Question

In a letter to Robert Hooke, Newton wrote:“If I have seen farther [than other scientists], it is because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants.” What he meant by this expression was that his reputation as a towering figure (that could see further) was due to the cumulative development within the sciences, which resulted from the previous contributions of others. Name four of the “giants”and explain how their intellectual contributions have helped to provide Newton with greater vision.

Answer 1

All of the University educated would have been influenced by the greats of Greek Science, Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Aristotle

Several astronomers were creating a stir at the time mostly because the Church opposed it.

Copernicus and Gallileo had already established heliocentricism and
Gallileo had already demonstrated that gravity was a uniform force, in his experiment on the tower of Pisa. Kepler's Laws were the first book officially banned by the Church.

Archimedes:

One of the most famous examples of his mathematical discoveries includes how he figured out the volume of an irregular shape. This discovery took place in Archimedes’ bath tub with a gold crown which was supposed to be detected for any silver substitution. This incident is relative to Archimedes’ Principle in hydrostatics and hence was a major contribution made by the mathematician.

The Archimedes screw which was initially developed as an idea by the great mind can be accredited in many different types of machinery.

Out of the many inventions, Archimedes Heat Ray was a technique which was supposedly meant to make ships catch fire through mirrors and proper reflection. The Archimedes Claw was also an invention intended to destroy the enemy. He also worked a lot of levers and leverage in ‘On the Equilibrium of Planes’.

Copernicus:

Copernicus finished the first manuscript of his book, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres") in 1532. In it, Copernicus established that the planets orbited the sun rather than the Earth. He laid out his model of the solar system and the path of the planets.

Aristotle:

Invented the Logic of the Categorical Syllogism .Classification of Living Beings.

It is true that while Aristotle established new frontiers in the field of life sciences, his ventures into physics fall short by comparison. His studies in physics seem to have been highly influenced by pre-established ideas of contemporary and earlier Greek thinkers. For instance, in his treatises On Generation and Corruption and On the Heavens, the world set-up he described had many similarities with propositions made by some pre-Socratic era theorists. He embraced Empedocles’ view on the make-up of the universe that everything was created from different compositions of the four fundamental elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Similarly, Aristotle believed that any kind of change meant something was in motion. In a rather self-contradicting way (at least the initial interpreters found it to be so), he defined the motion of anything as the actuality of a potentiality. In its entirety, Aristotle understood physics as a part of theoretical science that was in sync with natural philosophy. Perhaps a more synonymous term to attach to Aristotle’s interpretation would be “physis” or simply the study of nature.

Galileo:

Galileo, though not the first inventor of the refracting telescope, significantly enhanced its power. In 1609, he learned of the spyglass and began to experiment with telescope-making, grinding and polishing his own lenses. His telescope allowed him to see with a magnification of eight or nine times, making it possible to see that the Moon had mountains and that Jupiter had satellites.

The first pendulum clock

If that wasn’t enough, as well as Galileo’s contributions to astronomy, he also designed a major component for the first pendulum clock, Galileo’s escapement. This design, however, went unbuilt until after the construction of the first working pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens.