Newton's telescope, an examination of the reflecting telescope attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in the possession of the Royal Society

1979 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-155 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Optic Axis ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Christiaan Huygens ◽  
Successful Design ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Convergent Beam ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Made In

Isaac Newton (1642-1727, F.R.S. 1672, P.R.S. 1703-1727) is generally I credited with the invention of the reflecting telescope, having conceived the idea in 1666* (1, 2, 3). In fact Gregory (4) and others (5) had by that time already considered telescopes employing curved mirrors, but late in 1668 Newton was the first to construct a working model (1,6). This instrument was also the first to employ a small elliptical plane mirror, inclined at 450 to the optic axis, to reflect the convergent beam from the primary mirror to an eyepiece mounted on the side of the telescope tube—a compact and very successful design now universally recognized as the Newtonian reflector. A second instrument made in the Autumn of 1671 (2) proved ‘sensibly better’ than the first. W ord of the invention reached the Royal Society, and Newton was invited to send a telescope for inspection by the Fellows. He dispatched the recentlycompleted second model, and it arrived in London in December 1671 (6, 7). At the meeting held n January 1672 (8) it was announced that the telescope had been examined at Whitehall by the King (Charles II), the President (Lord Brouncker), Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr Christopher W ren, and Mr Hooke; and they had formed so good an opinion of it that they had requested the Secretary (Henry Oldenburg) to send a formal description of the instrument to Christiaan Huygens in Paris, in order to secure the rights of the invention to Newton.

scholarly journals Christ’s hospital and the Royal Society

1940 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-145
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Left Shoulder ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Mathematical School ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
The City

The Religious, Royal, and Ancient Foundation o f Christ’s Hospital is one of nine Public Schools to which the Royal Society has the privilege of nominating a member o f the governing body. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI, ‘ the boy Patron of boys,’ Christ’s Hospital came into possession of part o f the Grey Friars buildings given to the city by Henry VIII for the relief of the poor : to these buildings many additions were made in the seventeenth century and later. In the latter part o f the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century the Royal Society and the Hospital were closely associated : Samuel Pepys had a large share in the establishment within Christ’s Hospital o f the Mathematical School founded by Charles II. A medal was struck to commemorate the new Royal Foundation, in design almost identical with the silver badge that is still worn on the left shoulder of each of the forty boys on the foundation, all of whom are sons o f commissioned officers in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, or the Royal Naval Reserve. Dies for the medal were presented to the Hospital by Sir Isaac Newton, who was Warden and afterwards Master of the Mint. The Royal Society and Christ’s Hospital both have the honour of having as Patron His Majesty the King.

scholarly journals Bibliography of recent books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society

1970 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Charles Town ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
James Cook ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Sciences

Each number of Notes and Records contains a short bibliography of books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society or its Fellows which have been noted since the publication of the last number. If Fellows would be good enough to draw the Editor’s attention to omissions these would be added to the list in the next issue. Books Badash, L. (Editor). Rutherford and Boltwood: letters on radioactivity. (Yale studies in the History of Sciences and Medicine, Vol. 4.) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. $12.50. Begg, A. C. and Begg, N.C. James Cook and New Zealand . Wellington, N.Z.: A. R. Shearer, 1969. £ 2 5s. Berkeley, E. and Berkeley, Dorothy, S. Dr Alexander Gordon of Charles Town . University of North Carolina Press, 1969. $10.00. Bestcrman, T. Voltaire. London: Longmans, 1969. 8s. Bowden, D. K. Leibniz as a librarian and eighteenth-century librarians Germany . London: University College, 1969. 7s. 6d. Darwin, C. R. Questions about the breeding of animals . Facsim. repr. with an introduction by Sir Gavin Dc Beer. London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1969. £1 15s. Davis, N. P. Lawrence and Openhimer . London: Cape, 1969. 2s. Dobson, J. John Hunter. Edinburgh & London: E. & S. Livingstone, 1969. £ 2 10s. Eales, N. B. The Cole library of early medicine and zoology . Catalogue of books and pamphlets. Part 1. 1472 to 1800. Oxford: Aldcn Press for the Library, University of Reading, 1969. £$ 5s. Edleston, J. (Editor). Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes . (1830.) (Cass Library of Science Classics. No. 12.) London: Frank Cass, 1969. £ 6 6s. Fothergill, B. Sir William Hamilton . Faber and Faber, 1969. £ 2 10s. French, R. K. Robert Whytt, the soul, and medicine . (Publications of the Wellcome Institute, No. 17.) London: Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969. £ 2 5s.

scholarly journals At the Anniversary Meeting, November 30, 1844

1851 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 519-538
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Antarctic

Gentlemen, The time has again come round for my addressing you, and for ex­pressing my own gratitude, as well as yours, to your Council for their constant and zealous attention to the interests of the Royal Society. We have been compelled during several late years to have recourse to legal proceedings on the subject of the great tithes of Mablethorp, a portion of the Society’s property, and I rejoice to say with success. In my last address, I was required to give our thanks to Mr. Watt and to Mr. Dollond for the valuable busts which they had kindly presented to us. That of Mr. Dollond is placed at the commence­ment of the staircase leading to our apartments, and serves to indi­cate that his valuable improvements in the construction of our tele­scopes have been so many steps to the acquisition of higher and higher knowledge of the great universe of which this globe forms so insignificant a part. By the liberality of Mr. Watt we shall soon be furnished with handsome pedestals for the busts of his father and of Sir Isaac Newton, the two great lights of British mechanical genius and British philosophical science. Mr. Gilbert has kindly undertaken to furnish a similar pedestal for the bust of his father, and we have thought it right to provide one for that of Sir Joseph Banks. These will shortly form a conspicuous ornament of our place of meeting. The magnetical observatories are still carrying on their observa­tions, both in Her Majesty’s dominions and in foreign countries, and another naval officer, Lieut. Moore, has proceeded to the Antarctic Seas to complete a portion of the survey of Captain Sir James Ross, which was interrupted by stress of weather. That gallant and enter­ prising officer will, I hope, ere long give to us and to the public his own narrative of his important discoveries. Detailed accounts of the botany and zoology of the regions visited by him are preparing under the patronage of the Government, while Colonel Sabine is proceeding with the raagnetical observations, which were the more immediate objects of this, one of the most important voyages of discovery ever undertaken.

Applications of Multibeam SEM/FIB Instrumentation in the Integrated Sciences

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. McMahon ◽  
J. Rybczynski ◽  
Y. Wang ◽  
Y. Gao ◽  
D. Cai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Christiaan Huygens ◽  
Electrostatic Lenses ◽  
The Hague

The Hague, Netherlands, 1690. Christiaan Huygens and Sir Isaac Newton, at odds with their competing wave/particle theories of light, today reached a compromise with their unveiling of a new multibeam SEM/FIB instrument featuring an SEM column designed by Huygens that uses electromagnetic lenses to focus the beam of electrons and a FIB column employing electrostatic lenses to focus the beam of ions devised by Newton. Onlookers were dazzled by its extensive capabilities and range of applications.

Brighter than how many suns? Sir Isaac Newton’s burning mirror

1989 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Hearsay Evidence

There are a number of references in the scientific literature to a burning mirror designed by Sir Isaac Newton (1). Together, they record that it was made from seven separate concave glasses, each about a foot in diameter, that Newton demonstrated its effects at several meetings of the Royal Society and that he presented it to the Society. Nonetheless, neither the earliest published list of instruments possessed by the Royal Society nor the most recent one mentions the burning mirror; the latest compiler does not even include it amongst those items, once owned, now lost. No reference to the instrument apparently survives in the Society’s main records. It is not listed by the author of the recent compendium on Newton’s life and work (2). There is, however, some contemporary information still extant (Appendix 1). Notes of the principles of its design and some of its effects are to be found in the Society’s Journal Book for 1704; some of the dimensions and the arrangement of the mirrors are given in a Lexicon published by John Harris which he donated to the Royal Society at the same meeting, 12 July 1704, at which Newton gave the Society the speculum. The last reference in the Journal Book is dated 15 November that year, when Mr Halley, the then secretary to the Society, was desired to draw up an account of the speculum and its effects (3). No such account appears to have been presented to the Royal Society. There is no reference in Newton’s published papers and letters of his chasing Halley to complete the task, nor is there any mention of it in the general references to Halley. The latter was, of course, quite accustomed to performing odd jobs for Newton; that same year he was to help the Opticks through the press. The only other contemporary reference to the burning mirror, though only hearsay evidence since Flamsteed was not present at the meeting, is in a letter the latter wrote to James Pound; this confirms that there were seven mirrors and that the aperture of each was near a foot in diameter (4). Because John Harris gave his Dictionary to the Royal Society in Newton’s presence, it is reasonable to assume that his description is accurate. As Newton would hardly have left an inaccurate one unchallenged, then, belatedly, the account desired of Mr Halley can be presented. In some respects, the delay is advantageous, since the subject of radiant heat and its effects, although already by Newton’s period an ancient one, is today rather better understood. On the other hand, some data has to be inferred, that could have been measured, and some assumptions made about Newton’s procedures and understanding that could have been checked (5).

Isaac Newton: the rise of a scientist 1661-1671

1965 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-139 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Early Mathematics ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
Experimental Scientist ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Better Than

D. T. WHITESIDE, the editor of Newton’s collected mathematical works, has recently described how Newton’s creative intellect suddenly burst forth in a scarcely controlled blaze and how his mathematical spirit, till then dormant, took fire in the magical year 1664. Dr Whiteside knows Newton and his mathematics better than anybody else, but all the same we are left not a little bewildered. How could Newton in a few months acquire such mastery of mathematical tools and techniques and such insight into the relevant literature that he might compete with and even outstrip the foremost mathematicians of his time? There may be holes in our knowledge of Newton’s early mathematics. If they cannot be filled, an investigation of Newton’s other scientific pursuits seems called for. This is most easily done in optics where Newton’s own ‘historicall narration’ describes his birth as an experimental scientist, or rather it describes how Newton wished to appear to the world. To quote from the letter (2) Newton sent to Oldenburg and the Royal Society in January 1672:

scholarly journals Science Fun: Theory of Light

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-58
Author(s):  
Saidatul Khoiriyah ◽  
Adhelia Karunia Sukma
Keyword(s):  
Comic Strip ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Christiaan Huygens

We as budding researchers, try to present science in the form of comics. We present the theory of light by Christiaan Huygens and Sir Isaac Newton in a short comic strip.

On the Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The first subject of importance that engaged Newton's attention was the phenomena of prismatic colors. The results of his inquiries were communicated to the Royal Society in the year 1675, and afterwards published with most important additions in 1704. The production was entitled “Optics; or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light.” It is considered one of the most elaborate and original of his works, and carries on every page the traces of a powerful and comprehensive mind. Newton also discovered universal gravitation, which was announced to the world in 1687 through the publication of the “Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The object of the “Principia” is twofold: to demonstrate the law of planetary influence, and to apply that law to the purposes of calculation.

Mercury poisoning: A probable cause of Isaac Newton's physical and mental ills

1979 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
White Light ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Mercury Poisoning ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Die Life ◽  
Personal Crisis ◽  
Made In

The personal crisis of 1693 in die life of Sir Isaac Newton has frequently been discussed by scholars interested in the history and the psychology of genius. In 1693 Newton suffered from insomnia and poor digestion; and he also wrote irrational letters to friends. Although most scholars have attributed Newton’s breakdown to psychological factors, it is possible that mercury poisoning may have been the principal cause. Newtonian scholar Richard S. Westfall has studied the defence Newton made of his first publication, the theory of the composition of white light (which Newton himself considered ‘the oddest if not the most considerable detection which has hitherto been made in operations of Nature’).

scholarly journals Experiments for investigating the cause of the coloured concentric rings, discovered by Sir Isaac Newton , between two object-glasses laid upon one anther

1832 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 264-268
Keyword(s):  
Focal Length ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Made In

The account, given by Sir Isaac Newton, of these coloured arcs, appeared to Dr. Herschel highly interesting, but he was not satisfied with the explanation of them. Sir Isaac Newton accounts for the production of the rings, by ascribing to the rays of light certain fits of easy transmission and alternate reflection; but this hypothesis seemed not easily to be reconciled with the minuteness and extreme velocity of the particles of light. With the view of inquiring further into the cause of these phenomena, Dr. Herschel, so long since as the year 1792, borrowed of this Society the two object-glasses of Huygens, one of 122, and the other of 170 feet focal length. Notwithstanding various interruptions, the series of experiments, made in the course of this time, has been carried to a considerable extent; and Dr. Herschel thinks the conclusions that may be drawn from them, sufficiently well supported to point out several modifications of light that have been totally overlooked, and others that have not been properly discriminated.

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