8 Sir Isaac Newton Facts for Kids

Sir Isaac Newton is easily one of the best known scientists of all time. He is created with coming up with some of the most enlightened theories that furthered science tremendously. He was an astronomer, theologian, physicist, alchemist, mathematician and philosopher.

1. He was born in England and became the Warden of the Royal Mint a job which entailed overseeing the minting of the royal sterling pound. This was a prestigious position but did not satisfy Newton’s thirst for knowledge.

2. He was educated formerly at the Trinity School in Cambridge on full scholarship.

Simplistic Depictions

3. Sir Newton is often memorialized as the man sitting under a tree when an apple falls and hits him on the head and he “discovers” gravity. This imagery is not a good example of what his theory about gravity was.

4. It was actually a highly mathematical computation. Newtons law of universal gavitation was a highly formed scientific theory that he spent years working on through experimentation and observations. The rumor and the further comical pictures came after Newton admitted that his theory had its roots in an incident where he watched an apple fall from a tree.

Newtons Three Laws of Motion

5. Newton is also well known for his theory about motion. An object in motion stays in motion is the basis of the theory followed by “force equals mass times acceleration” and finally “to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. This law is commonly taught and accepted as a truth by many scholars.

Little Known Facts

6. Sir Isaac Newton went mad near the end of his life. His behavior was coined as “eccentric” but testing done on a hair sample many years after his death in the nineteen seventies actually showed that Newton very likely had mercury poisoning which can drive someone mad. He was exposed to high levels of mercury in his alchemy experiments.

7. Isaac Newton wrote extensively on the “philosophers stone” a reported stone that could turn lead into gold. These documents were reportedly never published because they were found “unfit for publication” but a good deal of them were made public in the 1930′s when they were auctioned off by Sotheby’s the famous auction house in London.

8. He was raised by his maternal grandmother to whom he was sent at the age of 3 when his mother remarried a man that did not want children. He was not expected to live at birth because he was 13 weeks early. He was born on Christmas day although most reports are that he was born in January however he was born before the Gregorian calendar was adopted by England. Once the calendar was adopted the dates were adjusted by 11 days including the date of his birth which was December 25th not January 4th.