350th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1993 - 100 Pfennig

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643, to our Gregorian calendar today. At that time, however, England was still the Julian calendar, and it was written December 25, 1642. The birthplace Woolsthorpe - a village in the county of Lincoln - is located near the east coast, 10 km south of Grantham. There, Newton attends high school and is admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge at the age of eighteen. Among his teachers is the mathematician and theologian Isaac Barrow, to whom Newton owes important ideas on differential calculus and optics. He was the first holder of the Lucasian Chair, today's Stephen Hawking. Essential approaches to Newton's main areas of activity were created by him in those early years, especially during two years when he had retired to the countryside because of the plague. Newton becomes Bachelor of Arts in 1665, Magister in 1668, and already in 1669 (after Barrow's resignation) the second holder of the Lucasian Chair. After presenting to the Royal Society (which corresponds to the national academies of other countries) a mirror telescope constructed by him, in 1671 she appoints him as a member. The two decades after obtaining his chair belong scientifically to the most fertile period in Newton's life, probably because they were for him poor in external events. This changed when, following the landing of William of Orange and the flight of James II in 1689, Newton assumed the seat of parliament at the University of Cambridge and exerted influence behind the scenes in the spirit of the "Wighs." The required stays in London brought him in personal contact and. a. with the philosopher Locke and with his colleague and opponent Huygens. In 1696 he was appointed overseer of the coin. His extensive duties made it necessary to move to London. In 1699 he became director of the coin (Master of the Mint). In the same year he renounced the income from his chair and gave it up in 1701 finally. Also in 1699 appointed him the Paris Academy to her member. The Royal Society elected him in 1703 as its president; He remained so until his death. Newton was knighted in 1705, an honor bestowed upon him as the first scientist (and no second for more than a hundred years). In the last decades of his life, Newton has dealt with new editions of his works. He died on the night of March 31 to April 1, 1727 (Gregorian Calendar) and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His scientific activities leave almost no field of exact science and mathematics behind and even beyond. Newton's work sets a turning point in the history of science comparable to the French Revolution in general history. Of the many scientific achievements of Newton, we call only three: 1. the creation of calculus (at about the same time as Leibniz), 2. work in the field of optics, in particular the investigation of the refraction of light as a function of its color, 3. the conceptual one The foundation of mechanics and the derivation of the planetary motions from the universal law of gravity. (Text: Professor Dr. P. Brosche, Observatory Hoher List, Daun, the University Observatory Bonn)