Isaac Newton
(1642-1726)
“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 seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
About Newton: Born in the county of Lincolnshire, England, Isaac Newton was raised by his maternal grandmother from age three, as his father died before he was born and his mother’s new husband did not want him. As a young adult, Newton was granted the position of Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge -- the same position Stephen Hawking held during his lifetime. He never took holy orders in the Church of England while at Trinity College because of his divergent religious beliefs. A member of the Royal Society, Parliament and eventual Master of the Royal Mint, Newton was extremely accomplished. He formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus, discovered the generalized binomial theorem, invented the reflecting telescope, determined that white light is composed of various colors, correctly inferred the oblateness of the earth’s spheroidal form, wrote the “Principia” which laid the foundation for classical mechanics, formulated the empirical law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound and developed a method for approximating the roots of a function. Departing from the work of a scientist, Newton later became Warden of the Royal Mint. While in that post, he saved the English currency from debasement by proposing and executing a plan to recoin the country’s entire currency in circulation and then convert it to a gold standard; he also investigated, pursued, caught and had hanged a large number of counterfeiters.
Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642)
“Mathematics is the language God used to write the universe.”
About Galileo: Galileo Galilei can be thought of as a predecessor to Isaac Newton who was born in the year Galileo died. A protagonist of scientific discovery at a time when scientific reasoning had not yet been advanced, Galileo was referred to by Albert Einstein as “the father of modern physics”. A native of Pisa, Italy, Galileo (whose first and last names both refer to the city of “Galilee”) is most commonly recognized by laymen for the story of his experimental illustration at the Leaning Tower of Pisa that all objects fall to earth at the same rate regardless of their mass. He dramatically improved the magnification of telescopes and was the first person to view and map the paths of the four largest moons of Jupiter. By calculation as well as by direct observation, Galileo knew full well that the earth was not the center of the universe nor even the galaxy. He strongly supported the Copernican heliocentric view, despite the personal danger to him of doing so. His views, combined with his recognized intellect and scientific expertise placed him at a philosophical and political crossroads with the Roman Catholic Church which did not permit espousal of anything contradicting geocentrism and the belief that the earth does not move. Despite all of his accomplishments and his contributions to the world, at age 69, Galileo was brought to trial for heresy under the Inquisition for promoting the idea that the earth orbits the sun. He was found summarily guilty. In order to avoid a possible death penalty or life imprisonment, Galileo was forced to recant and to state that his scientific beliefs were simply wrong – nonetheless, he was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. At the end of his apology and before receiving sentence, Galileo is quoted as saying, under his breath and in an act of defiance, “Eppur si muove... (and yet it moves…)”, referring to the movement of the earth around the sun.
Leonardo Da Vinci
(1452-1519)
“Study first the science and then the art born out of that science.”
About Da Vinci: Born in the town of Vinci, Italy, by birthright Leonardo was considered a second-rate citizen as he was the illegitimate child of a local notary and a peasant woman. Because of his lowly state at birth, Leonardo was not allowed to attend school nor was he permitted to take any family name at all. Thus, he was and is still known today simply as “Leonard from Vinci” (i.e., Leonardo Da Vinci). With few opportunities as a youth, Leonardo worked hard to advance his position in life. He got his start after being allowed to apprentice in the workshop of the painter known as Verrocchio. Given his early training as a painter and sculptor, Leonardo is perhaps best recognized as the creator of works such as the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Madonna delle rocce (Maiden of the rocks), and Lady with an Ermine. In fact, Da Vinci was not a prolific painter but had many more sketches than paintings. Among his sketches, the Vitruvian Man is perhaps the most well-known. Da Vinci was a contemporary of Michelangelo and, because of his diverse interests and talents, was sometimes overshadowed in the world of painting and sculpture by Michelangelo. Leonardo was skilled in many technological fields, in addition to his work in the arts. He gained prominence under the patronage of powerful Italian families and rulers such as the de Medici family, Ludovico Sforza and the powerful Cesare Borgia for whom he designed various war machines. Da Vinci is credited with inventions and early versions of the tank, the giant crossbow, the helicopter and the parachute. Leonardo was accomplished in so many fields of endeavor that when he went to work for Ludovico Sforza as an engineer, he had to explain that he “also does art”. Da Vinci is often referred to as the father of architecture, paleontology and ichnology. Many of Leonardo’s ideas were well ahead of his day, as some of his designs were proven valid only decades or even centuries after he created them.
Karl Popper
(1902-1994)
“Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.”
About Popper: Karl Popper was an Austrian-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. Popper was a Jew by birthright but was raised as a Lutheran. Nonetheless, the German Reich’s annexation of his native Austria in 1938 forced him into permanent exile and had a powerful influence on his social and political views for the rest of his life. Conveying his support for democratic liberalism both as an admirable social and political philosophy, he wrote the books, “The Poverty of Historicism” (1944) and “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (1945). Though Popper received his doctorate in psychology, one of his greatest contributions to the world was his articulation of correct scientific reasoning as to the empirical sciences, in his book, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery” (1934). In this masterpiece, Popper dismisses inductive inference and makes clear that the correct point of demarcation between science and metaphysics is the falsifiability of hypotheses via tests.