The Age

File:The Age logo.svg
The front page of The Age on 6 June 2011
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner	Fairfax Media
Editor	Paul Ramadge
Founded	1854
Headquarters	Melbourne, Australia
Circulation	Monday - Friday 685,000, Saturday 844,000, Sunday 697,000[1]
ISSN	0312-6307
OCLC number	224060909
Official website	www.theage.com.au

The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and southern New South Wales. It is delivered in both a hardcopy and online formats. The newspaper shares many articles with other Fairfax Media metropolitan daily newspapers, such as The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Age was founded by three Melbourne businessmen, the brothers John Cooke and Henry Cooke, who had arrived from New Zealand in the 1840s, and Walter Powell. The first edition appeared on 17 October 1854.

The Age currently has an average weekday circulation of 190,600, increasing to 275,000 on Saturdays (in a city of 4 million). The Sunday Age has a circulation of 225,400.^[2] The paper currently has a Monday to Friday readership average of 668,000, reaching an average of 857,000 on Saturdays. The Sunday Age attracts an average of 695,000 readers.^[2]

History[link]

Syme family[link]

The venture was not initially a success, and in June 1856 the Cookes sold the paper to Ebenezer Syme, a Scottish-born businessman, and James McEwan, an ironmonger and founder of McEwans & Co, for 2,000 pounds at auction. The first edition under the new owners was on 17 June 1856. From its foundation the paper was self-consciously liberal in its politics: "aiming at a wide extension of the rights of free citizenship and a full development of representative institutions," and supporting "the removal of all restrictions upon freedom of commerce, freedom of religion and—to the utmost extent that is compatible with public morality—upon freedom of personal action."^[3]

Ebenezer Syme was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly shortly after buying The Age, and his brother David Syme soon came to dominate the paper, editorially and managerially. When Ebenezer died in 1860, David became editor-in-chief, a position he retained until his death in 1908, although a succession of editors did the day-to-day editorial work. In 1891 Syme bought out Ebenezer's heirs and McEwan's and became sole proprietor. He built up The Age into Victoria's leading newspaper. In circulation it soon overtook its rivals The Herald and The Argus, and by 1890 it was selling 100,000 copies a day, making it one of the world's most successful newspapers.

A copy of the first edition of The Age

Under Syme's control The Age exercised enormous political power in Victoria. It supported liberal politicians such as Graham Berry, George Higinbotham and George Turner, and other leading liberals such as Alfred Deakin and Charles Pearson furthered their careers as The Age journalists. Syme was originally a free trader, but converted to protectionism through his belief that Victoria needed to develop its manufacturing industries behind tariff barriers. In the 1890s The Age was a leading supporter of Australian federation and of the White Australia policy.

After Syme's death the paper remained in the hands of his three sons, with his eldest son Herbert Syme becoming general manager until his death in 1939. Syme's will prevented the sale of any equity in the paper during his sons' lifetimes, an arrangement designed to protect family control but which had the effect of starving the paper of investment capital for 40 years. Under the management of Sir Geoffrey Syme (1908–42), and his chosen editors Gottlieb Schuler and Harold Campbell, The Age failed to modernise, and gradually lost market share to The Argus and to the tabloid The Sun News-Pictorial, although its classfied advertisement sections kept the paper profitable. By the 1940s the paper's circulation was smaller than it had been in 1900, and its political influence also declined. Although it remained more liberal than the extremely conservative Argus, it lost much of its distinct political identity.

The historian Sybil Nolan writes: "Accounts of The Age in these years generally suggest that the paper was second-rate, outdated in both its outlook and appearance. Walker described a newspaper which had fallen asleep in the embrace of the Liberal Party; "querulous," "doddery" and "turgid" are some of the epithets applied by other journalists. It is inevitably criticised not only for its increasing conservatism, but for its failure to keep pace with innovations in layout and editorial technique so dramatically demonstrated in papers like The Sun News-Pictorial and The Herald."

In 1942 David Syme's last surviving son, Oswald Syme, took over the paper. He modernised the paper's appearance and standards of news coverage (removing classified advertisements from the front page and introducing photographs, long after other papers had done so). In 1948, convinced the paper needed outside capital, he persuaded the courts to overturn his father's will and floated David Syme and Co. as a public company, selling 400,000 pounds worth of shares, enabling a badly needed technical modernisation of the newspaper's production. A takeover attempt by the Warwick Fairfax family, publishers of The Sydney Morning Herald, was beaten off. This new lease on life allowed The Age to recover commercially, and in 1957 it received a great boost when The Argus ceased publication.

1960–present[link]

Oswald Syme retired in 1964, and his grandson Ranald Macdonald became chairman of the company. He was the first chairman to hand over full control of the paper to a professional editor from outside the Syme family. This was Graham Perkin, appointed in 1966, who radically changed the paper's format and shifted its editorial line from the rather conservative liberalism of the Symes to a new "left liberalism" characterised by attention to issues such as race, gender and the environment, and opposition to White Australia and the death penalty. The Liberal Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte, called The Age "that pinko rag," a view conservatives have maintained ever since. Former editor Michael Gawenda in his book American Notebook wrote that the "default position of most journalists at The Age was on the political Left.".^[4]

Perkin's editorship coincided with Gough Whitlam's reforms of the Australian Labor Party, and The Age became a key supporter of the Whitlam government, which came to power in 1972. Contrary to subsequent mythology, however, The Age was not an uncritical supporter of Whitlam, and played a leading role in exposing the Loans Affair, one of the scandals which contributed to the demise of the Whitlam government.

After Perkin's early death in 1975 The Age returned to a more moderate liberal position. It supported Malcolm Fraser's Liberal government in its early years, but after 1980 became increasingly critical and was a leading supporter of Bob Hawke's reforming government after 1983. But from the 1970s the political influence of The Age, as with other broadsheet newspapers, derived less from what it said in its editorial columns (which relatively few people read) than from the opinions expressed by journalists, cartoonists, feature writers and guest columnists. The Age has always kept a stable of leading editorial cartoonists, notably Les Tanner, Bruce Petty, Ron Tandberg and Michael Leunig.

In 1966 Macdonald took the fateful step of allowing the Fairfax's to acquire a stake in the paper, although an agreement was signed guaranteeing the editorial independence of The Age. In 1972 Fairfax bought a majority of David Syme shares, and in 1983 bought out all the remaining shares. David Syme and Co. became a subsidiary of John Fairfax and Co. Macdonald was denounced as a traitor by the remaining members of the Syme family (who nevertheless accepted Fairfax's generous offer for their shares), but he argued that The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald were natural partners and that the greater resources of the Fairfax group would enable The Age to remain competitive. By the 1980s a new competitor had appeared in Rupert Murdoch's national daily The Australian. In 1999 David Syme and Co. became The Age Company Ltd as part of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd., finally ending the Syme connection.

Previous Headquarters

The Age Headquarters in Collins Street, completed 2009

The Age was published from offices in Collins St until 1969, when it moved to 250 Spencer St (hence the nickname "The Spencer Street Soviet" favoured by some critics). In 2003, The Age opened a new printing centre at Tullamarine. The Headquarters moved again in 2009 to Collins Street opposite Southern Cross Station.

Currently there are two editions of The Age printed nightly. The NAA edition, for interstate and country Victorian readers and the MEA edition, for metropolitan areas. These two editions are printed in three separate editions, the earliest for country and interstate readers, the second edition for metropolitan and the final late edition THA, also for metropolitan areas carrying late or breaking stories not covered in the first two editions.

Friday's edition of the newspaper now includes a racing liftout which includes extended form and analysis for Saturday's major race meetings.

Like its Fairfax stablemate The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age announced in early 2007 that it would be moving from a broadsheet format to the smaller Berliner size, in the footsteps of The Guardian and The Courier-Mail.^[5] Both The Age and the Herald dumped these plans later in the year without explanation, to the amusement of The Australian's Chris Mitchell, who called the about-face "a bit embarrassing".^[6]

In 2009, The Age suspended its columnist Michael Backman after one of his columns condemned Israeli tourists as greedy and badly behaved, prompting criticism that he was anti-semitic. However a Press Council complaint against The Age for its handling of the complaints against Backman was dismissed.^[7]

Headquarters[link]

The Age headquarters, known as Media House, is shared with other Fairfax business units including: 3AW radio, Magic1278 radio, The Australian Financial Review Group, and Fairfax Community Network.^[8] Media House was designed by Bates Smart and built by Grocon for $110 million.^[9] The building was formally opened in October 2009.^[10]

Masthead[link]

The Age masthead has received a number of updates since 1854. The most recent update to the design was made in 2002. The current masthead features a stylised version of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom and "The Age" in Electra Bold type. The crest features the French words Dieu et mon droit ("God and my right"). According to The Age's art director, Bill Farr: "No one knows why they picked the royal crest. But I guess we were a colony at the time, and to be seen to be linked with the Empire would be a positive thing."^{[citation needed]} The original 1854 masthead included the Colony of Victoria crest. In 1856, that crest was removed and in 1861, the royal coat of arms was introduced. This was changed again in 1967, with the shield and decoration altered and the lion crowned. In 1971, a bold typeface was introduced and the crest shield rounded and less ornate. In 1997, the masthead was stacked and contained in a blue box (with the logo in white). In 2002, in conjunction with an overall revamp of the paper, the masthead was redesigned in its present form.^[11]

Ownership[link]

In 1972 John Fairfax Holdings bought a majority of David Syme shares, and in 1983 bought out all the remaining shares.

Printing[link]

The Age was published from its office in Collins Street until 1969, when the newspaper moved to 250 Spencer Street. In 2003, The Age Print Centre was opened at Tullamarine. The centre produces a wide range of publications for both Fairfax and commercial clients. Among its stable of daily print publications are The Age, The Australian Financial Review and The Bendigo Advertiser. The Age Print Centre uses Norske Skog paper and is a member of the Publisher's National Environment Bureau (PNEB).

Controversies[link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (November 2010)

In 2004 Gawenda was succeeded as editor by British journalist Andrew Jaspan. Jaspan aroused controversy by initially not appearing to know that The Age was published in Melbourne,^{[citation needed]} sacking Gerard Henderson,^{[citation needed]} a prominent conservative columnist, from the paper and by making remarks critical of Douglas Wood, an Australian who was held hostage and tortured in Iraq. Jaspan accused Wood on ABC radio of being boorish and coarse for speaking harshly about those who kidnapped and tortured him.^[12]

The generally left-wing The Age is frequently compared with Britain's leftist Guardian newspaper.^[6] Henderson, writing in the Murdoch-owned competitor The Australian, is one of many to describe it as "The Guardian on the Yarra".^[13]

According to The Guardian newspaper, former Fairfax chief executive Fred Hilmer wrote in his memoirs that "he struggled to cope with a left-leaning editorial culture at papers such as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and was surprised that journalists saw themselves as advocates rather than simply reporters."^[14] Hilmer said that "Fairfax's default position was to turn left and be agenda-driven... Journalists often conducted campaigns where they persisted in covering stories long after readers had lost interest."^[14]

In February 2007 The Age took a prominent role to publicly advocate on behalf of the Free David Hicks campaign (where Hicks was a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay).^{[citation needed]}

'Reporting on 19 March 2010 an alleged corruption in religion, The Age claimed that the Vienna Boys Choir “has been caught up in accusations that pedophile priests systematically abused their choristers", even though the complaints were made against teachers and older pupils of the choir, which is a private organisation.^[15] Reviewing the matter, journalist Paul Mees in Crikey accused The Age of outright "fabrication".^[16]

In 2011, the Sunday Herald Sun's James Campbell revealed a so-called 'hacking scandal' involving journalists at The Age who were accused of illegally accessing the computers of a political party.^[17] Following a complaint by the Victorian Electoral Commissioner, the suspected journalists, including the editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge, are being investigated by Victoria Police.^[18] The journalists are expected to appear before a parliamentary hearing in 2012.^[19]

Editors[link]

See also[link]

	Australia portal
	Journalism portal

• Journalism in Australia
• List of newspapers in Australia

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• C. E. Sayers, David Syme, Cheshire 1965
• Don Hauser, The Printers of the Streets and Lanes Of Melbourne (1837–1975) Nondescript Press, Melbourne 2006

External links[link]

• theage.com.au - The Age website
• about.theage.com.au - The Age corporate website
• inside.theage.com.au - The Age information hub
• Half a century of obscurity (Sybil Nolan on the history of The Age)
• Sir Geoffrey Syme "Sir Geoffrey Syme Journalist & Managing Editor of The Age from 1908 until 1942"
• The Newspaper Works

Look up age in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Age may refer to:

• Ageing, the effect of time on a person
• Age (geology)
• Age (model theory), an aspect of mathematical model theory
• Age (journal), an international peer-reviewed journal operated by Springer.
• The Age, a daily newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia
• Agé, a god
• Åge, a given name
• Aage, a given name
• Âge, a Japanese media company
• Advanced glycation end-product, a type of chemical
• American Aging Association or AGE, an organization for aging studies
• Applied general equilibrium, a model in mathematical economics
• Agricultural & General Engineers, a group of engineering companies
• Arterial gas embolism
• Astrological age, a period in western astrology
• Agenore Incrocci or Age, an Italian screenwriter
• Esimbi language or Age, a language of the Cameroons
• Wangerooge Airport's IATA code
• The Age, a nineteenth century American newspaper edited by Melville Fuller

See also[link]

• Senescence, the biological effect of time
• Periodization
• Aging (disambiguation)
• AIG (disambiguation)
• AG (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Akim Camara (born 26 September 2000 in Berlin-Mitte) is a violinist who began playing at the age of two.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Akim is a biracial child of mixed African (paternal) and European (maternal) descent.

Music career[link]

At only two years of age Akim took up violin lessons under instructor Birgit Thiele at the Marzahn-Hellersdorf School of Music. Akim was at this point still in diapers and speaking in unintelligible toddler gibberish yet he was remarkably able to remember music heard^[2] and the names of all orchestral instruments. Moved by his remarkable memory and natural "ear for music" Akim's teacher began instructing the toddler twice a week in 45 minute sessions.^[3] Akim participated enthusiastically and, due in part to his remarkable memory, the toddler was learning unbelievably fast. After six months of this fairly light training regimen little Akim had his debut performance in December 2003 at the age of two in a Christmas concert "Schneefloeckchen, Weissroeckchen" put on by the Marzahn-Hellersdorf School of Music.^[4]

Birgit Thiele and the music school principal, Gudrun Mueller, messaged Andre Rieu, the celebrity Dutch violinist, regarding Akim's prodigious talent through his website. Rieu responded swiftly. He sent a camera crew to Berlin to film little Akim on the violin. What he saw astounded him. He hastily took action and invited the parents and grandmother of the boy to his studio in Kerkrade, Netherlands along with Akim. Three year old Akim's performance at the studio was apparently so impressive that it left all of the orchestra members in astonishment and disbelief.

Within two weeks little Akim was performing with Rieu in concert at Kerkrade's Parkstad Limburg Stadion filled to near max capacity with an audience of 18,000 people on a toddler-size violin and wearing a tiny custom-made concert tuxedo and dress shoes. After amusing the crowd with a "water trick" toddler Akim then performed Ferdinand Kuchler's violin concertino in G, opus 11 followed by a brief encore performance. Akim exited stage right after two massive standing ovations and roaring cheers.^[5]

Following the success of Akim's performance the little boy had to be essentially hidden from the public eye as many German television stations began pursuing him for appearances. Rieu took the toddler under his wing, so to speak, paying for his musical lessons on both violin and piano and overseeing his instruction (both musical and otherwise) so that Akim will remain "a nice boy"^[6] and not become "an insufferable child prodigy" as Rieu fears would be a possibility without his influence.

With his uncanny ability to memorize a musical piece after hearing it only once or twice, Akim's talent developed rapidly and his youthful enthusiasm and passion for the violin only grew. After an interview and appearance on a Danish TV show the young prodigy performed once again with Andre Rieu. This time Akim was performing a more complex piece, Felix Mendelssohn's Dance of the Fairies and at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, and with an appropriately bigger violin. He also sang "Pie Jesu" with Carla Maffioletti.^[7]

Akim has since performed on television with the likes of Wolfgang Fischer and Richard Clayderman.^[8]

References[link]

Sir Isaac Newton
Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46)
Born	(1642-12-25)25 December 1642 [NS: 4 January 1643][1] Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth Lincolnshire, England
Died	20 March 1727(1727-03-20) (aged 84) [NS: 31 March 1727][1] Kensington, Middlesex, England
Residence	England
Nationality	English
Fields	Physics, mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy, alchemy, Christian theology
Institutions	University of Cambridge Royal Society Royal Mint
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Academic advisors	Isaac Barrow[2] Benjamin Pulleyn[3][4]
Notable students	Roger Cotes William Whiston
Known for	Newtonian mechanics Universal gravitation Infinitesimal calculus Optics Binomial series Newton's method Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Influences	Henry More[5] Polish Brethren[6]
Influenced	Nicolas Fatio de Duillier John Keill
Signature
Notes His mother was Hannah Ayscough. His half-niece was Catherine Barton.

Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 [NS: 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727])^[1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."^[7] His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution.

The Principia is generally considered to be one of the most important scientific books ever written, due, independently, to the specific physical laws the work successfully described, and for the style of the work, which assisted in setting standards for scientific publication down to the present time. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope^[8] and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function, and contributed to the study of power series. Newton's work on infinite series was inspired by Simon Stevin's decimals.^[9] Newton, although an unorthodox Christian, was deeply religious, and wrote more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than on science and mathematics. Newton secretly rejected Trinitarianism, and feared being accused of refusing holy orders.^[10]

Life[link]

Early life[link]

Isaac Newton was born on what is retroactively considered 4 January 1643 [OS: 25 December 1642]^[1] at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, 25 December 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (≈ 1.1 litres). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and maintained some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them."^[11] Although it was claimed that he was once engaged,^[12] Newton never married.

Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller

Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)

From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his alleged signature can still be seen upon a library window sill).[1]^{[citation needed]} He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming.^[13] Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student.^[14] The Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen considers it "fairly certain" that Newton had Asperger syndrome.^[15]

In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar – a sort of work-study role.^[16] At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, whom Newton supplemented with modern philosophers, such as Descartes, and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the university temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student,^[17] Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus,^[18] optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667, he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity.^[19] Fellows were required to become ordained priests, something Newton desired to avoid due to his unorthodox views. Luckily for Newton, there was no specific deadline for ordination and it could be postponed indefinitely. The problem became more severe later when Newton was elected for the prestigious Lucasian Chair. For such a significant appointment, ordaining normally could not be dodged. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II (see "Middle years" section below).

Middle years[link]

Mathematics[link]

Newton's work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied".^[20] His work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newton's mathematical papers.^[21] The author of the manuscript De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas, sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669, was identified by Barrow in a letter sent to Collins in August of that year as:^[22]

Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young ... but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things.

Newton later became involved in a dispute with Leibniz over priority in the development of infinitesimal calculus. Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed infinitesimal calculus independently, although with very different notations. Occasionally it has been suggested that Newton published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704, while Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. (Leibniz's notation and "differential Method", nowadays recognised as much more convenient notations, were adopted by continental European mathematicians, and after 1820 or so, also by British mathematicians.) Such a suggestion, however, fails to notice the content of calculus which critics of Newton's time and modern times have pointed out in Book 1 of Newton's Principia itself (published 1687) and in its forerunner manuscripts, such as De motu corporum in gyrum ("On the motion of bodies in orbit"), of 1684. The Principia is not written in the language of calculus either as we know it or as Newton's (later) 'dot' notation would write it. But his work extensively uses an infinitesimal calculus in geometric form, based on limiting values of the ratios of vanishing small quantities: in the Principia itself Newton gave demonstration of this under the name of 'the method of first and last ratios'^[23] and explained why he put his expositions in this form,^[24] remarking also that 'hereby the same thing is performed as by the method of indivisibles'.

Because of this, the Principia has been called "a book dense with the theory and application of the infinitesimal calculus" in modern times^[25] and "lequel est presque tout de ce calcul" ('nearly all of it is of this calculus') in Newton's time.^[26] His use of methods involving "one or more orders of the infinitesimally small" is present in his De motu corporum in gyrum of 1684^[27] and in his papers on motion "during the two decades preceding 1684".^[28]

Newton had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared controversy and criticism.^[29] He was close to the Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. In 1691, Duillier started to write a new version of Newton's Principia, and corresponded with Leibniz.^[30] In 1693 the relationship between Duillier and Newton deteriorated, and the book was never completed.

Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. The Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labelled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter controversy which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.^[31]

Newton is generally credited with the generalised binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.

He was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669 on Barrow's recommendation. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford was required to become an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.^[32]

Optics[link]

A replica of Newton's second Reflecting telescope that he presented to the Royal Society in 1672^[33]

From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics.^[34] During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.^[35] Modern scholarship has revealed that Newton's analysis and resynthesis of white light owes a debt to corpuscular alchemy. ^[36] .

He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is known as Newton's theory of colour.^[37]

From this work, he concluded that the lens of any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours (chromatic aberration). As a proof of the concept, he constructed a telescope using a mirror as the objective to bypass that problem.^[38] Building the design, the first known functional reflecting telescope, today known as a Newtonian telescope,^[38] involved solving the problem of a suitable mirror material and shaping technique. Newton ground his own mirrors out of a custom composition of highly reflective speculum metal, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes. In late 1668^[39] he was able to produce this first reflecting telescope. In 1671, the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope.^[40] Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. Newton and Hooke had brief exchanges in 1679–80, when Hooke, appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, opened up a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions,^[41] which had the effect of stimulating Newton to work out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation – History and De motu corporum in gyrum). But the two men remained generally on poor terms until Hooke's death.^[42]

Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles, which were refracted by accelerating into a denser medium. He verged on soundlike waves to explain the repeated pattern of reflection and transmission by thin films (Opticks Bk.II, Props. 12), but still retained his theory of ‘fits’ that disposed corpuscles to be reflected or transmitted (Props.13). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for the interference patterns, and the general phenomenon of diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave–particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.

In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: He was the last of the magicians."^[43] Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science.^[5] This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science. Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)

In 1704, Newton published Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?"^[44] Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).

In an article entitled "Newton, prisms, and the 'opticks' of tunable lasers^[45] it is indicated that Newton in his book Opticks was the first to show a diagram using a prism as a beam expander. In the same book he describes, via diagrams, the use of multiple-prism arrays. Some 278 years after Newton's discussion, multiple-prism beam expanders became central to the development of narrow-linewidth tunable lasers. Also, the use of these prismatic beam expanders led to the multiple-prism dispersion theory.^[45]

Mechanics and gravitation[link]

Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition

In 1679, Newton returned to his work on (celestial) mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion. This followed stimulation by a brief exchange of letters in 1679–80 with Hooke, who had been appointed to manage the Royal Society's correspondence, and who opened a correspondence intended to elicit contributions from Newton to Royal Society transactions.^[41] Newton's reawakening interest in astronomical matters received further stimulus by the appearance of a comet in the winter of 1680–1681, on which he corresponded with John Flamsteed.^[46] After the exchanges with Hooke, Newton worked out a proof that the elliptical form of planetary orbits would result from a centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector (see Newton's law of universal gravitation – History and De motu corporum in gyrum). Newton communicated his results to Edmond Halley and to the Royal Society in De motu corporum in gyrum, a tract written on about 9 sheets which was copied into the Royal Society's Register Book in December 1684.^[47] This tract contained the nucleus that Newton developed and expanded to form the Principia.

The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work, Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that enabled many of the advances of the Industrial Revolution which soon followed and were not to be improved upon for more than 200 years, and are still the underpinnings of the non-relativistic technologies of the modern world. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation.

In the same work, Newton presented a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis by 'first and last ratios', gave the first analytical determination (based on Boyle's law) of the speed of sound in air, inferred the oblateness of the spheroidal figure of the Earth, accounted for the precession of the equinoxes as a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the Earth's oblateness, initiated the gravitational study of the irregularities in the motion of the moon, provided a theory for the determination of the orbits of comets, and much more.

Newton made clear his heliocentric view of the solar system – developed in a somewhat modern way, because already in the mid-1680s he recognised the "deviation of the Sun" from the centre of gravity of the solar system.^[48] For Newton, it was not precisely the centre of the Sun or any other body that could be considered at rest, but rather "the common centre of gravity of the Earth, the Sun and all the Planets is to be esteem'd the Centre of the World", and this centre of gravity "either is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a right line" (Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the centre, wherever it was, was at rest).^[49]

Newton's postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances led to him being criticised for introducing "occult agencies" into science.^[50] Later, in the second edition of the Principia (1713), Newton firmly rejected such criticisms in a concluding General Scholium, writing that it was enough that the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction, as they did; but they did not so far indicate its cause, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things that were not implied by the phenomena. (Here Newton used what became his famous expression Hypotheses non fingo).

With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised.^[51] He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship. This abruptly ended in 1693, and at the same time Newton suffered a nervous breakdown.^[52]

Later life[link]

Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill

In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the Universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works – The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) – were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).

Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed.^[53]

Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Lord Lucas, Governor of the Tower (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon the death of Thomas Neale in 1699, a position Newton held for the last 30 years of his life.^[54][55] These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton moved the Pound Sterling de facto from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favour of gold. This caused silver sterling coin to be melted and shipped out of Britain. Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies.^[56]

Personal coat of arms of Sir Isaac Newton^[57]

In April 1705, Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge. The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton's scientific work or services as Master of the Mint.^[58] Newton was the second scientist to be knighted, after Sir Francis Bacon.

Towards the end of his life, Newton took up residence at Cranbury Park, near Winchester with his niece and her husband, until his death in 1727.^[59] His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt,^[60] served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle,"^[61] according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox.

Newton died in his sleep in London on 31 March 1727 [OS: 20 March 1726],^[1] and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Newton, a bachelor, had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate. After his death, Newton's hair was examined and found to contain mercury, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.^[62]

After death[link]

Fame[link]

French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that Newton was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish."^[63] English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.

Newton himself had been rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676:

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.^[64]

Two writers think that the above quote, written at a time when Newton and Hooke were in dispute over optical discoveries, was an oblique attack on Hooke (said to have been short and hunchbacked), rather than – or in addition to – a statement of modesty.^[65][66] On the other hand, the widely known proverb about standing on the shoulders of giants published among others by 17th-century poet George Herbert (a former orator of the University of Cambridge and fellow of Trinity College) in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), had as its main point that "a dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two", and so its effect as an analogy would place Newton himself rather than Hooke as the 'dwarf'.

In a later memoir, Newton wrote:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, 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.^[67]

Albert Einstein kept a picture of Newton on his study wall alongside ones of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell.^[68] Newton remains influential to today's scientists, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of members of Britain's Royal Society (formerly headed by Newton) asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Einstein. Royal Society scientists deemed Newton to have made the greater overall contribution.^[69] In 1999, an opinion poll of 100 of today's leading physicists voted Einstein the "greatest physicist ever;" with Newton the runner-up, while a parallel survey of rank-and-file physicists by the site PhysicsWeb gave the top spot to Newton.^[70]

Commemorations[link]

Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Newton's monument (1731) can be seen in Westminster Abbey, at the north of the entrance to the choir against the choir screen, near his tomb. It was executed by the sculptor Michael Rysbrack (1694–1770) in white and grey marble with design by the architect William Kent. The monument features a figure of Newton reclining on top of a sarcophagus, his right elbow resting on several of his great books and his left hand pointing to a scroll with a mathematical design. Above him is a pyramid and a celestial globe showing the signs of the Zodiac and the path of the comet of 1680. A relief panel depicts putti using instruments such as a telescope and prism.^[71] The Latin inscription on the base translates as:

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 25 December 1642, and died on 20 March 1726/7. — Translation from G.L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul's Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey (1826), ii, 703–4.^[71]

From 1978 until 1988, an image of Newton designed by Harry Ecclestone appeared on Series D £1 banknotes issued by the Bank of England (the last £1 notes to be issued by the Bank of England). Newton was shown on the reverse of the notes holding a book and accompanied by a telescope, a prism and a map of the Solar System.^[72]

A statue of Isaac Newton, looking at an apple at his feet, can be seen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

In popular culture[link]

Religious views[link]

Newton's tomb in Westminster Abbey

According to most scholars, Newton was a monotheist who believed in biblical prophecies but was Antitrinitarian.^[6][73] 'In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin'.^[74] Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith—which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs."^[6] Snobelen concludes that Newton was at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an anti-trinitarian.^[6] In an age notable for its religious intolerance, there are few public expressions of Newton's radical views, most notably his refusal to receive holy orders and his refusal, on his death bed, to receive the sacrament when it was offered to him.^[6]

In a view disputed by Snobelen,^[6] T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that Newton held the Arian view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans and most Protestants.^[75] Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the Universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."^[76]

Along with his scientific fame, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy. Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date.^[77] He also tried unsuccessfully to find hidden messages within the Bible.

Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. The ordered and dynamically informed Universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason. In his correspondence, Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity".^[78] He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice". But Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the system, due to the slow growth of instabilities.^[79] For this, Leibniz lampooned him: "God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion."^[80] Newton's position was vigorously defended by his follower Samuel Clarke in a famous correspondence. A century later, Pierre-Simon Laplace's work "Celestial Mechanics" had a natural explanation for why the planet orbits don't require periodic divine intervention.^[81]