NEWTON 



Newton, THOMAS WODEHOUSE 

 LEOH, 2ND BARON (b. 1857). Brit- 

 ish politician. Born March 18, 

 1857, he 

 educated 



5720 



NEWTON 



SIR ISAAC NEWTON 



2nd Baron Newton, 

 British politician 



Raisell 



was 

 at 



Eton and 

 Christ Church, 

 Oxford, and 

 entered the 

 diplomatic 

 service, in 

 which he 

 served 1880- 

 86. He was 

 Conservative 

 M. P. for a Lan- 

 cashire division 1886-98, when he 

 succeeded to the title. In 1915 he 

 was made paymaster-general, and 

 was attached as an assistant under- 

 secretary to the foreign office, being 

 charged with the duty of looking 

 after the interests of the British 

 prisoners of war. In that capacity 

 he led the negotiations at The Hague 

 for exchanges of prisoners with the 

 German government, 1917-18. His 

 family seat is Lyme Park, near 

 Stockport. He wrote a Life of Lord 

 Lyons, 1913, under whom he 

 served in Paris, and Lady Newton 

 wrote The House of Lyme, 1917. 

 Newton, ALFRED (1829-1907). 

 British zoologist. Born at Geneva, 

 June 11, 1829, the son of William 

 Newton, M.P., he was educated 

 privately and at Magdalene Col- 

 lege, Cambridge. Having gained a 

 travelling fellowship, he was able 

 to study birds in many parts of the 

 world. Returning to England, he 

 was, in 1866, made professor of 

 zoology and anatomy at Cam- 

 bridge, where he remained until 

 his death, June 8, 1907. Newton's 

 Dictionary of Birds, 1893-96, is the 

 standard work of its kind. He also 

 wrote The Zoology of Ancient 

 Europe, 1862; Zoology, 1872, 2nd 

 ed. 1894 ; and was a frequent con- 

 tributor to scientific journals. See 

 Life, A. F. R. Wollaston, 1921. 



Newton, ERNEST (1856-1922). 

 British architect. Born Sept. 12, 

 1856, he was educated at Upping- 

 liam, after- 

 wards study- 

 ing under Nor- 

 man Shaw. In 

 1879 he began 

 to practise as 

 a n architect, 

 making domes- 

 tic architecture 

 his speciality. 

 In 1919 he 

 was elected 

 R.A., having 

 from 1914-17 been president of the 

 Royal Institution of British Archi- 

 tects. During the Great War he 

 served in the ministry of national 

 service. He published A Book of 

 Houses,1891,and died Mar.25,1922. 



Ernest Newton, 

 British architect 



Elliott & Fry 



W. W. Bouse Ball, H.A., Fellc TV oi Trinity College, Cambridge 

 See the articles Energy ; Gravitation ; Light ; Motion; Physics. Con- 

 sult also Relativity ; Einstein ; Kepler ; and the biographies of other 

 eminent physicists 



Isaac Newton was born at Wools - 

 thorpe, Lincolnshire, Dec. 25, 1642, 

 and educated at Grantham School. 

 In 1661 he entered Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, where he resided a 

 year or more before he began to 

 read mathematics. He proved an 

 apt student, and by the early part 

 of 1665 had made himself familiar 

 with Euclidean geometry, geo- 

 metrical conies, algebra, trigono- 

 metry, analytical geometry, and 

 analysis as then studied ; he also 

 worked for his own amusement at 

 optics and chemistry. In 1665 

 there was an outbreak of plague, 

 and for a couple of years he lived 

 at home, though with occasional 

 visits to Cambridge. Probably at 

 this time his creative powers were 

 at their highest. He had already 



discovered the binomial theorem, 

 his use of fluxions may be traced 

 back to 1665, his theory of gravi- 

 tation originated in 1666, and the 

 beginning of his optical discoveries 

 would seem to have been made 

 early in 1667. 



Newton returned to Cambridge 

 in 1668, having been elected to 

 a college fellowship the previous 

 year. For the next 30 years he 

 lived in college, engrossed in the 

 researches on which his fame rests. 

 Soon after his return to Cambridge 

 he was elected Lucasian professor, 

 and as such lectured once a week 

 in one term of each year, supple- 

 menting his instruction by personal 

 interviews and the loan of manu- 

 scripts. The value of his work was 

 widely recognized, and in 1675 

 the Crown issued letters-patent, 

 permitting him to hold his fellow- 



ship without the necessity of 

 taking orders. We may picture 

 him at this time as a short man 

 with a broad forehead, a deter- 

 mined square jaw, bright blue 

 eyes, and sharp features with a 

 prominent nose. In character he 

 was modest, deeply religious, and 

 scrupulously just, but easily upset 

 by controversy. 



Newton left Cambridge in 1696, 

 and during the rest of his career 

 lived in London, holding offices 

 in the Mint. These offices gave him 

 a sufficient income, he enjoyed a 

 well-appointed home, knew every- 

 one he desired, and was universally 

 honoured and esteemed. His 

 reports on official matters and 

 questions referred to him show 

 him as an acute and well-informed 

 observer, but in science he pro- 

 duced nothing more of special 

 note. Several of his earlier investi- 

 gations were now published for 

 the first time in forms accessible to 

 the general public. During this 

 period he became involved in 

 two controversies, one on the 

 question whether Leibniz had dis- 

 covered the infinitesimal calculus 

 independently or had appropri- 

 ated the idea from him, the other 

 about the publication of Flam- 

 steed's observations. He died at 

 Kensington, March 20, 1727 and 

 was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

 He had been knighted in 1705, 

 and was president of the 

 Royal Society from 1703 until 

 his death. 



As regards his researches in 

 pure mathematics, Newton dealt 

 with most of the subjects then 

 read, notably geometry and alge- 

 bra. The evolution of the calculus 

 was one of the great intellectual 

 achievements of his day ; this was 

 invented by him, possibly also 

 independently by others, though 

 its introduction into general use was 

 mainly due to Continental mathe- 

 maticians. : In geometrical optics, 

 Newton developed the mathemati- 

 cal exposition, and for the first time 

 offered an explanation of colour 

 phenomena ; he also invented a 

 reflecting telescope, microscope, and 

 sextant. These investigations led 

 him to consider how light was pro- 

 . duced, that is, to a theory of physi- 

 cal optics. In this he discussed the 

 wave and corpuscular theories, 

 rejecting the former, which, as then 

 presented, failed to account for the 

 rectilinear propagation of light, 

 but admitting the latter as possible 

 though not altogether satisfactory. 



