel Prize in Physics? | was the discoverer of radioactivity | data/set4/a9 | Henri_Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (15 December 1852 25 August 1908) was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity, for which he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie who had found additional radioactive elements).
Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied science at the Ãcole Polytechnique and engineering at the Ãcole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux.
In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways.
In 1896, while investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity. Investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Becquerel wrapped a fluorescent substance, potassium uranyl sulfate, in photographic plates and black material in preparation for an experiment requiring bright sunlight. However, prior to actually performing the experiment, Becquerel found that the photographic plates were already exposed, showing the image of the substance. This discovery led Becquerel to investigate the spontaneous emission of nuclear radiation.
Describing his method to the French Academy of Sciences on 24 January 1896, he said:
One wraps a Lumière photographic plate with a bromide emulsion in two sheets of very thick black paper, such that the plate does not become clouded upon being exposed to the sun for a day. One places on the sheet of paper, on the outside, a slab of the phosphorescent substance, and one exposes the whole to the sun for several hours. When one then develops the photographic plate, one recognizes that the silhouette of the phosphorescent substance appears in black on the negative. If one places between the phosphorescent substance and the paper a piece of money or a metal screen pierced with a cut-out design, one sees the image of these objects appear on the negative. ⦠One must conclude from these experiments that the phosphorescent substance in question emits rays which pass through the opaque paper and reduces silver salts. Comptes Rendus 122, 420 (1896), translated by Carmen Giunta. Accessed 10 September 2006.
In 1903, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
Image of Becquerel's photographic plate which has been fogged by exposure to radiation from a uranium salt. The shadow of a metal Maltese Cross placed between the plate and the uranium salt is clearly visible.
In 1908, the year of his death, Becquerel was elected Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He died at the age of 55 in Le Croisic.
The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him. There is a crater called Becquerel on the Moon and also a crater called Becquerel on Mars.
He also received the following awards besides the Nobel Prize for Physics (1903):
*Rumford Medal (1900)
*Helmholtz Medal (1901)
*Barnard Medal (1905).
* Antoine César Becquerel (his grandfather)
* A. E. Becquerel (his father)
* Jean Becquerel (his son)
* Henri Becquerel - Biography
* Becquerel short biography and the use of his name as a unit of measure in the SI
* Annotated bibliography for Henri Becquerel from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton British? | Yes. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton British? | Yes, he was English. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton religious? | It is not clear. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton religious? | Yes, he was highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Did Isaac Newton die in 1898? | No. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Did Isaac Newton die in 1898? | No, Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton born? | At Woolsthorpe Manor in Woosthorpe-by-Colsterworth. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton born? | He was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Who shares credit with Isaac Newton for developing calculus? | Gottfried Leibniz. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Who shares credit with Isaac Newton for developing calculus? | Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | When did Isaac Newton discover the generalized binomial theorem? | In 1665. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | When did Isaac Newton discover the generalized binomial theorem? | In 1665. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Did the Occult influence Newton's theory of gravitation? | Yes. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Did the Occult influence Newton's theory of gravitation? | If Newton had not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Were Newton's religious views consistent with Anglicanism? | No. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Were Newton's religious views consistent with Anglicanism? | No, a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Which fruit inspired Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation? | The apple. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Which fruit inspired Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation? | Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation was inspired by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Sir Isaac Newton an English physicist and mathematician? | yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Sir Isaac Newton an English physicist and mathematician? | yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Did he build the first practical reflecting telescope? | yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton educated at The King's Schol, Grantham? | yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Was Isaac Newton educated at The King's Schol, Grantham? | yes | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton born? | Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton born? | Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | When was the Principia published? | 1687 | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | When was the Principia published? | 1687 | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where is there a Newton statue on display? | Oxford University Museum of Natural History | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where is there a Newton statue on display? | Oxford University Museum of Natural History | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton buried? | Westminster Abbey | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | Where was Isaac Newton buried? | Westminster Abbey | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | What religion did Isaac Newton follow? | he never made a public declaration of his private faith | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | What religion did Isaac Newton follow? | unorthodox Christian | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | What food gave Isaac Newton clues to his theory of gravity? | apple | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Isaac_Newton | What food gave Isaac Newton clues to his theory of gravity? | apple | data/set4/a1 | Isaac_Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential scientists in history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.
In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.
Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January 1643 [ OS: 25 December 1642 ] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (â 1.1 litre). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Westfall 1994, pp 16-19 Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. White 1997, p. 22
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizarâa sort of work-study role. Michael White, Isaac Newton (1999) page 46 At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the University temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, ed. Michael Hoskins (1997). Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy, p. 159. Cambridge University Press Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.
Newton's mathematical work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". W W Rouse Ball (1908), "A short account of the history of mathematics", at page 319. Newton's early work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus is seen, for example, in a manuscript of October 1666, now published among Newton's mathematical papers. D T Whiteside (ed.), The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton (Volume 1), (Cambridge University Press, 1967), part 7 "The October 1666 Tract on Fluxions", at page 400, in 2008 reprint. A related subject of his mathematical work was infinite series. Newton's manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas" ("On analysis by equations infinite in number of terms") was sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669: in August 1669 Barrow identified its author to Collins as "Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things". D Gjertsen (1986), "The Newton handbook", (London (Routledge & Kegan Paul) 1986), at page 149. Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognized as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, omits to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But Newton's work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios' Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 41. and explained why he put his expositions in this form, Newton, 'Principia', 1729 English translation, at page 54. remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'. Because of this content the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times Clifford Truesdell, Essays in the History of Mechanics (Berlin, 1968), at p.99. and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time. In the preface to the Marquis de L'Hospital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits (Paris, 1696). Newton's use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in Newton's De Motu Corporum in Gyrum of 1684 Starting with De Motu Corporum in Gyrum#Contents of 'De Motu', see also (Latin) Theorem 1. and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684". D T Whiteside (1970), "The Mathematical principles underlying Newton's Principia Mathematica" in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.1, pages 116-138, especially at pages 119-120.
Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism. Stewart 2009, p.107 Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Principia, but never finished it. However, in 1693 the relationship between the two men changed. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz. Westfall 1980, pp 538â539
Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. Ball 1908, p. 356ff
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. White 1997, p. 151
A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light. Ball 1908, p. 324
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour. Ball 1908, p. 325
From this work he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration), and as a proof of the concept he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem. White 1997, p170 Actually building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope, involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668 he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. White 1997, p168 Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679-80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions, See 'Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol.2, 1676-1687' ed. H W Turnbull, Cambridge University Press 1960; at page 297, document #235, letter from Hooke to Newton dated 24 November 1679. which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death. Iliffe, Robert (2007) Newton. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press 2007
Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on sound-like waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of âfitsâ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of waveâparticle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science; however, he did apparently abandon his alchemical researches. (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?" quoting Opticks Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, after stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679-80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions. Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680/1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed. R S Westfall, 'Never at Rest', 1980, at pages 391-2. After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation - History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684. D T Whiteside (ed.), 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton', vol.6, 1684-1691, Cambridge University Press 1974, at page 30. This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.
The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much else.
Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system â developed in a somewhat modern way, since already in the mid-1680s he recognized the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system. See Curtis Wilson, "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy", pages 233-274 in R Taton & C Wilson (eds) (1989) The General History of Astronomy, Volume, 2A', at page 233). For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest). Text quotations are from 1729 translation of Newton's Principia, Book 3 (1729 vol.2) at pages 232-233).
Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science. Edelglass et al., Matter and Mind, ISBN 0940262452. p. 54 Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. Westfall 1980. Chapter 11. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693, when it abruptly ended, at the same time that Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. Westfall 1980. pp 493â497 on the friendship with Fatio, pp 531â540 on Newton's breakdown.
Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill
Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton
In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. White 1997, p. 232
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton unintentionally moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies. White 1997, p.317
In April 1705 Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint. "The Queen's 'great Assistance' to Newton's election was his knighting, an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705." Westfall 1994 p.245 Newton was first scientist ever to be knighted.
Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband until his death in 1727. Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [ OS: 20 March 1726 ] , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44. served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595 according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx. English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1676, as transcribed in Jean-Pierre Maury (1992) Newton: Understanding the Cosmos, New Horizons Wikipedia Standing on the shoulders of giants,
Two writers think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than or in addition to a statement of modesty. "The message Newton intends to convey is that, although he may have borrowed from the Ancients, he has no need to steal ideas from a little man like Hooke, with the added implication that Hooke is a mental pygmy as well as a small man physically", John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 164 "In the last sentence Newton revealed the truly spiteful, uncompromising and razor-sharp viciousness of his character, for Hooke ... was so stooped and physically deformed that he had the appearance of a dwarf" White 1997, p187 As it may well have been known to the two of them that contemporary poet George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had written on antiquitic metaphor "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two". The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries, such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.
In a later memoir, Newton wrote:
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
Newton remains influential to scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution. In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of todays leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton. Opinion poll. Einstein voted "greatest physicist ever" by leading physicists; Newton runner-up: BBC news, Monday, 29 November, 1999,
Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near to his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694â1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent (1685â1748). The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism. The Latin inscription on the base translates as:
Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. â Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703â4.
From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.
A statue of Isaac Newton, standing over an apple, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith â which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs." Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an antitrinitarian. In an age notable for its religious intolerance there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to take holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to take the sacrament when it was offered to him.
In a view disputed by Snobelen, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants. In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible.
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". . Newton to Richard Bentley 10 December 1692, in Turnbull et al. (1959â77), vol 3, p. 233. He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities. Opticks, 2nd Ed 1706. Query 31. For this Leibniz
lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion." H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 11. Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence.
Newton and Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion".
"Newton", by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer".
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking", and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle's mechanical conception of the Universe. Newton gave Boyle's ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them. Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles. These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65. Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19. His spokesman, Clarke, rejected Leibniz' theodicy which cleared God from the responsibility for l'origine du mal by making God removed from participation in his creation, since as Clarke pointed out, such a deity would be a king in name only, and but one step away from atheism. H. G. Alexander (ed) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 14. But the unforeseen theological consequence of the success of Newton's system over the next century was to reinforce the deist position advocated by Leibniz. Westfall, 1958 p201.
The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical Universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.
In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors â Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally â as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.
It was Newton's conception of the Universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology. "Although it was just one of the many factors in the Enlightment, the success of Newtonian physics in providing a mathematical description of an ordered world clearly played a big part in the flowering of this movement in the eighteenth century" John Gribbin (2002) Science: A History 1543-2001, p 241 Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. White 1997, p. 259 Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. White 1997, p. 267 For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Westfall 2007, p.73
One of Newton's cases as the King's attorney was against William Chaloner. White 1997, p 269 Chaloner's schemes included setting up phoney conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Westfall 1994, p 229 Newton put Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697, but Chaloner had friends in high places who helped him secure an acquittal and his release. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 March 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5
The famous three laws of motion (stated in modernized form):
Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, \vec{F} , on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum, \vec{p} , with time. Mathematically, this is expressed as
: \vec F = \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec p}{\mathrm{\mathrm{d}}t} \, = \, \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{\mathrm{d}m}{\mathrm{d}t} + m \, \frac{\mathrm{d}\vec v}{\mathrm{d}t} \,.
Since the second law applies to an object with constant mass (dm/dt = 0), the first term vanishes, and by substitution using the definition of acceleration, the equation can be written in the iconic form
: \vec F = m \, \vec a \ .
The first and second laws represent a break with the physics of Aristotle, in which it was believed that a force was necessary in order to maintain motion. They state that a force is only needed in order to change an object's state of motion. The SI unit of force is the newton, named in Newton's honour.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that any force exerted onto an object has a counterpart force that is exerted in the opposite direction back onto the first object. A common example is of two ice skaters pushing against each other and sliding apart in opposite directions. Another example is the recoil of a firearm, in which the force propelling the bullet is exerted equally back onto the gun and is felt by the shooter. Since the objects in question do not necessarily have the same mass, the resulting acceleration of the two objects can be different (as in the case of firearm recoil).
Unlike Aristotle's, Newton's physics is meant to be universal. For example, the second law applies both to a planet and to a falling stone.
The vector nature of the second law addresses the geometrical relationship between the direction of the force and the manner in which the object's momentum changes. Before Newton, it had typically been assumed that a planet orbiting the sun would need a forward force to keep it moving. Newton showed instead that all that was needed was an inward attraction from the sun. Even many decades after the publication of the Principia, this counterintuitive idea was not universally accepted, and many scientists preferred Descartes' theory of vortices. Ball 1908, p. 337
Newton himself often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. White 1997, p. 86
Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity. It is known from his notebooks that Newton was grappling in the late 1660s with the idea that terrestrial gravity extends, in an inverse-square proportion, to the Moon; however it took him two decades to develop the full-fledged theory. I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 6 John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:
In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the Earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later. The staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale can supply grafts from their tree, which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.
* Method of Fluxions (1671)
*Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (unpublished, c. 1671â75) Newton's alchemical works transcribed and online at Indiana University. Retrieved 11 January 2007.
* De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
* Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
* Opticks (1704)
* Reports as Master of the Mint (1701â25)
* Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
* The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, (Amended) and De mundi systemate (published posthumously in 1728)
* Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
* An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
*De Motu (Berkeley's essay)
* Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
*Finite difference#Newton_series
*GaussâNewton algorithm
*History of calculus
*Ismaël Bullialdus
*Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy
*List of multiple discoveries#17th century
* Newton disc
* Newton fractal
* Newton polygon
* Newton polynomial
* Newton (unit)
* Newton's cannonball
* Newton's cradle
* Newton's inequalities
* Newton's notation
* Newton's reflector
* Newton's theorem of revolving orbits
* NewtonâCotes formulas
* NewtonâEuler equations
* Newtonianism
* SchrödingerâNewton equations
* Spalding Gentlemenâs Society
*
* This well documented work provides, in particular, valuable information regarding Newton's knowledge of Patristics
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Bardi, Jason Socrates. The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time. 2006. 277 pp. excerpt and text search
* .
* Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. (2000). 256 pp. excerpt and text search ISBN 0-684-84392-7
* Buchwald, Jed Z. and Cohen, I. Bernard, eds. Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy. MIT Press, 2001. 354 pp. excerpt and text search
*
* See this site for excerpt and text search.
*
* Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. (2002). 500 pp. focuses on philosophical issues only; excerpt and text search; complete edition online
*
*
*
* â Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).
*
*
*
*
*Hawking, Stephen, ed. On the Shoulders of Giants. ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein
*
* Keynes took a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.
*
* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.
* Newton, Isaac (1642â1727). The Principia: a new Translation, Guide by I. Bernard Cohen ISBN 0-520-08817-4 University of California (1999)
*
*
* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150â4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).
*
* (edited by A. H. White; originally published in 1752)
*
* Dobbs, Betty Jo Tetter. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought. (1991), links the alchemy to Arianism
* Force, James E., and Richard H. Popkin, eds. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. (1999), 342pp . Pp. xvii + 325. 13 papers by scholars using newly opened manuscripts
* Ramati, Ayval. "The Hidden Truth of Creation: Newton's Method of Fluxions" British Journal for the History of Science 34: 417â438. in JSTOR, argues that his calculus had a theological basis
*Snobelen, Stephen "'God of Gods, and Lord of Lords': The Theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia," Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 16, (2001), pp. 169â208 in JSTOR
* Snobelen, Stephen D. "Isaac Newton, Heretic: The Strategies of a Nicodemite," British Journal for the History of Science 32: 381â419. in JSTOR
* Pfizenmaier, Thomas C. "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 57â80 in JSTOR
* Wiles, Maurice. Archetypal Heresy. Arianism through the Centuries. (1996) 214pp, with chapter 4 on 18th century England; pp 77â93 on Newton excerpt and text search,
* Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, (1999). 974 pp.
** Brackenridge, J. Bruce. The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia: Containing an English Translation of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Book One from the First (1687) Edition of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. University of California Press, 1996. 299 pp.
* Newton, Isaac. The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton. Vol. 1: The Optical Lectures, 1670â1672. Cambridge U. Press, 1984. 627 pp.
** Newton, Isaac. Opticks (4th ed. 1730) online edition
** Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.
* Newton, I. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1934).
* â 8 volumes
*Newton, Isaac. The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull and others, 7 vols. (1959â77)
* Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings edited by H. S. Thayer, (1953), online edition
* Isaac Newton, Sir; J Edleston; Roger Cotes, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, including letters of other eminent men, London, John W. Parker, West Strand; Cambridge, John Deighton, 1850. â Google Books
* Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.
* Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
* Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.
*
* Newton biography (University of St Andrews)
* ScienceWorld biography
* Dictionary of Scientific Biography
* The Newton Project
* The Newton Project - Canada
* Rebuttal of Newton's astrology
* Newton's Religious Views Reconsidered
* Newton's Royal Mint Reports
* Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme
*from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
** Isaac Newton, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, by George Smith
** Newton's Philosophy, by Andrew Janiak
** Newton's views on space, time, and motion, by Robert Rynasiewicz
* Newton's Castle Educational material
* The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Research on his Alchemical writings
* FMA Live! Program for teaching Newton's laws to kids
* Newton's religious position
* The "General Scholium" to Newton's Principia
*Kandaswamy, Anand M. The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context
* Newton's First ODE â A study by on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series
*
*
* The Mind of Isaac Newton Images, audio, animations and interactive segments
* Newton's works - full texts, at the Newton Project
*
* Newton's Principia â read and search
* Descartes, Space, and Body, an excerpt from De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Fluidorum, with annotations by Jonathan Bennett
* Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'', full text on archive.org
|
Jackson_Pollock | Who was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government? | LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Regarding this topic, what did David Alfaro Siqueiros do? | Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Who used hardened brushes, sticks,? | Jackson Pollock used hardened brushes, sticks. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | When were his papers donated by Lee Krasner? | In 1983. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Did Free Jazz feature a Pollock painting as its cover artwork? | Yes. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Was Paul Jackson Pollock an influential American painter as well as a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement? | Yes, Pollock was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Give an example of the origins of the term action painting. | Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | During his lifetime, did Pollock enjoy considerable fame and notoriety? | Yes. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jackson_Pollock | Was he regarded as a mostly reclusive artist? | Yes, he was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. | data/set6/a9 | Jackson_Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy. Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, p.503, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4 He died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car crash. In December 1956, he was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, and a larger more comprehensive exhibition there in 1967. More recently, in 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology pp. 315â329, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3. In 2000, Pollock was the subject of an Academy Awardâwinning film directed by and starring Ed Harris.
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art, ISBN 0753701790, p460-461. the youngest of five brothers. His parents, Stella May McClure and LeRoy Pollock, grew up in Tingley, Iowa. His father had been born McCoy but took the surname of his neighbors, who adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of one another. Stella and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; the former, Irish; the latter, Scotch-Irish. B. H. Friedman, Jackson Pollock: Energy Made Visible, p.4. Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0306806649 LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. Expelled from one high school in 1928, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School, from which he was also expelled. During his early life, he experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Robert Sickels, The 1940s, p.223. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313312990 In 1930, following his brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly, but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.
No. 5, 1948
In October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner, and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Long Island, New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for the wood-frame house with a nearby barn that Pollock made into a studio. It was there that he perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint.
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the early 1940s, such as "Male and Female" and "Composition with Pouring I." After his move to Springs, he began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what was later called his "drip" technique. Therefore, Pollock turned to synthetic resin-based paints called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artistâs paints, as "a natural growth out of a need". He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension, literally, by being able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
In the process of making paintings in this way, he moved away from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using easel and brush. He also moved away from the use of only the hand and wrist, since he used his whole body to paint. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" as a result of his unique painting style.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Other influences on his dripping technique include the Mexican muralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied "the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
Studies by Taylor, Micolich and Jonas have examined Pollock's technique and have determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals. Pollock or Not? Can Fractals Spot a Fake Masterpiece?, by JR Minkel for Scientific American, 31 October 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2009. They assert that the works become more fractal-like chronologically through Pollock's career. The authors even speculate that Pollock may have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and attempted to form a representation of mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" itself was proposed.
Other experts suggest that Pollock may have merely imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his paintings a depth not previously seen.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to photograph and film Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished. Namuth's comment upon entering the studio:
Pollock's Studio in Springs, New York.
Pollock's most famous paintings were made during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to popular status following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life Magazine that asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame, Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color, including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. This was followed by a return to color, and he reintroduced figurative elements. During this period Pollock had moved to a more commercial gallery and there was great demand from collectors for new paintings. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholism deepened.
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned titles and started numbering the paintings instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
Jackson Pollock's grave in the rear with Lee Krasner's grave in front in the Green River Cemetery.
In 1955 Pollock painted Scent and Search which proved to be his last two paintings. Abstract Expressionism in 1955. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Pollock did not paint at all in 1956. After struggling with alcoholism his entire life, Pollock's career was cut short on August 11, 1956 at 10:15pm when he died in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other passenger, Pollock's girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived. Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Chronology, p.328, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3 After Pollock's death at the age of 44, his widow, Lee Krasner, managed his estate and ensured that Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. They are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
The Pollock-Krasner House and Studio is owned and administered by the Stony Brook Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. There are regular tours of the house and studio from May through October.
A separate organization, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, was established in 1985. The Foundation not only functions as the official Estate for both Pollock and his widow Lee Krasner, but also, under the terms of Krasner's will, serves "to assist individual working artists of merit with financial need." The U.S. copyright representative for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation is the Artists Rights Society (ARS).
His papers were donated by Lee Krasner in 1983 to the Archives of American Art. They were later included with Lee Krasner's own papers. The Archives of American Art also houses the Charles Pollock Papers which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock.
In 1960, Ornette Coleman's album "Free Jazz" featured a Pollock painting as its cover artwork.
In 1973, Blue Poles (Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952), was purchased by the Australian Whitlam Government for the National Gallery of Australia for US $2 million (AU $1.3 million at the time of payment). At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a modern painting. In the conservative climate of the time, the purchase created a political and media scandal. The painting is now one of the most popular exhibits in the gallery, and is thought to be worth between $100 and $150 million, according to 2006 estimates. It was a centerpiece of the Museum of Modern Art's 1998 retrospective in New York, the first time the painting had returned to America since its purchase.
In 1999 a CD titled Jackson Pollock Jazz was released and only available at the MOMA. The CD had 17 tracks with jazz music inspired by Pollock. The CD has been discontinued.
In 2000, the biographical film Pollock was released. Marcia Gay Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lee Krasner. The movie was the project of Ed Harris who portrayed Pollock and directed it. He was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2003, twenty-four Pollock-esque paintings and drawings were found in a Wainscott, New York locker. There is an inconclusive ongoing debate about whether or not these works are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. This would require an analysis of geometric consistency of the paint splatters in Pollock's work at a microscopic level, and would be measured against the finding that patterns in Pollock's paintings increased in complexity with time. Analysis of the synthetic pigments shows that some were not patented until the 1980s, and therefore that it is highly improbable that Pollock could have used such paints.
In November 2006, Pollock's No. 5, 1948 became the world's most expensive painting, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000. The previous owner was film and music-producer David Geffen. It is rumored that the current owner is a German businessman and art collector.
Also in 2006 a documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? was made concerning Teri Horton, a truck driver who in 1992 bought an abstract painting for the price of five dollars at a thrift store in California. This work may be a lost Pollock painting. If so it would be worth millions; its authenticity, however, remains debated.
In September 2009, Henry Adams claimed in Smithsonian Magazine that Pollock had written his name in his famous painting "Mural" /ref>
Pollock stated:
âI feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the Indian sand painters of the West.â Jackson Pollock, "My Painting", in Pollock: Painting (edited by Barbara Rose), Agrinde Publications Ltd: New York (1980), page 65; originally published in Possibilities I, New York, Winter 1947-8
Pollock's work has always polarized critics and has been the focus of many important critical debates.
In a famous 1952 article in ARTnews, Harold Rosenberg coined the term "action painting," and wrote that "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value political, aesthetic, moral." Many people assumed that he had modeled his "action painter" paradigm on Pollock.
Clement Greenberg supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds. It fit well with Greenberg's view of art history as a progressive purification in form and elimination of historical content. He therefore saw Pollock's work as the best painting of its day and the culmination of the Western tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Manet.
Some posthumous exhibitions of Pollock's work were sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization to promote American culture and values backed by the CIA. Certain left-wing scholars, most prominently Eva Cockcroft, argue that the U.S. government and wealthy elite embraced Pollock and abstract expressionism in order to place the United States firmly in the forefront of global art and devalue socialist realism. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: Free Press. In the words of Cockcroft, Pollock became a "weapon of the Cold War". Eva Cockcroft, âAbstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold Warâ in Artforum vol.12, no.10, June 1974, pp. 43â54.
Painter Norman Rockwell's work Connoisseur Rockwell, Norman the Artchive also appears to make a commentary on the Pollock style. The painting features what seems to be a rather upright man in a suit standing before a Jackson Pollock-like spatter painting.
Others such as artist, critic, and satirist Craig Brown, have been "astonished that decorative 'wallpaper', essentially brainless, could gain such a position in art history alongside Giotto, Titian, and Velázquez." BBC2 Late Review: review of Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, 1999
Reynold's News in a 1959 headline said, "This is not art it's a joke in bad taste."
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
* (1942) Male and Female Philadelphia Museum of Art
* (1942) Stenographic Figure Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Mural University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1943) Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle
* (1943) The She-Wolf Museum of Modern Art
* (1943) Blue (Moby Dick) Ohara Museum of Art
* (1945) Troubled Queen Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1946) Eyes in the Heat Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
* (1946) The Key Art Institute of Chicago
* (1946) The Tea Cup Collection Frieder Burda
* (1946) Shimmering Substance, from The Sounds In The Grass Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Portrait of H.M. University of Iowa Museum of Art, currently housed at the Figge Art Museum
* (1947) Full Fathom Five Museum of Modern Art
* (1947) Cathedral
* (1947) Enchanted Forest Peggy Guggenheim Collection
* (1947) Lucifer San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
* (1948) Painting
* (1948) Number 5 (4 ft x 8 ft) Private collection
* (1948) Number 8
* (1948) Composition (White, Black, Blue and Red on White) New Orleans Museum of Art
* (1948) Summertime: Number 9A Tate Modern
* (1949) Number 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
* (1949) Number 3
* (1949) Number 10 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* (1950) Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) National Gallery of Art
* (1950) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 Metropolitan Museum of Art
* (1950) Number 29, 1950 National Gallery of Canada
* (1950) One: Number 31, 1950 Museum of Modern Art
* (1950) No. 32
* (1951) Number 7 National Gallery of Art
* (1951) Black & White
* (1952) Convergence Albright-Knox Art Gallery
* (1952) Blue Poles: No. 11, 1952 National Gallery of Australia
* (1953) Portrait and a Dream Dallas Museum of Art
* (1953) Easter and the Totem The Museum of Modern Art
* (1953) Ocean Greyness
* (1953) The Deep
*Herskovic, Marika, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies. (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421. p. 127; p. 196-199
* Herskovic, Marika. American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 262â265
* Herskovic, Marika. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 18; p. 38; pp. 278â281
*Karmel, Pepe, (Ed),Jackson Pollock: Key Interviews, Articles and Reviews Museum of Modern Art, Pepe Karmel, and Kirk Varnedoe (Editors), Publisher: Abrams,Harry N Inc., ISBN 0-87070037-5, 1999.
*Varnedoe, Kirk and Karmel, Pepe, Jackson Pollock: Essays, Chronology, and Bibliography. Exhibition catalog, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, ISBN 0-87070-069-3.
* O'Connor, Francis V. Jackson Pollock [exhibition catalogue] (New York, Museum of Modern Art, [1967]) OCLC 165852
* Taylor, Richard; Micolich, Adam; Jonas, David: Fractal Expressionism, Physics World, October 1999
* Naifeh, Steven and Smith, Gregory White, Jackson Pollock:an American saga, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.1989, ISBN 0-517-56084-4
*
* Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
* Pollock-Krasner Foundation
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Pollock on Museum Web Paris
* Pollock and The Law
* National Gallery of Art web feature, includes highlights of Pollock's career, numerous examples of his work, photographs and motion footage of Pollock, plus an in-depth discussion of his 1950 painting Lavender Mist.
* Blue Poles at the NGA
* One. Number 31, 1950 smARThistory
* Fractal Expressionism the fractal qualities of Pollock's drip paintings.
* Understanding Abstract Art by Harley Hahn
* Ed Pilkington, Pollock cache may have been painted after artist's death, The Guardian, 30 November 2007
* Jackson Pollock Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
* Works by Jackson Pollock (public domain in Canada)
*
* Pollock art at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* Pollock collection at Guggenheim NY site
* Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
* Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, California
|
Jakarta | Is the Wisma building the tallest building in Indonesia? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is the Wisma building the tallest building in Indonesia? | Yes, | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | is there a chinese community in jakarta? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | is there a chinese community in jakarta? | Yes. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is Jakarta the 12th largest city in the world? | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is Jakarta the 12th largest city in the world? | Yes. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What is the capital of Indonesia? | Jakarta | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What is the capital of Indonesia? | The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What is the official name of Jakarta? | Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What is the official name of Jakarta? | Daerah Khusus. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | How is the climate in the city? | Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | How is the climate in the city? | The city is hot and humid. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Where does the name of the city Jakarta come from? | The name Jakarta is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta." | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | How is the city's governor chosen? | election | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | How is the city's governor chosen? | Through election. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Why does Jakarta suffer frequent flooding? | Because it is located approximately eight meters above the sea level | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Why does Jakarta suffer frequent flooding? | The fact that the northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is the the biggest university in Jakarta the University of Indonesia | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is Jakarta a city | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is Jakarta a city | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is the most important river the Ciliwung River | yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Is the most important river the Ciliwung River | Yes | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Where is Jakarta located | northwest coast of Java | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Where is Jakarta located | On the northwest coast of Java | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Who created Monas Park | General Herman Willem Deandels | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Who created Monas Park | Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Do mikrolets travel on the main roads? | no | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | Do mikrolets travel on the main roads? | No | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What contributes to frequent flooding in Jakarta | Jakarta lies on a plain eight meters, approximately eight meters above the sea level. | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Jakarta | What contributes to frequent flooding in Jakarta | It lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level | data/set3/a5 | Jakarta
Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java, it has an area of and a population of 8,490,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political center. It is the most populous city in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is the twelfth-largest city in the world. The metropolitan area, Jabodetabek, is the second largest in the world. Jakarta is listed as a global city in the 2008 Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) research. the city's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "Jayakarta" (à¤à¤¯à¤à¤°à¥) which translates as "victorious deed," "complete act,"or "complete victory."
Established in the fourth century, the city became an important trading port for the Kingdom of Sunda. It grew as the capital of the colonial Dutch East Indies. It was made capital of Indonesia when the country became independent after World War II. It was formerly known as Sunda Kelapa (397â1527), Jayakarta (1527â1619), Batavia (1619â1942), and Djakarta (1942â1972).
Landmarks include the National Monument and Istiqlal Mosque. The city is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, and Tanjung Priok harbour; it is connected by several intercity and commuter railways, and served by several bus lines running on reserved busways.
The former Stadhuis of Batavia, the seat of Governor General of VOC. The building now serves as Jakarta History Museum, Jakarta Old Town area.
Dutch Batavia in the 17th Century, built in what is now North Jakarta
The Jakarta area was part of the fourth century Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara. In AD 39, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones across the area with inscriptions bearing his name, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. After the power of Tarumanagara declined, its territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area was renamed Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts. Bujangga Manik Manuscript which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik.( ) By the fourteenth century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.
The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java.
In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.
The Castle of Batavia, seen from West Kali Besar by Andries Beeckman circa 1656-58
Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
Jayawikarta is thought to have made trading connections with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. Prince Jayakarta's army and the British were defeated by the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English to retreat on their ships. The victory consolidated Dutch power and in 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
Batavia c.1870
Commercial opportunities in the capital of the Dutch colony attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square was completed in 1818, the housing park of Menteng was started in 1913, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. By 1930 Batavia had more than 500,000 inhabitants, Colonial Economy and Society, 1870-1940. Source: U.S. Library of Congress. including 37,067 Europeans. Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households. ScienceDirect.
The Japanese renamed the city "Jakarta" during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan MH Thamrin-Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, shopping centre, and a new parliament building.
In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto's "New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general's bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from the mid-60's commencement of the "New Order" through to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects some for the benefit of the Suharto family and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty.
Foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city.
The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in the Jakarta riots of May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots and violence ensued that killed an estimated 1,200, and destroyed or damaged 6,000 buildings. The Jakarta riots targeted Chinese Indonesians. Wages of Hatred. Michael Shari. Business Week. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000 on an almost annual basis, although the 2009 bombing of two international hotels was the first since 2005.
Map of the Cities (Kotamadya) of DKI Jakarta. Each Cities are divided into Subdistricts (Kecamatan)
Officially, Jakarta is not a city, but a province with special status as the capital of Indonesia. It has a governor (instead of a mayor), and is divided into several sub-regions with their own administrative systems. As a province, the official name of Jakarta is Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta ("Special Capital City District of Jakarta"), which in Indonesian is abbreviated to DKI Jakarta.
Jakarta is divided into five kota or kotamadya ("cities" - formerly municipalities), each headed by a mayor, and one regency (kabupaten) headed by a regent. In August 2007, Jakarta held its first ever election to choose a governor, whereas previously the city's governors were appointed by local parliament. The poll is part of a country-wide decentralization drive, allowing for direct local elections in several areas.
The Cities/Municipalities of Jakarta are:
* Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is Jakarta's smallest city and home to most of Jakarta's administrative and political center. It is characterized by large parks and Dutch colonial buildings. Landmarks include the National Monument (Monas), the Istiqlal Mosque, and museums.
* West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) has the highest concentration of small-scale industries in Jakarta. The area includes Jakarta's Chinatown and landmarks include the Chinese Langgam building and the Toko Merah building. West Jakarta contains part of the Jakarta Old Town.
* South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), previously planned as a satellite city, is now the location of large upscale shopping centers and affluent residential areas. Jakarta Selatan functions as Jakarta's ground water buffer, but recently the green belt areas are threatened by new developments. Most CBD area of Jakarta is concentrated in South Jakarta.
* East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur) territory is characterized with several industrial sectors erected in this city. There is also still some area of swamps and rice fields in this city.
* North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara) is the only city in Jakarta that is bounded by the sea (Java Sea). It is the location of the Tanjung Priok Port. Big-scale and medium-scale industries are concentrated in North Jakarta. North Jakarta contains the location of Jakarta Old Town, formerly known as Batavia since the 17 th century, and was a center of VOC trade activity in Dutch East Indies. Also located in North Jakarta is Ancol Dreamland (Taman Impian Jaya Ancol), currently the largest integrated tourism area in South East Asia.
The only Regency (Kabupaten) of Jakarta is:
* Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta, is a collection of 105 small islands located on Java Sea. It has a high conservation value because of its unique and special ecosystems. Marine tourism, such as diving, water bicycle, and wind surfing, is the most important touristic activities in this territory. The main transportation between these islands are speed boat or small ferries.
Since September 1945, the governmental of Jakarta City has been changed from the Japanese Djakarta Toku-Betsu Shi into Jakarta National Administration. This first government was held by a Mayor until the end of 1960 when it was changed into a Governor. The last Mayor of Jakarta is Sudiro, until he was replaced by Dr. Sumarno as a Governor.
In 1974, Based on the Act No. 5 of 1974 about Fundamental of Regional Government, Jakarta was stated as the Capital City of Indonesia and part of the 26 Province in Indonesia.
Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The city is a lowland area averaging 7 meters above sea level. Officially, the area of the Jakarta Special District is 662 km 2 of land area and 6,977 km 2 of sea area. Based on Governor Decree in 2007, No. 171. taken from Statistics DKI Jakarta Provincial Office, Jakarta in Figures, 2008, BPS Province of DKI Jakarta Rivers flow from the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung River, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities.
The northern part of Jakarta lies on a plain, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The coastal area extends around from west to east. The southern parts of the city are hilly. During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok, and the fact that 40% of it is below sea level . Major floods occurred in 1996 Asiaviews - Asian News when 5,000 hectares of land were flooded and 2007. Bloomberg.com: Asia Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed Three killed, 90,000 evacuated in Jakarta floods: officials - Yahoo! News and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Disease fears as floods ravage Jakarta Approximately 70% of Jakarta's total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. Jakarta Flood Feb 2007 « (Geo) Information for All /ref>
The Thousand Islands, which are administratively a part of Jakarta, are located in Jakarta Bay north of the city.
Jakarta has a hot and humid equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of , and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of .
Average daily temperatures range from 25° to 36°C (77°-97°F).
Tanjidor orchestra celebrating the Chinese New Year.
As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many domestic immigrants who bring their various languages, dialects, foods and customs.
The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living in and around Batavia and recognized as an ethnic group from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from parts of Indonesia. The Betawi - due to their diverse origins - play a major role concerning ethnic and national identity in contemporary Jakarta; see Knörr, Jacqueline: Kreolität und postkoloniale Gesellschaft. Integration und Differenzierung in Jakarta, Campus Verlag: Frankfurt a.M. & New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38344-6 The language and the culture of these immigrants is distinct from that of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on the East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta are loosely based on the Betawi language.
The parade of Ondel-ondel, a Betawi large puppet-mask dance.
Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most Betawi have moved to the border of Jakarta, displaced by new immigrants. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi weddings in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (a mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (a mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (a mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festivals such as the Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival include efforts to preserve Betawi arts by inviting artists to give performances.
There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for many centuries. Officially, they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under-reported.
Jakarta has several performing art centers, such as the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) art center in Cikini, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta near Pasar Baru, Balai Sarbini in Plaza Semanggi area, Bentara Budaya Jakarta in Palmerah area, Pasar Seni (Art Market) in Ancol, and traditional Indonesian art performances at the pavilions of some Provinces in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including Wayang and Gamelan performances. Javanese Wayang Orang performance can be found at Wayang Orang Bharata theater near Senen bus terminal. As the nation's largest city and capital, Jakarta has lured much national and regional talent who hope to find a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
Jakarta is hosting several prestigious art and culture festivals as well as exhibitions, such as the annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest), Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, Jakarta Fashion Week, Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival (JFFF), Flona Jakarta (Flora and Fauna exhibition, held annually on August in Lapangan Banteng park featuring flowers, plant nursery, and pets), also Indonesia Creative Products and Jakarta Arts and Crafts exhibition. The Jakarta Fair is held annually from mid June to mid July to celebrate the anniversary of the city. It is largely centered around a trade fair, however this month-long fair also has featured entertainments, arts and music performances by local bands and musicians.
Several foreign art and culture centers also established in Jakarta, mainly serve to promote culture and language through learning centers, libraries, and art galleries. Among these foreign art and cultural centers are Netherlands Erasmus Huis, UK British Council, France Centre Culturel Français, Germany Goethe-Institut, Japan Foundation, and Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center.
National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta
The museums in Jakarta cluster around the Central Jakarta Merdeka Square area, Jakarta Old Town, and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.
The Jakarta Old Town contains museums that are former institution buildings of Batavia. Some of these museums are Jakarta History Museum (former City Hall of Batavia), Wayang Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum (former Court House of Batavia), Maritime Museum (former Sunda Kelapa warehouse), Bank Indonesia Museum, and Bank Mandiri Museum.
Several museums that are clustered around the Merdeka Square area are National Museum of Indonesia, Monas, Bayt al-Qur'an and Istiqlal Islamic Museum, and Jakarta Cathedral Museum.
The recreational area of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta contains fourteen museums such as Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum, Asmat Museum, and other science-based museum such as Research & Technology Information Centre, Insect Museum, Petrol and Gas Museum.
Other museums are Satria Mandala Military Museum, Museum Sumpah Pemuda, and Lubang Buaya.
Jakarta has a vast range of food available at hundreds of eating complexes located all over the city. There is also international food, especially Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food because of the cosmopolitan population. /ref> One of the popular local cuisine of Jakarta is Soto betawi, which is a cow milk or coconut milk broth with beef tendons, intestines, tripe. The other popular cuisine are kerak telor, gado-gado, and cucur.
Daily newspapers in Jakarta include Bisnis Indonesia, Investor Daily, Jakarta Globe, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, Lampu Merah and Suara Pembaruan.
* Government television: TVRI.
* Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, TV ONE, Trans 7, and Global TV.
* Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
* Cable television: First Media, TelkomVision
* Satellite television: Indovision, Astro Nusantara, TelkomVision, Aora TV
The headquarter of Bank Indonesia in Central Jakarta. Financial services, trade and manufacturing are the largest sectors of the city's economy.
Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing. In 2009, 13% of the population had an income per capita in excess of US$ 10,000 (Rp 108,000,000).
The economic growth of Jakarta in 2007 was 6.44% up from 5.95% the previous year, with the growth in the transportation and communication (15.25%), construction (7.81%) and trade, hotel and restaurant sectors (6.88%). In 2007, GRP (Growth Regional Domestic Product) was Rp. 566.45 trillion. The largest contributions to GDRP was by finance, ownership and business services (28.7%); trade, hotel and restaurant sector (20.4%), and manufacturing industry sector (15.97%). In 2007, per capita GRDP of DKI Jakarta inhabitants was an 11.63% compared to previous year
Both GRDP by at current market price and GRDP by at 2000 constant price in 2007 for Municipality of Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat) is higher than other municipalities in DKI Jakarta, which is 145.81 million rupiahs and 80.78 million rupiahs.
A new law in 2007 forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, and prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and taking tips for directing traffic at intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and it tends to ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants. "Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta" Human Rights Watch Sep 2006.
In 2005, Jakarta's contribution to the national GDP was 17% up from 15% in 2000. The manufacturing and construction sectors in Jakarta decreased indicating that Jakarta has shifted from industry city to the services city. Most manufacturing plants in Jakarta have been relocated to peripheral areas like Tangerang, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi.
Based on 2007 National Socio-Economic Survey estimates, the population of DKI Jakarta Province was 9.06 million. The area of DKI Jakarta is 662.33 km 2 , suggesting a population density of 137,000 people/km 2 . Population growth between 2000 and 2007 was 1.11 percent compared 0.15 percent during the 1990s. Inwards immigration tended to negate the effect of family planning programs. The population has risen from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the second largest urban area in the world. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas. Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia 1998 Yearbook, p. 63.
Population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. Jakarta suffers from severe traffic congestion. Air pollution and waste management are also problems.
Jakarta's Central Business District along the Jenderal Sudirman Road, centered at the Wisma 46 building, currently the tallest office building in Indonesia.
West Irian Liberation Statue, one of the many Sukarno era monuments in the city.
The National Monument
The National Monument, stands at the center of Merdeka Square, the central park of the city. Other landmarks include the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. The Wisma 46 building in Central Jakarta is currently the highest building in Jakarta and Indonesia. Tourist attractions include Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ragunan Zoo, Jakarta Old Town, and Ancol Dreamland complex on Jakarta Bay, include Dunia Fantasi theme park, Sea World, Atlantis Water Adventure, and Gelanggang Samudra.
Jakarta shopping malls with areas in excess of 100,000 metres square, include Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Senayan City, Plaza Senayan, Pondok Indah Mall, Mal Taman Anggrek, Mal Kelapa Gading, Mal Artha Gading. /ref> Traditional markets include Blok M, Tanah Abang, Senen, Glodok, Mangga Dua, Cempaka Mas, and Jatinegara.
Taman Suropati is located in Menteng garden city subdistrict, Central Jakarta. The park is surrounded by several Dutch colonial buildings. Taman Suropati was known as Burgemeester Bishopplein during the Dutch colonial time. The park is circular shaped with a surface area of 16,322 m2. There are several modern statues in the park made by artists of the ASEAN countries, which contributes to the other nickname of the park "Taman persahabatan seniman ASEAN" ("Park of the ASEAN artists relationship").
Taman Lapangan Banteng (Banteng Field Park) is located in Central Jakarta. It is about 4,5 hectares. The most notable landmark inside the park is the Monumen Pembebasan Irian Barat (Monument of the Liberation of Irian Barat). During the 1980s, the park is used as a bus terminal. In 1993, the park turned into a public space again and has become a recreation place for people and occasionally also used as an exhibition place or other events.
Taman Monas (Monas Park) or Taman Medan Merdeka (Medan Merdeka Park) is the park where the symbol of Jakarta, Monas or Monumen Nasional (National Monument) is located. The large open space was created by Dutch Governor General Herman Willem Deandels (1870) and was completed in 1910 under the name of Koningsplein. on 10 Januari 1993, President Soeharto initiate the action toward the beautification of the park. Several features in the park is a deer park and 33 trees that represents the 33 provinces of Indonesia.
Jalan Thamrin, the main avenue in Central Jakarta
One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. In Indonesia most communal transport is provided by mikrolets, which are privately run minibuses although these normally stay off the main roads.
Jakarta suffers from traffic congestion. A 'three in one' rule during peak hour was introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Motorised bajaj
Auto rickshaws, called bajaj, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but did not eliminate them. A campaign to eliminate them succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them. Azuma, Yoshifumi (2003). Urban peasants: beca drivers in Jakarta. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
TransJakarta bus service in Jakarta
The TransJakarta bus rapid transit service operates on seven reserved busway corridors in the city; connecting seven main points of Jakarta. The first TransJakarta line, from Blok M to Jakarta Kota opened in January 2004.
An outer ring road is under constructed and is partly operational A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the northwest of Jakarta, as are the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west, and Bogor and Puncak to the south. Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang, Cikampek, Purwakarta, and Bandung to the east.
A train at Gambir station in Central Jakarta
Railways connect the city to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jakarta Kota, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, and Tanah Abang. During peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds the system's capacity, and crowding is common.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. There are plans for a two-line metro (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, and the project has been abandoned by the developer PT Jakarta Monorail in March 2008.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung River.
Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) is Jakarta's major airport. It is Indonesia's busiest airport handling more than 30 million passengers annually. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport (HLP) serves mostly private and VVIP/presidential flights.
The main seaport for this transportation mode is the Tanjung Priok seaport.
The biggest university in Jakarta is the University of Indonesia with campuses in Salemba and Depok. /ref> Others government universities include Jakarta State University, Jakarta State Polytechnic, and Jakarta Islamic State University. Nowadays, the oldest of which is the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). Web Universitas Nasional 1949 Private universities in Jakarta include Trisakti University Atma Jaya University, and Tarumanagara University.
STOVIA was the first high school in Jakarta, established in 1851. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools. Two of the major international schools located in Jakarta are the Jakarta International School and the British International School (BIS).
The Bung Karno Stadium is capable of hosting 100,000 spectators
Jakarta was host to the Asian Games in 1962, /ref> host of the Asian Cup 2007, /ref> and has hosted the regional-scale Sea Games several times. Jakarta's most popular footbal club is Persija, which plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another premiere division team is Persitara.
The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats Football stadiums of the world - Stadiums in Indonesia . For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. The Senayan sports complex has several sport venues, including the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.
In 2011, Jakarta, together with Bandung, will again host the Southeast Asian Games.
A trash dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi
Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors. Some 7.2 million people are [without clean water]." United Nations Human Development Report 2006, p. 39
Sister relationships with towns and regions worldwide include:
*History of Jakarta
*Port of Jakarta
* Official website
* Jakarta Official Travel Website
*
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.