INTRO

Newton's history
his contribution to science(physics)
objective of his prism experiment
METHOD
what he did during his experiment and how he did it
RESULTS
short discussion(say wat he acheived and how he did it)
Dispersion
Spectrum

(include many diagrams, conclusion, references/bibliography and it must be more

than 3 pages)

Isaac Newton's contribution to Science

By: Maya

Ribeiro 3S

His History:
Isaac Newton was born on 4 January
1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. His father
was a prosperous farmer, who died three months
before he was born. His mother remarried and
he became interested in mathematics, optics,
physics and astronomy. In October 1665, a
plague forced the university to close and he
returned to Woolsthorpe. The two years he spent
there were an extremely successful time during
which he began to think about gravity. He also
devoted time to optics and mathematics,
working out his ideas about 'fluxions' (calculus).
In 1667, he returned to Cambridge,
where he became a member of Trinity College.
Two years later he was appointed the second
Lucasian professor of mathematics. It was his
reflecting telescope, made in 1668, that finally
brought him to the attention of the scientific
community and in 1672 he was made a member
of the Royal Society. From the mid-1660s, he conducted a series of experiments on the
composition of light, discovering that white light is composed of the same system of colors that
can be seen in a rainbow and establishing the modern study of optics (or the behavior of light). In
1704,he published 'The Optics' which dealt with light and color. He also studied and published
works on history, theology and alchemy.
In 1687, with the support of his friend the astronomer Edmond Halley, he published his
single greatest work, the 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' ('Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy'). This showed how a universal force, gravity, applied to all
objects in all parts of the universe.
In 1689, he was elected member of parliament for Cambridge University (1689 - 1690
and 1701 - 1702). In 1696,he was appointed warden of the Royal Mint, settling in London. He
campaigned against corruption and inefficiency within the organization. In 1703, he was elected
president of the Royal Society, an office he held until his death. He was knighted in 1705.

His Contribution to Science (Physics):

Laws of Motion
His Laws of Motion are still used by physicists all over the world. Newtonian Physics is taught
in many courses at the college level, as well as high school and middle school. Everything in that
genre of physics is based upon these three laws:
1. Every object has uniform motion unless acted upon by a force.
2. The force applied to an object is equal to the object's mass times the resulting
acceleration:
3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
These laws are used to describe everything from throwing a ball to the merging of galaxies. Even
though it has been shown through people like Albert Einstein that Newton's Laws are really
approximations, they work so well on a wide range of scales, that they are still used in lieu of the
better laws. For example, you would use Newtonian Mechanics to describe the acceleration of a
car, not Einstein's General Relativity.
Law of Gravity
Newton's Law of Gravity is not precise in extreme circumstances, such as very high velocities or
very strong gravity. For cases such as these, Einstein's General and Special Relativity theories are
needed. However, in most other cases, and especially those that we are familiar with on Earth,
Newton's Law works extremely well.
It is based upon his laws of motion, and it shows how two objects exhibit a
force upon the other. It is the equation to the right.
It says that the gravitational force experienced is equal to a gravitational constant times both
masses divided by the distance between them squared. The value "G" is an extremely small
number, and therefore the gravitational force is extremely weak - the weakest of the four
fundamental forces. This law also shows that the force of gravity dies off with the square of the
distance. This means that if you are twice as far away from something, then the gravitational
force you experience is 1/4 as much.
Objectives of his Prism Experiment:
In 1666, Isaac Newton observed that the spectrum of colors exiting a prism is oblong, even
when the light ray entering the prism is circular, which is to say, the prism refracts different
colors by different angles. This led him to conclude that color is a property intrinsic to light, a
point which had been debated.

From 1670 to 1672, he lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of
light, demonstrating that the multicolored spectrum produced by a prism could be recomposed
into white light by a lens and a second prism. Modern scholarship has revealed that his analysis
and resynthesis of white light owes a debt to corpuscular alchemy.
He also showed that the colored light does not change its properties by separating out a colored
beam and shining it on various objects. He noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or
scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same color. Thus, he observed that color is the result of
objects interacting with already-colored light rather than objects generating the color themselves.
This is known as his theory of color.

What Isaac Newton did in his Prism Experiment:

One bright sunny day, Isaac Newton darkened his room and made a hole in his window
shutter, allowing just one beam of sunlight to enter the room. He then took a glass prism and
placed it in the sunbeam. The result was a spectacular multicolored band of light just like a
rainbow. The multicolored band of light is called a color spectrum.
He believed that all the colors he saw were in the sunlight shining into his room. He
thought he then should be able to combine the colors of the spectrum and make the light white
again. To test this, he placed another prism upside-down in front of the first prism. He was right.
The band of colors combined again into white sunlight. He was the first to prove that white light
is made up of all the colors that we can see.
What Isaac Newton achieved and how he did it:
Sir Isaac Newtons largest contributions were in the areas of science and mathematics.
Newton discovered many of the laws and theories that not only furthered our understanding of
the universe, but also gave future scientists the tools to discover how to enter space. He
discovered gravitational force and established the three Universal Laws of Motion. By tying
these discoveries to the work Johannes Kepler and his Laws of Planetary motion, he established
classic mechanics, the beginning of modern Physics. This was huge in many ways as he proved
definitively the heliocentric model first proposed by Copernicus. He also was the first to propose
a set of laws that described the motion of all things in the universe. This served as the basis for

our understanding how the universe functions and why it is the way it is. For his time and even
now this was a major breakthrough.
His discoveries in mathematics were just as important. He came up with the Binomial
Theorem and was one of the two creators of calculus. These discoveries represented a quantum
leap in the fields of math and science allowing for calculations that more accurately modeled the
behavior of the universe than ever before. Without these advances in math, scientists could not
design vehicles to carry us and other machines into space and also plot the best and safest course.
Calculus gave scientist the tools to set up a theoretical model of a situation and still account for
varying factors. This basic knowledge would help scientist such as Einstein to be able make even
greater discoveries such as the Theory of Relativity and Nuclear Fission. He also achieved a
Bachelor of Arts from Trinity College in 1665. In 1668 he was awarded a Masters of Arts from
Trinity College. Sir Isaac Newton was admitted to the Royal Society in 1672 and then elected to
Parliament as an MP for Cambridge University in 1688. And then in 1703 he was elected
President of the Royal Society.
Conclusion:
Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician who was widely regarded
as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.
His book 'Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica' ("Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics.
Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for
the invention of the infinitesimal calculus. In the end, Isaac Newton was one of the most
powerful persons in the history of science.
Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
http://www.newton.ac.uk/newtlife.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/newton_isaac.shtml
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/bh.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/NewtonAndLight.html
http://www.ask.com/question/what-did-isaac-newton-find-out-about-light

The End