Merry Newtonmas 2022

The first recorded Newtonmas is credited to the Newton Kai at Tokyo University, circa 1891. Physics students had been celebrating with a party of their own in their undergraduate years. As they became graduate students, they brought some of their professors into the circle. The report is in Nature, Volume 46 Number 1193 Page 459, published 8 September 1892. So that party had been convened the Christmas before. 

 

I do not remember my flash of inspiration back in 1982. However, I was enrolled in physics at Lansing Community College and was the physics lab aide. Our professor for that class was Dr. Alan Saaf who more than once called a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder a “Newtonburger.”[1] So, Newtonmas could have been a logical leap. I sent out Newtonmas cards several times in the 1980s and recorded a Newtonmas greeting as a “Community Commentary” for WKAR-FM, the public broadcaster of Michigan State University in 1983 or 84.

 

For that, I built up the imagery of a little boy born in a small village across the sea who would grow up to bring light to the world. When I quoted the poet's eulogy – Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.—I emphasized the word Pope and then announced that Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year that Galileo died.

 

Michael Shermer and the Skeptic Society have been celebrating Newtonmas for at least 25 years by now. Richard Dawkins touted it in 2007. And it was an element in an opening scene of Big Bang Theory Season 3 Episode 11, “Maternal Congruence.” 

 

Why do we not have Galileomas or Keplermas? Sir Isaac Newton stands as perhaps the most accomplished scientist in the modern world. At his level would be only Aristotle or only Archimedes. As much as we owe to everyone who invented something new, not every savant earns the same honors as Newton. 

 

He invented the calculus to prove his physics. He did that with geometry. When Richard P. Feynman attempted to recreate that work from scratch, he found that he could not. We  rely on algebra and calculus and have forgotten much. Newton’s physics demonstrated that the laws on Earth are the same as they are in Heaven. Heaven is not perfect; Earth is not flawed. Force equals mass multiplied by the second change in distances over times and the path of an object acting under central force motion always fits to a curve sliced from a cone. 

 

That would be enough. But Newton did more. 

 

He served two terms in Parliament, representing Cambridge University (1689-1702). He was president of the Royal Society (1703-1727). He found another proof for the Binomial Theorem (also known as Pascal’s Triangle). He found a clever shortcut for rapidly approximating square roots. 

His work in optics was fundamental to understanding light and, in truth, the entire electromagnetic spectrum. That work also led to the development of spectroscopy. Newton’s work in optics led to his invention of the reflecting telescope, which (unlike a refractor) introduces no chromatic aberration. 

 

While he was Warden and Master of the British Royal Mint for 30 years, he had himself sworn as a justice of the peace. He went disguised into the pubs where criminals exchanged wares and gossip. With the information he gathered, he arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted counterfeiters. The execution of the notorious William Chaloner hallmarked Newton’s labors to protect England’s money. Chaloner was a master criminal who even testified before Parliament in his efforts to rob from the Royal Mint with impunity. Clever as he apparently was, Chaloner was no match for Newton. 

 

In fact, no one was. 

 

Newton’s Principial Mathematica was more than the birth of modern astronomy or physics or science or mathematics. The Constitution of the United States with its balances of powers is a translation of the principles of physical science to the social world. You can get an ought from an is.

 

General Biographies of Sir Isaac Newton

Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. New York: Free Press, Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Calligas, Elini (editor), Coincraft's 1998 Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins 1066 to Date.London: Coincraft, 1998.

Keynes, Milo. “The Personality of Isaac Newton,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society (49), London: The Royal Society, 1995.

Marotta, Michael. “Sir Isaac Newton: Warden and Master of the Mint,” The Numismatist, Vol. 114, no. 11 (November 2001), p. 1302-1308, 1363 : ill., port. (George Heath Literary Award, Second Place, 2002)

Newman, E. G. V. “The Gold Metallurgy of Isaac Newton.” The Gold Bulletin Vol 8. No. 3, London: The World Gold Council, 1975.

Trowbridge, Richard J. Queen Anne, 1702-1714 Mystery Farthings. Long Beach: Coins of the British World, 1970.

Westfall, Richard S. Never at Rest: a Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

White, Michael. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorceror. Reading, Mass.: Helix Books, Perseus Books, 1997.

www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/, The Newton Project, Professor Rob Iliffe Director, University of Sussex, East Sussex - BN1 9SH

 

Newton at the Mint

(Sir John Craig was Deputy Master and Comptroller of the British Royal Mint.)

Craig, Sir John. Newton at the Mint. Cambridge: University Press, 1946.

Craig, Sit John. “Isaac Newton - Crime Investigator,” Nature 182, (19 July 1958), pages 149-152. 

Craig, Sir John. “Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters.”  Notes and Records of the Royal Society (18;2), London: 1963, pages 136-145. 

www.royalmint.com/museum/newton Web site pages of the British Royal Mint. 

Shaw, W. A., F. B. A., Select Tracts and Documents illustrative of English Monetary History 1626-1730.  London: Clement Wilson, 1896; reprinted, London: George Harding, 1935.

 

Newton versus the Counterfeiters

Levenson, Thomas. 2009. Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt.

Sources cited by Sir John Craig, Notes and Records of the Royal Society. (18;2), London: 1963, pages 136-145. 

Chaloner, William: Proposals.. ... to prevent clipping and counterfeiting, II.2.I694/5: Against raising £1,000,000 for the great recoinage, c. 3.1695: The defects.. ... of the Mint, 1697: Appeal after arrestc . I8.2.I698. (Four pamphlets.)

Middlesex Sessions Roll for 1699, containing original indictments at the Old Bailey, in the County of Middlesex Record Office, London. now in the London Metropolitan Archives.

Newton MSS. in the library of the Royal Mint; 5 large volumes of those papers from Newton's residence which were sorted by Conduitt as 'Mint'. 

Depositions about and letters from criminals, 1697-1704; one volume in the Royal Mint Library. 

Anon. GuzmanR edivivus, a short view of the life of William Chaloner, the notorious Coyner, who was executed at Tyburn on Wednesday the 22nd of March 1698/9; with a brief acount of his trial, behaviour and last speech. London: J. Hayns, 1699. 

Reasons Humbly Offered Against Pass an Act for Raising Ten Hundred Thousand Pounds by William Chaloner, 1694.

Proposals Humbly Offered, for Passing an Act to Prevent Clipping and Counterfeiting of Money, by William Chaloner, London, 1694.

 

[1] Just to note, 1 N = 0.2248 lbf and 0.25 lbf = 1.112 N. Dr. Saaf came to physics at LCC via astronomy at the University of Chicago. So, he probably would have accepted an order of magnitude approximation if the theory were useful.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Newton versus the Counterfeiter 

Merry Newtonmas 2021 

Of Watches and Beaches and Atheists 

 

Merry Newtonmas 2021

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;

God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.

 

If your neighborhood is like ours, then, it started with Halloween which began about Labor Day: lights; people lit up their yards and houses with displays of icons and arrays of sparkles. As soon as Halloween passed, Christmas was launched. I believe that this is a reaction to the continuing Covid crisis. People are resisting despair and fighting back against both biological and social malaise with symbols of hope and good cheer. 

 

Around our neighborhood;
the unicorn is snorting shifting colors.

In Newton’s time, it was the Great Plague of 1665. That was followed by the great London fire of 1666. When the plague struck, Cambridge University was closed and Newton went home to Woolsthorpe. There, isolated with his own thoughts, he expanded his work in mathematics, optics, and gravitation. 

Two Newtonian reflectors:
my first Celestron Equatorial 130-mm and
my current Besser 208-mm. 
Reflectors have no chromatic aberration
and are easy to make very large.

We can only wonder if forty years from now we will have time travel and warp drive (perhaps the same phenomenon) because some genius was isolated by Covid-19. 

 

We accept today that Leibniz and Newton
developed the calculus independently.
We generally use the Leibniz notation 
though Newton's can be a convenient shorthand.

The American Numismatic Association granted a George Heath Literary Award (2002) to a feature article that I wrote about Sir Isaac Newton’s 30-year career at the Royal Mint, published in November 2001. Historian David Berlinski called that time “uninteresting” ending his biography with the publication of the Principia. 

Not many people read Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica today in any language and surely not in Latin. I have two editions, one translated by I. Bernard Cohen whose work I already knew from reading ancient sources when writing about numismatics. 

Newton’s ideas are easy to explain today, especially using algebra and the Leibniz notation for calculus. The proofs in the Principia are—and could only have been—delivered via geometry. We do not know it so well today. Richard P. Feynman intended to develop and present his own proofs to a class as a treat to relieve the stress of up-coming semester final examinations. He could not do it. He did not know enough geometry. 

 

The book is the Principia, opened to the page proving
Kepler's laws and central force motion.

The core of that work is Newton’s mathematical proof that Kepler’s laws of motion are required by logic and determined by the nature of central force motion as measured for timekeeping, navigation, and astronomy. They are necessary factual truths. 

 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Newton versus the Counterfeiter 

Measuring Your Universe: Alan Hirshfeld’s Astronomy Activity Manual 

Meteorites

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers 

Reminders of Newtonmas Past 

Merry Newtonmas 2019

Born on December 25 (OS), 1642, Sir Issac Newton was more than the most brilliant man of his time. He was the first modern scientist. He discovered the physics and the mathematics that made possible the industrial age and the electronic age. He invented a new kind of telescope, based on his research into optics. He was an accomplished lawyer, both a prosecutor for the state, and later an effective political scientist. His achievements in theology are unappreciated today. He was a skilled chemist. He served in Parliament as the representative of Cambridge College. He was president of the Royal Society. In addition, he served as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint for 30 years, rescuing the economy from imminent disaster. Had Sir Isaac Newton done any one of these, his place in history would have been assured. He did all of them. 

Newton's famous “three laws of motion” were only introductory propositions to his Principia Mathematica. The purpose of the Principia was to demonstrate that the force which at once moves the planets and holds them in their orbits is the same force that pulls apples from their trees. He achieved this proof by creating a new kind of mathematics, called the calculus. 

Newtonian Reflector
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/telescopes/en/

Many consider Newton to have been the first modern scientist. John Maynard Keynes dubbed him “the last sorcerer.” We commonly believe that alchemy is a superstition or a fraud, like witchcraft or theater magic. To Newton, alchemy was science. We see two magnets drawn together or repulsed. We play with static electricity. We do not doubt that the Sun attracts the planets. Newton believed these things as well specifically because of his understanding of alchemical principles. To Newton, the world operated according to basic principles of natural law that were the same everywhere for everyone. 

 

Feynman's Lecture on Newton's Proof of Kepler's Laws 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/ from energy dot gov

Few people have read the Principia Mathematica in its entirety. The very popular Nobel laureate physicist, Richard P. Feynman, attempted to delight a class with a demonstration of Newton's proof of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. He could not produce the mathematics as Newton had done it and was forced to present his own geometric proof.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Reminders of Newtonmas Past

Newton Versus the Counterfeiter

The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy

Physics for Astronomers: The Works of Steven Weinberg

Reminders of Newtonmas Past

Newtonmas 2011

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-newtonmas.html

Today, we ignore his religious writings, the extent of which actually eclipsed his scientific production.  His heretical Arian beliefs foreshadowed modern Unitarianism, but he swore under oath to be a Trinitarian so that he could teach at Cambridge. 

Newton’s colleagues called him fearful, cautious, suspicious, insidious, ambitious, excessively covetous of praise, and impatient of contradiction. Even his relatives and his true friends were modest in their praise of Newton. Physically sound in his life, he died at 84. He had lost only one tooth, still had much of his hair, and read without glasses. Yet, he was a hypochondriac, suffering from illnesses and diseases that he treated with medicines he made for himself.  

Newtonmas 2012

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/12/merry-newtonmas-2012.html

The English crown turned to him to save the Royal Mint. Even when they were not corrupt - which they usually were - the Mint officials were unable to solve the basic problem of creating and maintaining a system of money that worked. A stern Protestant, deeply religious, and moralistic in the extreme, Newton cleared out the criminal element and gave England a reliable monetary system.

Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009) is intended for a general readership, yet rests on an extraordinary foundation of careful scholarship.  Thomas Levenson teaches science journalism at MIT.  He has been granted several awards for his PBS documentaries. Levenson delivers to print the videographer’s impact of sight and sound.  You walk down the alleys and into the pubs where Isaac Newton investigated crimes against the Mint of which he served as warden and later master.

Newtonmas 2013

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/12/merry-newtonmas-2013.html

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;

God said, 'Let Newton be'  and all was light.

Alexander Pope

Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642, the year that Galileo died.  For most people, Newton is famous for his Three Laws of Motion.  Beyond that, those with additional education know him for creating the Calculus to prove his theories of celestial and terrestrial mechanics. In addition, Newton invented the reflecting telescope as a result of his experiments with light.  And he also proved the general case for the Binomial Theorem (“Pascal's Triangle”). He served in Parliament, representing Cambridge, where he had been a professor of mathematics.  He served as president of the Royal Society of scientists. Few people except numismatists know him to have been the Warden and Master of the British Royal Mint for thirty years.  He had himself sworn as a justice of the peace so that he could pursue and prosecute counterfeiters.  Any one of those achievements would have made important to us today. That he accomplished all of that - and more - set Sir Isaac Newton apart even from the geniuses and polymaths recorded by history.

Newtonmas 2014

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2014/12/merry-newtonmas.html

I offered Newtonmas in a radio script for WKAR-FM East Lansing in the early 1980s (1982-1984).  In that script, I built up the imagery of a little boy born in a small village across the sea who would grow up to bring light to the world.  When I cited the poet, I emphasized the word Pope – and then announced that Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year that Galileo died. 

Over the years, I sometimes sent out "Newtonmas cards" to our friends, most of whom we knew from college classes in computer science and related fields.  Our physics professor, Alan Saaf, occasionally called the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder a “Newton Burger” (1.0 N ~ .224 lb-f). I do not recall Dr. Saaf ever saying “Newtonmas” but he could have.

Newtonmas 2015

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-first-newtonmas.html

We commonly call the Nativity scene “the first Christmas” though it was not. The first Christ Mass could not have been celebrated before the Church existed. So, too, did the first Newtonmas not come until 248 years after his birth.

 

It seems that three students at Tokyo University started Newtonmas in their dormitory sometime before 1890.  As the undergraduates developed into graduates and assistants, their professors were drawn into the celebration, and a more suitable assembly hall was found in the University Observatory.  By 1890, they called themselves the Newtonkai  (Newton Association; 皆 = kai = “all”) and moved to the Physical Laboratory. There, they played games symbolic of great mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers: Newton’s apple, Franklin’s kite, a naked doll for Archimedes … 

That story comes from “A New Sect of Hero-Worshippers” published in Nature, Vol. 46, No. 1193, p. 459, 8 September 1892. It available from the publisher for $18 if you are not a member, or it can be found online at Google Books.

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Crimes Against Logic: Exposing Bogus Arguments

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Merry Newtonmas 2017

Celebrating Newtonmas off and on since 1984, this year I honored Sir Isaac by buying myself one of the commemorative 50p coins from the British Royal Mint. 

"Near the end of  his life, Newton described  himself to  his nephew and biographer,  John Conduitt, in these pleasant words: 'I do  not know what I may appear to the  world, but to myself I seem  to have been  only a  boy, playing on  the seashore, and  diverting myself in  now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell  than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'

"Two hundred years later, biographer Milo Keynes wrote: 'This  life of apparent serenity was, however, far  from the  truth, for Newton is known to have  had a  most complex and difficult  personality.' His colleagues described  him variously as  fearful, cautious, suspicious, insidious, ambitious, excessively covetous of  praise and impatient of  contradiction. Even his closest relatives and true friends were modest  in their praise." -- "Sir Isaac Newton: Warden and Master of the Mint," by Michael E. Marotta, The Numismatist, November 2001. (George Heath Literary Award, 2nd Place, 2002.)

10 REM MIKE MAROTTA. FEB 5, 1987. NEWTON'S ALGORITHM FOR SQUARE ROOTS
19 LIMIT= .0001
20 PRINT "ENTER A NUMBER"
21 INPUT X
56 XN = X/2
60 R1 = (XN + X/XN)/2
70 IF ABS(XN-R1) < LIMIT THEN GOTO 80
75 XN = R1
76 GOTO 60
80 PRINT "THE SQUARE ROOT OF ";X;" = ";R1

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
Newton versus the Counterfeiter
Fig Newtons and Leibniz Biscuits
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
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Newton and Leibniz

No one got the joke. The office  has a lot of nerds. Our boss earned his master's in anthropology.  My wife said, "The human brain receives 10 million bytes of data per minute and focuses on 32: cookies."

I discovered the Leibniz either at the Wheatsville Co-op or my neighborhood Whole Foods.  I had to goto four grocery stores to find the Fig Newtons.

Previously on Necessary Facts

Merry Newtonmas 2016

The Ferengi Rules of Commerce

The Big Whimper of Modern Philosophy

When Old Technologies Were New

Newtonmas 2016: Great Man or Social Forces?

December 25 is the traditional birthday of Sir Isaac Newton(1).  So, some fans and followers of physics, and perhaps some professionals, celebrate Newtonmas on December 25.  The TV sitcom, The Big Bang Theory brought the holiday to millions who had not heard of it.(2)  The question remains: Why celebrate Newton, rather than Descartes, Einstein, or many other scientists?

• Sir Isaac Newton represented Cambridge at Parliament.
• He offered an original proof of the binomial theorem, what in high school we learn as “Pascal’s Triangle.”
• He developed an algorithm for rapidly approximating square roots.
• He investigated light and demonstrated that “white” light is composed of discrete colors.
• Based on his experiments with light, he invented the reflecting telescope.
• He invented calculus.
• He invented calculus as part of his general proof of the laws of motion, including the motion of bodies under the influence of gravity. He showed that motion on Earth is not different from motion in the heavens. That was a radical departure from 2000 years of philosophy.
• He served as warden and master of the British Royal Mint for 30 years. His tenure began with his rescuing the British economy from near certain collapse. He had himself sworn as a magistrate so that he could investigate counterfeiting, going in disguise to pubs.

If he had done any one of those, he would have earned a place in history.  He did all of them. 

That brings up the problem of “the great man” versus “social forces.”  If Newton had died in infancy, as he was truthfully at risk, would someone else –Robert Hooke, Rene Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz – have filled the void?  Would we have waited until 1800 or 1900 for the next Newton to invent calculus and achieve all of those other heights?  Did we wait until 1680 because some previous Newton of 1300 died at birth? 

For all of Newton’s specific achievements, his greatest glory may be in being the exemplar of the Age of Reason and the gateway to the Enlightenment.  The Newtonian Revolution was not just about the orbit of the planets.  The American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution are consequences of the work of Sir Isaac Newton. The founders of our republic sought natural laws to inform their designs for a just and workable republic with a balance of powers.  As late at the 1830s, diametrically opposed philosophers August Comte and Herbert Spencer attempted to devise “social physics” as a science of human action. They each gave up on that label and settled for mere “sociology.”

(1) Note: Newton was born in 1742.  The English Parliament passed the Calendar Act in 1750 to take effect on 2 September 1752, which was followed by 14 September 1752.   Newton’s birthday (New Style) is January 4. Similarly, George Washington was born on February 11, 1732, which became February 22 when the calendar was set forward. The Gregorian reform of the Julian calendar realigned the solar year with the vernal equinox in order to keep Easter in the spring. 

(2) Note: The first Newtonmas was actually celebrated in Japan before 1890.  I recorded a Newtonmas message for the Community Commentator series of WKAR AM/FM, East Lansing, in 1982 or ’83. I sent Newtonmas cards to my friends off and on over several years.  Meanwhile, Kwanza was invented. Then, Seinfeld introduced “Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us.”  Organized atheists began offering Newtonmas as an antidote to Christmas.  Whether and to what extent Newton would have felt honored or horrified is open to debate. Counterfactuals can be unresolvable. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Newtonmas 2011

Newtonmas 2012

Newtonmas 2013

Newtonmas 2014

Newtonmas 2015

The First Newtonmas

We commonly call the Nativity scene “the first Christmas” though it was not. The first Christ Mass could not have been celebrated before the Church existed. So, too, did the first Newtonmas not come until 248 years after his birth.

It seems that three students at Tokyo University started Newtonmas in their dormitory sometime before 1890.  As the undergraduates developed into graduates and assistants, their professors were drawn into the celebration, and a more suitable assembly hall was found in the University Observatory.  By 1890, they called themselves the Newtonkai  (Newton Association; 皆 = kai = “all”) and moved to the Physical Laboratory. There, they played games symbolic of great mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers: Newton’s apple, Franklin’s kite, a naked doll for Archimedes … 

That story comes from “A New Sect of Hero-Worshippers” published in  Nature, Vol. 46, No. 1193, p. 459, 8 September 1892. It available from the publisher for $18 if you are not a member, or it can be found online at Google Books.

"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;

God said, 'Let Newton be' and all was light."

Alexander Pope

Isaac Newton's annotated copy of the Principia Mathematica (NQ.16.200)

Newton's own copy of the the first edition of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) with corrections in his own hand for the second edition, has been digitised and can be found following the link below. This is one of the first of the Wren's treasures which will be made available digitally over the next few months.  

Newton's annotated Principia

"Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25th December 1642, and died on 20th March 1726".  -- http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/sir-isaac-newton

• "Cambridge University Library holds the largest and most important collection of the scientific works of Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Newton was closely associated with Cambridge. He came to the University as a student in 1661, graduating in 1665, and from 1669 to 1701 he held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics. Under the regulations for this Chair, Newton was required to deposit copies of his lectures in the University Library. These, and some correspondence relating to the University, were assigned the classmarks Dd.4.18, Dd.9.46, Dd.9.67, Dd.9.68, and Mm.6.50.  […]
• A number of videos explaining aspects of Newton's work and manuscripts are available from the NewtonProject's YouTube site, a selection of which are presented alongside our manuscripts."  -- http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton 

"The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute running a series of visitor programmes across the spectrum of the mathematical sciences. Established in 1992, the 350th anniversary of Newton's birth, INI has no direct historical links with Newton, but was named after him because of his great achievements in the fields of mathematics, optics, physics and astronomy. INI continues in this tradition of crossing the boundaries between scientific disciplines" -- http://www.newton.ac.uk/

Links to resources at http://www.newton.ac.uk/about/isaac-newton

“The Isaac Newton Trust was established in 1988 by Trinity College. The objects of the Trust are to promote learning, research and education in the University of Cambridge. The Trust makes grants for research purposes within Cambridge University, it founded and contributes financially to the undergraduate Bursary Scheme, and it offers a number of other funding opportunities for the University and its constituent Colleges.” 

http://www.newtontrust.cam.ac.uk/

A Bibliography of Sources

Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. New York: Free Press, Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Craig, Sir John. Newton at the Mint. Cambridge: University Press, 1946.

Craig, Sir John. "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters."  Notes and Records of the Royal Society (18), London: 1963. 

Craig, Sir John. “Isaac Newton - Crime Investigator,” Nature 182, (19 July 1958), pages 149-152.

Keynes, Milo. “The Personality of Isaac Newton,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society (49), London: The Royal Society, 1995.

Levenson, Thomas. Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist (Boston;New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. 336 pp. $25

Marotta, Michael. “Merry Newtonmas,” Newsgroups: rec.collecting.coins, Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 11:49:41 GMT

Marotta, Michael. “Sir Isaac Newton: Warden and Master of the Mint,” The Numismatist, Vol. 114, no. 11 (November 2001), p. 1302-1308, 1363 : ill., port.

Newman, E. G. V. "The Gold Metallurgy of Isaac Newton." The Gold Bulletin, Vol 8. No. 3, London: The World Gold Council, 1975.

Westfall, Richard S. Never at Rest: a Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

White, Michael. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. Reading, Mass.: Helix Books, Perseus Books, 1997.

www.experiencefestival.com/newtonmas

www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/, The Newton Project, Professor Rob Iliffe Director, University of Sussex, East Sussex - BN1 9SH

www.royalmint.com/museum/newton Web site pages of the British Royal Mint.

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Newtonmas 2014 

James Gleick: Observable Genius 

Newton versus the Counterfeiter 

The Unit Circle 

Merry Newtonmas!

"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;

God said, 'Let Newton be' and all was light."

Alexander Pope

Godfrey Kneller's 1689 Portrait

  Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642. He invented calculus.  He established physics as a unified study of both terrestrial and celestial motion. He also offered a new proof of the Binomial Theorem (also called "Pascal's Triangle").  He presented an algorithm for rapidly finding square roots.  He invented the reflecting telescope.  He demonstrated that "white" light is comprised of colors.  He was President of the Royal Society, the national scientific association of Great Britain.  He was elected a Member of Parliament to represent Cambridge.  As Master and Warden of the British Royal Mint, he rescued Britain's economy from imminent disaster.  Any one of Newton's accomplishments would have left a historical record.  He did them all – and more.

Celebrating December 25 as “Newtonmas” is a complex field with many point sources.

Newtonmas enjoyed air time on The Big Bang Theory episode “The Maternal Congruence” on December 14, 2009. Richard Dawkins suggested it in The New Statesman for December 13, 2007.  That article did not celebrate Newton but only hurled projectiles at the traditional Christmas story.

Half Penny Tokens from Middlesex 1791

On December 16, 2011, USA Today carried a feature by their Religion columnist, Kimberly Winston, “On Dec 25 atheists celebrate a different holiday”. That article identified some of those independent beginnings. 

"I just made it up back in the 1990s as a joke, just to promote items we were selling," said Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society… "Everybody was giving me a hard time for calling our party a Christmas party so I said, 'Alright, I am calling it Newtonmas.” … Matt Blum, who wrote about Newtonmas in a 2007 post on Wired magazine's GeekDad blog, says his high school physics teacher marked Newton's birthday with experiments and "physics carols."(USA Today article here). 

 However, Winston erred in claiming that an “1892 issue of Nature magazine bestows the carol credit on some Victorian-era English scientists.”  That article was about Japanese physics students.  “A New Sect of Hero-Worshippers” (Volume 46. No. 1193. Page 459. 8 September 1892) is available from the publisher for $18 if you are not a member, or can be found in Google Books. 

According to the article, three students at Tokyo University started Newtonmas in their dormitory before 1890.  “But as the undergraduates developed into graduates and assistants, the professors themselves were drawn into the field, a more suitable assembly hall was found in the University Observatory.”  By 1890, the Newtonkai (Newton Association; 皆 = kai = “all”) was moved to the Physical Laboratory. There, they played games symbolic of great mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers: Newton’s apple, Franklin’s kite, a naked doll for Archimedes …

Replica of Newton's Reflecting Telescope

Moreover, Nature injected editorial doubt into the report.  Nature maintained that few scientists would know that Newton was born on December 25, 1642, (Old Style), accepting the date as January 5, 1643.   

Celestron 130 EQ Newtonian 

I offered Newtonmas in a radio script for WKAR-FM East Lansing in the early 1980s (1982-1984).  In that script, I built up the imagery of a little boy born in a small village across the sea who would grow up to bring light to the world.  When I cited the poet, I emphasized the word Pope – and then announced that Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year that Galileo died. 

Over the years, I sometimes sent out "Newtonmas cards" to our friends, most of whom we knew from college classes in computer science and related fields.  Our physics professor, Alan Saaf, occasionally called the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder a “Newton Burger” (1.0 N ~ .224 lb-f). I do not recall Dr. Saaf ever saying “Newtonmas” but he could have.

UK 1 Pound Note 1978-1982

When USA Today’s Kimberly Winston asked me about my inspiration, I confessed that it was a lark. She asked me about the present popularity and, frankly, I pointed to Kwanza which is an invented holiday, and also to Festivus from the Seinfeld comedies. We are allowed such bagatelles in our culture now. We could not have done this in 1642.

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