Question

In this assignment , we will explore the life of Isaac Newton, please listen to the radio show from the BBC and do a little research about Isaac Newton.

1. Listen the first episode (Age of Ingenuity) of the following podcast show: Seven Ages of Science BBC Radio. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0380wf8/episodes/downloads)

You can also find this series from iTunes or any other podcast apps.

2. This first episode (The Age of ingenuity) describes the age of Isaac Newton. (I highly recommend you listen to all seven episodes. These are fun.) After you listen to the episode, please answer following questions.
   1. In this episode, they mentioned about a special telescope designed by Robert Hooke. What is the name of the telescope? Search online to find a picture of the telescope and attached to this paper. Explain how the telescope works.

2. How was the relationship between Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton? Were they good friends or enemies? Search online to find more stories about them and write here.

3. Isaac Newton is an interesting person. Find any interesting stories about Isaac Newton, you can use any resources such as online resources, DVDs, TV and books. Please write a story you found and reference the source of the story correctly.

Reference: ______________________________________________________

Answer 1

a) Gregorian Telescope

The Gregorian telescope is a type of reflecting telescope designed by scottish mathematician and astronomer James Gregory in the 17th century, and first built in 1673 by robert Hooke.

The Gregorian telescope consists of two concave mirrors; the primary mirror (a concave paraboloid) collects the light and brings it to a focus before the secondary mirror (a concave ellipsoid) where it is reflected back through a hole in the centre of the primary, and thence out the bottom end of the instrument where it can be viewed with the aid of the eyepiece.

The Gregorian design solved the problem of viewing the image in a reflector by allowing the observer to stand behind the primary mirror. This design of telescope renders an upright image, making it useful for terrestrial observations. It also works as a telephoto in that the tube is much shorter than the system's actual focal length.

The design was largely superseded by the Cassegrain telescope. It is still used for some spotting scopes because this design creates an erect image without the need for prisms. The Steward Observatory Mirror Lab has been making mirrors for large Gregorian telescopes at least since 1985.

In the Gregorian design, the primary mirror creates a real image before the secondary mirror. This allows for a field stop to be placed at this location, so that the light from outside the field of view does not reach the secondary mirror. This is a major advantage for solar telescopes, where a field stop (Gregorian stop) can reduce the amount of heat reaching the secondary mirror and subsequent optical components. The Solar Optical Telescope on the Hinode satellite is one example of this design.

Diagram of the light path through a Gregorian Telescope

A Gregorian Telescope circa 1735

Side view

1873 diagram of a Gregorian Telescope

b) Relationship between Isac Newton and Robert Hooke

Hooke was at the zenith of his career in 1679 when he began an intense correspondence with Newton about gravitation, an idea that Hooke had already taken on a few years earlier. The great confrontation between the two men occurred when in 1686 Newton published the first volume of his Principia and Hooke affirmed that it was he who had given him the notion that led him to the law of universal gravitation. Hooke demanded credit as the author of the idea and Newton denied it. The most he came to recognise is that those letters with Hooke had rekindled his interest in astronomy, but had not brought him anything new. Many science histories have tried to insert into their quarrel Newton’s famous sentence penned to Hooke in a letter: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” which they consider a dig at Hooke, who was supposed to have been of rather short stature. But the truth is that this letter is earlier, from February 5, 1675, at a time when the relationship between the two English geniuses was still cordial.

There is no certainty about Robert Hooke’s appearance and stature, not least because no portrait of him has been preserved. Historically, this lack is attributed to Newton’s efforts to erase the figure of his great rival. What is certain is that this rivalry continued until the death of Hooke in 1703, upon which the last obstacle to Newton’s appointment as president of the Royal Society on November 30 of that same year disappeared. Newton then fulfilled his promise not to publish his corpuscular theory of light (which had provoked the first quarrel between them) until Hooke had died: he did so a year later, in the book Opticks (1704).

According to scientific legend, Newton also sent for the only portrait of Hooke and ordered it destroyed; another version states that he left it intentionally forgotten when the Royal Society moved to another building. However, Robert Hooke’s most recent biographer and scholar of his figure, Allan Chapman, rejects these stories as pure myths. Chapman and other historians have made a great effort in recent years to once again dignify this great genius of science. In 2003, painter Rita Greer embarked on historical research to produce a portrait of Hooke faithful to the two remaining written descriptions of him. His public image thus restored, that tribute portrait by Greer (which heads this text) has been used to illustrate numerous articles and documentaries, which finally cast Hooke in a fairer light in the history of science.

Isaac Newton’s Complete Mental Breakdown

Newton’s mental breakdown, from time to time, would spill out of his study. He did more than sit around writing weird, mystical treatises—every now and then, he got out and talked to his friends and was just absolutely awful to them.

During a 12-month period starting in 1693, Newton barely barely slept. He slept an hour on the best nights, hardly touched food, and, at his darkest moment, went a full five nights without sleeping at all.

He started having crazy, paranoid thoughts that his friends were out to get him and lashed out at them, sometimes violently. At one point, when he found that his friend, philosopher John Locke, was ill, Newton screamed: “Twere better if you were dead!”

John Locke was conspiring against Newton, he believed—but not to kill him. Locke’s secret plan was to “embroil [him] with women”—or, in other words, to get Newton to break his lifetime of chastity by finally getting him a girlfriend.

Newton still had moments of lucidity. In another letter to Locke, he told him that he remembered writing him a letter but couldn’t recall what he’d said and begged Locke to let him know if it was something terrible.

He knew something was wrong with him. He had lost his “former consistency of mind,” he told his friend, Samuel Pepys, and he’d become a danger to his friends.^[10] It was no longer safe for him to be around them.

“[I] am now sensible that I must withdraw from your acquaintance, and see neither you nor the rest of my friends any more, if I may but leave them quietly,” he wrote in what was meant to be his final letter to his friend. “I beg your pardon for saying I would see you again

Reference : https://listverse.com/2018/07/26/10-strange-stories-from-isaac-newtons-descent-into-madness/