[music playing] GROUND CONTROL: You guys are
up there, and who's driving? ASTRONAUT: That's
a good question. I think Isaac Newton's doing
most of the driving right now. ACTOR AS ISAAC NEWTON: "It is
enough that gravity does really exist and act according to the
laws which we have explained and abundantly serves to
account for all motions of the celestial bodies and
our seas," Isaac Newton. Newton showed, without
any shadow of a doubt, that the natural
world is mathematical and that you could apply
mathematical laws to explain everything from the tides to
the falling of apples off trees. ACTOR AS ISAAC
NEWTON: The true cause of the length of the
image was detected to be no other than
light consists of rays of different refrangibility. Newton's ideas on light
were very revolutionary. I mean, what he
discovered and now accepts was that normal light is made
up of different colors of light. This particular discovery
concerning light and colors explain why the sky is blue,
why there's a brilliant red sun at sunset, and so on. ACTOR AS ISAAC NEWTON: If I
have seen further than others, it is because I stood on
the shoulders of giants. This is a colossus. Men like Einstein, when they
picked up Newton's works were overwhelmed. One is overwhelmed with
the capacity to assimilate this vast knowledge. RICHARD S. WESTFALL:
He was a genius of extraordinary caliber. In my understanding of
things, genius of that order imposes certain penalties. [music playing] [crickets chirping] NARRATOR: There was little
cheer to be found in England on Christmas day 1642. The country was at
war with itself. The forces of King Charles
the first and Oliver Cromwell were waging a fight for the
hearts and souls of a divided people. At Woolsthorpe Manor in
the county of Lincolnshire, the birth of a premature
baby was greeted with a sense of impending doom. Only three months earlier,
the child's father had died, and he was given
little chance to live. To everyone's surprise,
the frail child survived. His mother, Hannah,
baptized him Isaac Newton, after his deceased father. In the hope of securing a
more stable future for herself and her child, Hannah accepted
a proposal of marriage from Barnabas Smith, the
rector of the adjoining parish of North Witham. Isaac, now only three years old,
was left with his grandparents. For the next eight years,
Isaac saw little of his mother. On the death of his
stepfather, Isaac's mother returned to Woolsthorpe. Now financially secure,
Hannah made plans for Isaac's education as
a future gentleman farmer. He was sent away to King's
Grammar School in Grantham. An introverted and reclusive
student, he made few friends and appeared to take little
interest in his studies. Being a smaller
boy in the school, he was attacked by
the school bully. But in spite of
his small stature, he rounded on the bullet and
gave the bully a thrashing. So there is an incredible,
steely toughness that runs through him. NARRATOR: Isaac
roomed with Mr. Clark, who ran an apothecary shop. Seeing Isaac's interest in the
mysteriously labeled bottles and bubbling cauldrons, Clark
showed him how to mix potions and gave him access
to his books. Isaac's favorite book became
"The Mysteries of Nature and Art" by John Bates-- a book full of recipes and
schematics for mechanical toys. Soon he was hand building
kites, model windmills, and even a water clock. Newton had discovered a
refuge from the misery of his loveless, lonely life. He began to excel at
school and quickly rose to the top of his class. When Isaac turned 17, Hanna
recalled him to Woolsthorpe to run the farm. Henry Stokes, Isaac's teacher,
aware of his budding genius, pleaded with her to let him stay
on and apply for university. Reluctantly, Hannah agreed. In 1660, Stokes' star pupil was
enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. Teaching in
Cambridge in those days probably wasn't very
advanced or sophisticated by present standards. And many students would have
to learn things by themselves. I think the formal instruction
was rather limited, and Newton probably learnt
much of what he did on his own. NARRATOR: With no financial
support from his mother, Newton had to work his way
through college, performing menial chores. While other students indulged
in a vigorous social life, Newton rarely socialized. Instead, he pursued
his unquenchable thirst for knowledge. In the course of
his endeavors, he came across the mechanical
philosophy of Rene Descartes. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: Everything
should be thought of in terms of a machine, working parts
in contact with one another. So, for example, the
planets were thought to move in gigantic swirling
vortices of some sort of invisible matter. NARRATOR: Newton's interest
in Cartesian philosophy brought him into contact with
Isaac Barrow, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. And with Barrow's
gentle tutelage, Newton was introduced to
Galileo's ideas on motion and gravity, Kepler's
laws of planetary motion, and Descartes' revolutionary
work in algebra, "La G om trie." SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH: Geometry
has concerned itself with shapes and triangles,
and what Descartes did was to regiment it, organize
it, to decide everything could be done by measurement
and by mechanical calculation. NARRATOR: The study
of Descartes' algebra changed Newton's life forever. He fell in love
with mathematics. What little interest he
showed in daily college life was now subsumed in a
passionate frenzy of learning. In one year, from
1663 to 1664, he taught himself
everything that was known about modern mathematics. RICHARD S. WESTFALL:
He knew the problems that the best mathematicians
of the age could solve, and he knew that he was
better than any of them. And I think, at that point, he
set himself apart from others. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: You have to
bear in mind that Newton was not a man who found
social relations easy, and I think he found mathematics
as a m tier through which he could live. NARRATOR: In 1664,
Newton got his BA and won a graduate scholarship
to continue his studies. The following year,
plague struck Cambridge. The university was closed, and
he returned to Woolsthorpe. Except for a short
visit back to Cambridge, Newton was to spend the next
18 months at home working completely alone. In that time, he made
revolutionary advances in mathematics and
optics, as well as starting work on his greatest
achievement, the laws of gravitation. [music playing] PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN:
Newton wanted us to believe that as he
watched that apple fall, he realized that the falling
of the apple and the motion of the moon must be
symbol of phenomena. There is, however,
no real evidence that Newton had that advanced
notion until quite a bit later. NARRATOR: He set
the date of 1666 for his discovery to
assure that he would get sole credit for his later work. In the pioneering days
of 17th century science, the means of staking claims
to discoveries was to publish, something Newton was
very reticent to do and later regretted. He wasn't too concerned
with publishing, making it available to other people,
getting glory for his own sake. It was an intellectual challenge
that he wanted to do it. NARRATOR: It was in
his mathematical work at Woolsthorpe that
Newton's failure to publish was most regrettable. Newton made a number of
brilliant discoveries in mathematics, most notably
calculus, what Newton called fluxions. The invention of calculus
was a major breakthrough in mathematics,
allowing measurement of continuously changing
motion and the areas of complex shapes. On his return to
Cambridge in 1667, he showed a copy of his work
on mathematics to Isaac Barrow. It took Barrow two years
of diplomatic prodding to get Newton to write his
first paper, "De Analysi." Although Newton did allow a
select group of mathematicians to see his work, he
still refused to publish. Every discovery that
Newton made had two aspects. First, Newton made
the discovery. And second, other
people had to discover that he had made the discovery. NARRATOR: Apart from
his groundbreaking work in mathematics and his growing
appreciation for the laws of gravity, Newton also applied
himself to the study of lights. Of all the mysteries of
nature, lights and color over the most fascinating
to scientists of that time. Newton decided to approach the
problem using experimentation and observation, a
method of inquiry suggested by Francis
Bacon in the 16th century. While at Woolsthorpe,
he bought a prism to observe the
phenomenon of colors. ACTOR AS ISAAC NEWTON:
"Having darkened my chamber and made a small
hole in my curtains to let a convenient
quantity of the sun's light, I placed my prism at its
entrance," Isaac Newton, 1660. What he did, first of
all, was to find out, as far as he could, why the
colors are produced. NARRATOR: By using an
exhaustive series of tests, he finally whittled
down the possibilities to conclude that
white light consisted of rays of different colors. Color was a property of
light, not of objects. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: This
particular discovery concerning light and colors explain
why we see colored objects. Most important of all,
he came to recognize that since a lens is like
two prisms, one on top of the other, there'll
be color fringes, or different refraction
of the different colors. So he decided he would
build a telescope in which the magnification was not
produced by a big lens but by a mirror. NARRATOR: Newton constructed
the entire telescope by hand, including grinding
the concave mirror. In 1671, word of the invention
of his reflecting telescope reached the Royal Society. An invitation was sent out
to Newton to demonstrate it. Newton was flattered. He built a second
telescope and had it hand-delivered to London. It was enthusiastically
received. Newton was immediately
voted a member. Henry Oldenburg,
Secretary of the Society, wrote to Newton
requesting permission to register the invention. In a rare moment
of expansiveness, Newton readily agreed and asked
if he could submit a paper on light. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: It was
the first publication of Isaac Newton. It's the first great
scientific discovery to be published in a
scientific journal. It's the first
great breakthrough that doesn't have any
discussion in it of the nature of the divinity, the creation of
the world, general metaphysics. It's a straight
scientific paper. NARRATOR: Expecting discussion
to focus on his experiments, Newton was angered to
hear only polite derision. Particularly infuriating with
the comments of Robert Hooke, the recognized
leader in the field, that Newton had borrowed from
his work, "Micrographia." PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: When new
discoveries come in science, scientists don't throw away
all their cherished beliefs. Only in storybooks
does that ever happen. What they rather do is to see
whether they can find fault with the new presentation. NARRATOR: The first
important discovery of the modern scientific era
using experimental procedures was met with ridicule by the
brightest minds of his time. Newton, who hated
controversy, was so disheartened by the
criticism that he shelved plans for publication of
his work in calculus. In 1676, frustrated by the lack
of appreciation for his work, he vowed never to publish again. ACTOR AS ISAAC NEWTON:
"I see I have made myself a slave to philosophy. I will resolutely
bid adieu to it eternally, except what I do for
my private satisfaction," Isaac Newton. NARRATOR: It would be nine
years before he would reemerge to shake the very foundations
of Western thought. [music playing] In 1669, Newton succeeded Isaac
Barrow as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. As part of the
requirement for the post, Newton was to be
ordained a minister in the Anglican church. Newton, being Newton,
approached this problem in a very typical manner. Instead of simply either
saying yes or no, he decided he would read up on it. NARRATOR: In his studies
of early Christianity, Newton became convinced that
the doctrine of the trinity was a fraud perpetrated in
the third and fourth century. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN:
He never, ever could have admitted
this in public. It would have cost him his
office, bearing in mind, of course, he was a professor at
the College of the Holy Trinity in Cambridge. So you could hardly
really come up with anti-trinitarian
statements there. NARRATOR: He was set to resign
his post when he received a dispensation. It is a measure of the depth
of Newton's spiritual beliefs that he was willing to
abandon all he held dear rather than compromise them. His belief in God was the
very basis of his existence. FRANK E. MANUEL: He was born
months after his father died. Now, in Newton, this takes on
an extraordinarily passionate quest for knowing his father's
will, the father whom he never understood. God is the father. God has a will, and it is his
duty to search out that will. NARRATOR: Newton's God
was a personal God-- a creator who was not only over
the world, but a part of it, a rational God who
revealed Himself and the workings of nature. The mechanical philosophy
of Rene Descartes had removed God from
nature, something Newton found abhorrent. He turns to alchemy in the
hope of finding an answer. RICHARD S. WESTFALL:
Newton increasingly became worried about the materialistic,
atheistic implications of the mechanical
philosophy, was looking for a natural philosophy in
which spirit rather than matter would be at the
center of the world. It's my understanding
of his alchemy that he found that in the
philosophy of alchemy. NARRATOR: Alchemy was
as old as civilization. Essentially, it was the study
of natural magic, a search for the spirit in matter. This spirit manifested
itself in physical change, such as fermentation of milk to
cheese, the curative properties of herbs, or in the
transmutation of metals. Alchemy was concerned with
manipulating what was seen to be four elemental properties
in nature, the four elements-- earth, air, fire, and water. And realizing that these things
made all substances that you could, therefore, not only
make any other substance, such as gold, but you
could also somehow learn the secrets by which God
had put the world together. NARRATOR: These secrets
were revealed only to those who could decipher its
arcane language and imagery. As found in the works
of other alchemists, such as Hermes Trismegistus,
Athanasius Kircher, Michael Maiers. Newton believed that
he had been ordained to use his God-given genius
to reveal this lost wisdom. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: He
wasn't looking for gold. He wasn't looking for
any particular substance. He was looking for
the wisdom, which the alchemical practitioner
believed that you gained once you had learned
how matter was composed. It was almost a
metaphysical activity. NARRATOR: In 1669, Newton
purchased two furnaces and converted part
of his quarters at Cambridge into a laboratory. Throughout the 1670s
and '80s, with the help of a servant Humphrey Newton,
he worked long into the night. Humphrey Newton thought
him to be a man possessed. ACTOR AS HUMPHREY
NEWTON: "So intense, so serious upon his studies,
he ate very sparingly. Nay, oft-times, he
forgot to eat at all. He rarely went to bed
till 2 or 3 o'clock, the fire scarcely
going out night or day. He's sitting up one night as
I did another till he finished his chemical experiments,"
Humphrey Newton. NARRATOR: As intense as his work
was an alchemy, mathematics, and physics, it paled in
comparison to his studies in theology. Interpretation of
scripture in the 17th century is easily as important for
intellectuals as science was. It seems difficult
for us to understand that on this interpretation,
the whole meaning of existence depends. Because works of
prophecy are the truth that has been revealed
to us, and they've been shown to be true. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: He wanted to
know what the real meaning was of the Book of Revelations
and the apocryphal of the New Testament and the Book of
Daniel in the Old Testament. What was meant by the reference
to the horror of Babylon? He came to believe that there
were ancient sources of wisdom and that the way to
get these was not through spiritual or
mystical experiences but by analysis of the texts. NARRATOR: Like many
men of his generation, Newton thought that
mankind in ancient times had wisdom that had been
lost over the centuries. He believed that his discoveries
in mathematics and physics had been known to
the ancient Greeks. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: He saw
Pythagoras and the ancients and their numbers, the
belief that numbers lay at the heart of all
things, as the real founders of all rational knowledge. NARRATOR: Newton became
convinced that Pythagoras had accumulated this wisdom from a
meeting with the Old Testament patriarch Moses in Sudan. To accommodate
this historically, Newton began compiling
the chronology of the ancient kingdom. FRANK E. MANUEL: Part of
this scripture interpretation was to develop a whole
system of chronology, re-dating the
history of the world, pushing the history of Greece
500 years out of the way. NARRATOR: In his extensive
study of scripture, he was convinced that in three
chapters of the Book of Ezekiel could be found the dimensions
of the Temple of Solomon. RICHARD S. WESTFALL:
He went back and forth between the drawing
and the text, insisting that the
text had to refer to a possible construction. Then, from the
material necessities of the construction, correcting
the text where it was needed. All of this as an
effort to reproduce the true original
temple of worship that all of the early people,
going back to Noah, had used. NARRATOR: At the heart
of all Newton's work was the conviction
that a rational God had made a rational universe
whose laws could be discerned by analysis and mathematics. FRANK E. MANUEL: I would say
that, for him, the world is God writing Himself on the
universe as history. The history means there
is a succession of events. And these succession of
events are the result of God's personal
relationship with men. NARRATOR: As his alchemical
experiments led him deeper into the search for
the spirit of nature, his understanding of the
mathematical and physical laws of nature grew more profound. Approaching was a time
when he would make plain the divine master plan,
the system of the world. [music playing] Newton loved his mother,
even though she never understood his genius. Her death in June
1679 saw the passing of Newton's only
human relationship. All that was left was his work. While dutifully attending to
her last wishes at Woolsthorpe, Newton was reflecting on
a recent correspondence concerning astronomy with
his arch rival, Robert Hooke. Hooke said, have you thought
of explaining the motion of planets according
to my hypothesis, which is that the planets move
on along the tangent but there's a force that
draws them toward the center? And Newton caught on at once
the Hooke had a brilliant idea. NARRATOR: It was now that the
significance of the falling apple became apparent. His interest in
astronomical matters was further heightened by
the appearance of a comet. In popular folklore,
comets were omens, but to astronomers like Newton,
they were merely aberrations of celestial motion. What all astronomers
were looking for was a mathematical explanation
for Kepler's elliptical motion of planets. In 1684, Robert Hooke,
Christopher wren and Edmund Halley
met at a coffee house to discuss possible mathematical
solutions to the problem. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: Halley
recalled that out in Cambridge, there was this absent-minded
professor who never published very much, a smart man. Maybe he had the answer. And so out he went
and asked Newton. What he probably asked was, if
a planet moves in an ellipse, what kind of force is operating? And Newton said, an
inverse way of force. And Halley said, how
do you know that? And Newton said, I've proved it. And Halley said, OK,
let me see the proof. Well, Newton went through a
kind of taradiddle and charade of some kind and
said, I can't find it. And Halley said, well, send it
to me, because it would be very important. NARRATOR: A few months later,
Newton sent a short paper called "On the Motion
of Revolving Bodies." Halley realized that this
was the holy grail everyone had been looking for. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: Ever
since Kepler had devised the modern system of the
world, ever since then, people have wondered,
what kind of force can hold that thing
together and make it go? And here, Newton had found it. Halley couldn't believe it. He rushed back to Cambridge and
said, this is extraordinary. You've got to write
this up in more detail and put it in the records
of the Royal Society to guarantee your priority. NARRATOR: Halley was keen that
Newton should write a book on his discovery. As the Royal Society
was short of money, he offered to pay
for it himself. It was an act of
generosity for which future generations of scientists
would be forever grateful. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: Halley
was a great diplomat. However had the self-confidence,
the natural flair, and the sheer
social savoir-faire, I suppose you might call it,
to just handle Newton well. As a result of this, they formed
a relationship that lasted best part of half a century. NARRATOR: Newton had come to
realize that the application of his discovery could possibly
have wider implications. He contacted John Flamsteed
at the Royal Observatory to supply him with data
on celestial motion. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: Newton
seems to have realized, in the revision of
this track de motu, on motion, that if the sun
is pulling on the earth to keep it in its orbit, the
Earth must pull on the sun. Then Mars and Earth must
attract one another, and Mars and Jupiter
and Earth and Jupiter. And Newton realizes, he says
that this problem is so complex that he didn't think the
combined mathematical power of the human race was
sufficient to deal with it. "The Principia," of
which he later wrote, is an elaboration of how
you deal with that problem. NARRATOR: In 1687, "The
Principia" was published. Acknowledging his love
of ancient Greek thought, the book was structured
as a classical treatise and rhetorical
argument and logic. The mathematical
reasoning was largely in Euclidean geometry, the
geometry of the ancient Greeks. SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH: Nothing
at all odd in Newton using Euclidean geometry. He wanted to draw a picture
of [inaudible] orbits, and he wanted to see
the curve, and he wanted to draw the [inaudible]. And he wanted to
prove things about it by drawing triangles and areas. And because he thought that was
closer to the actual physics. NARRATOR: The book opened
with definitions of mass, types of forces, and
inertia, each presented in a radically new light. Using these definitions,
he postulated three laws of motion. On these three laws, Newton
constructed his framework for dynamics and
celestial mechanics, the bases of modern science. Using his laws of gravitation
and measurable data, he described the
structure of the universe. He showed how to find masses
of planets, why the Earth is flat at the poles, and why there
is a bulge at the equator, how the tides work, the
procession of the equinoxes, and the motion of comets. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: Newton's
"Principia" is generally reckoned to be the single most
important scientific book ever written and published. People attribute this singular
importance to "The Principia" because for the first
time, it's set forth a working, quantitative, exact,
mathematical system based upon experiment and
critical observation. I know of no other work which
had so profound an effect upon the very nature
of science itself. NARRATOR: In "The
Principia," Newton had given no explanation
for what gravity was, only how it worked. To the followers of Descartes
in Europe, such as Gottfried Leibniz, the introduction of
gravitational forces working at a distance seemed like a
disguised version of medieval think. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: It
seemed to many scientists that what Newton was doing
was bringing back magic. Newton didn't know
what gravitation was. He admitted it. He didn't know what gravity was. We don't know what
gravity is today. But what we do have is
a knowledge of the laws that it follows. And this was a major
break in the development of Western science. NARRATOR: Above all,
Newton showed that time was an absolute quantum. Knowing what happened
at one moment, it was possible to calculate
what happened at another. Events were determinable. This discovery
initiated a new era in Western thought,
one in which man would use the laws of nature
to control his destiny. The publication
of "The Principia" ended forever
Newton's obscurity. He was now the most famous
scientist in Britain. Just prior to its
publication in 1687, Newton had already attracted the
attention of the English ruling class. The King of England, James
II, was a Catholic and keen to return England
to Catholicism. James sought to bring
about this change by confronting a bastion
of Protestantism. Cambridge university was
ordered to confer a degree on a Benedictine monk,
Father Alban Francis. Newton who was a fiercely
loyal Protestant and also a man of great courage and
great personal integrity, was the man who more than
anybody else whipped around Cambridge University to stop
them what you might call compromising and
shilly-shallying yield about whether they should
do this or do that. And Newton became, effectively,
the leader of opposition against the granting of a
degree to Alban Francis. NARRATOR: The overthrow of
King James by William of Orange put an end to the matter. Newton's leadership role earned
him the election as a member of parliament for Cambridge. He was party to the passing
of the Bill of Rights and an honored guest at the
coronation of William and Mary. He was introduced
and became friends with the movers and shakers
in politics and society. All this brought about a
change in Newton's personality. Before that time, we
find the shy recluse. After it, the man who
increasingly enjoyed public fame. He enjoyed being a famous
man, having disciples from all over Europe. He enjoyed having ministers
of state fawning upon him and offering him
high opportunities. NARRATOR: The trappings of
fame required a public office to go with them. Making use of his new
friends and previous contacts from Cambridge, he
canvased for a post, but none suitable was offered. While waiting for
an appointment, Newton assumed the role
of scientific elder to aspiring young
mathematicians. With one of these aspirants,
Fatio de Duillier, he formed his one and only
emotional relationship. I don't think Newton was
interested in sex, quite simply. He was not a man who was
interested in the physical dimension at all. And I think his
relationship with Fatio was what you would call an
intellectual friendship. NARRATOR: In Fatio, Newton
saw reflections of himself as a young mathematician. He also admired the ease
with which Fatio moved about in society. When Fatio decided to move
back to the continent, Newton asked him to stay. His absence caused Newton
to reflect on his inability to get a post, his difficulties
in dealing with people. In late 1693, Newton
had a nervous breakdown. RICHARD S. WESTFALL: There's
no doubt whatever that he had the breakdown. We do have two insane letters. I don't think they can be called
anything but insane letters-- one to John Locke and
one two Samuel Pepys. ACTOR AS ISAAC NEWTON:
"To John Locke, sir, being of the opinion that you
endeavored to embroil me with women and by other means,
I was so much affected with it as that when one told me you
were sickly and would not live, I answered, 'twere better if you
were dead," Isaac Newton, 1693. When the word got around that
something was wrong with him during this crisis of the
'90s, Pepys wrote [inaudible] I'm afraid that something is
happening to that brain of his, that mind. And one result of
Newton's breakdown in 1693 was a permanent
break with Fatio. NARRATOR: Newton
recovered quickly, but he was never again
to achieve the brilliance of his earlier years. Eventually, a post
was found for him. In 1696, who has made
a Warden of the Mint at the Tower of London. The letter that appoints
him makes it clear that the appointment was being
offered to him as a sinecure. No one really expected
him to involve himself in the affairs of the mint. But Newton was incapable
of doing anything by half. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: Newton was
given the job of recoining the entire British currency. It may sound odd to give
this to a great astronomer and mathematician, but
it was, in many respects, very appropriate. It was concerned with purity. It was concerned
with the techniques for mechanically
manufacturing coins. It was concerned with being able
to make standardized weights of bits of metal, lots of
things which are concerned with mathematics. We often think today that
scientists are rather sort of head in the clouds. Newton himself was an
extremely efficient runner of organizations, and he
totally overhauled the mint. He made it a thoroughly
successful government department. NARRATOR: Despite his
acclaim and success, Newton was still an unhappy man. He was known to have laughed
only once in his life, when asked what possible
use geometry could be. Although living at the center
of a vibrant social life in London, he rarely
entertained and never married. It's books that
are his guides. He lives with books. He doesn't live
with human beings. NARRATOR: Newton's
performance at the mint during the recoinage earned
him a promotion to master of the mint in 1699, a
post he held to his death and which gave him
considerably more leverage with the political elite. When Queen Anne assumed
the throne in 1702, Newton ingratiated himself
by minting a special coin. In 1705, Queen Anne
traveled down to Cambridge to knight him for
his work in science. Sir Isaac Newton was now the
most famous man in Britain. [music playing] Upon the death of
Robert Hooke in 1703, Newton was voted president
of the Royal Society. His first act was to obliterate
all references to Hooke. Newton then began the process
of molding the society in his image. By the force of his
personality and, of course, his scientific standing,
which gave it weight. And in many ways,
he could be said to be the first major
scientific political figure. Nowadays, we take it for granted
that a scientist would advise governments and so on. Well, Newton was, in some
sense, the first scientist of that caliber. And his presence in
the Royal Society was his performing that role. NARRATOR: The following year, he
published, through the Society, his work "Opticks." The book was a refinement of
his earlier paper on light. Unlike his first
paper on light, it was received without
a word of criticism. As an appendix, he
published his early papers in calculus, as well as a
section he called Queries. RICHARD S. WESTFALL: These
were general assertions about the order of nature, which
he was convinced were true, but which nevertheless he
did not pretend he could demonstrate to be true. To some extent, then, they
are programs of investigation for others. NARRATOR: Newton now laid
plans for a second edition of "The Principia." To update the data, he needed
new astronomical reading. Over dinner with John
Flamsteed, Newton offered to publish his work
on celestial observations. Flamsteed refused. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: When
John Flamsteed was appointed as the head of the
Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1675, he was
given virtually no resources or money to do his great product
of observing the heavens. He, therefore, felt
very annoyed when Newton assumed that he should
start handing observations over to him. Because effectively, they
were observations paid for out of Flamsteed's own pocket. NARRATOR: Not to be denied,
Newton convinced Prince George to fund the publishing, which
Newton offered to oversee-- an offer Flamsteed
dare not refuse. DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: When the
results were delivered up to Newton and into
Newton's hands, Newton did nothing about it. Flamsteed became increasingly
irate and angry and genuinely felt that he had been betrayed. He felt that he was, quite
simply, the victim of Newton's autocracy. And the real blow to
Flamsteed came in 1712, when Newton actually
got Halley to publish a version of Flamsteed's
catalog, his lifetime's observations, without
Flamsteed's permission. Now, this was, in many
ways, an absolute attack on Flamsteed's integrity. And he loathed and abominated
Halley as the man who had actually made that possible. NARRATOR: The second
edition of "The Principia" came out the following year. All mentions of Flamsteed
were edited out. Newton now returns to
his work on calculus. In his younger days, Newton
had shied away from conflict. As an old and powerful
man, he embraced it. The controversy had been
brewing since Leibniz published his work on calculus in 1676. Up till now, Newton had
allowed his admirers to defend his priority. He now took hold of the reins. Through his devoted disciples,
he began a systematic attack. He released his early work and
his personal correspondence with Leibniz to justify claims
that the German had stolen his discovery. To resolve the dispute, Newton
suggested that a committee be formed to investigate. PROF. I. BERNARD COHEN: We now
know, from the manuscripts, that Newton wrote the
first draft for them. When the thing came out,
he wrote a long review, occupying some 20
or 30 pages, of the philosophical transactions
of the Royal Society. But this was
published anonymously. So Newton didn't
behave about things the way ordinary people do. NARRATOR: Leibniz's
[inaudible] are broken. Hooke had ceased to exist. Flamsteed died before the
publication of his life's work. In the last years
of Newton's life, he received a
never-ending stream of praise and deification. In Europe, Voltaire and
his followers idolized him. When Newton died in 1727, he was
given the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral
fit for a king. He was buried amid royalty
in Westminster Abbey. The poet Alexander Pope
composed his epitaph-- "Nature and nature's
law hid in night. God said, let Newton
be, and all was light." DR. ALLAN CHAPMAN: In the
century that came after Newton, the 1800s, we find that the
fascination with science, with order, and with
reasoned knowledge really set the whole
tone of that culture. The one single figure
from whom they drew most deeply was, in
fact, Isaac Newton. NARRATOR: His major
work, "The Principia," has become to science with
the "Mona Lisa" is to art. It is the masterwork,
the pinnacle of scientific expression. GROUND CONTROL: 3, 2, 1. Booster ignition. And liftoff. NARRATOR: In the 20th
century, mankind's greatest achievement-- the
space program-- is also Newtonian
science's greatest triumph. Professor Chandrasekhar, Nobel
Prize winner for astrophysics, summed up Newton's stature
in science this way. ACTOR AS PROFESSOR
CHANDRASEKHAR: "Every time I look at what Newton did I feel
like a schoolboy admonished by his master." I do not know what I
may appear to the world, but to myself, I seem to
have been only like a boy playing in the seashore and
diverting myself now and then, finding a smoother pebble or
prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth
lay undiscovered before me. [music playing]
