Talk:Isaac Newton
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Selected on Template:July 5 selected anniversaries (may be in HTML comment)
whole article appears an ad for forgotten minor person remove ?
He infact was never married. The losing a fortune in the South Seas Company is an Urban Legend and the the fact about nis parents giving all their children a December 25th birthdate is an un true factwfedczuk@yahoo.com http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=%7B4B8FD725-D2C2-452D-BD2B-1496078DB065%7D
I read in Slashdot (ehem) that he was a virgin.
Didn't he lose a fortune in the South Seas Company bubble?
-- Davidme
I heard he wasn't born on Christmas, but his parents put down December 25th as all their childrens' birthdays to protest Cromwell's abolishment of Christmas. True or Urban Legend?
- Some non-religious people have attempted to combine conformity and rebellion by celebrating Isaac Newton's birthday. But it is doubtful that Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day. Isaac's Anglican parents listed December 25th on the birth certificates of all their children as a protest against the anti-Christmas Cromwell government.[1] (http://www.benbest.com/history/xmas.html))
-- Xiaopo's Talk 01:10, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)
- My source for reverting the date change is Richard Westfall, Never at Rest ISBN 0-521-27435-4 page 40. Ancheta Wis 17:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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Later life/Biography
Surely the section "Later life" comes under "Biography"?--[[User:HamYoyo|HamYoyo|TALK]] 01:11, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I found a large part of "Biography" titled "Newton on Optics" that wasn't about optics. So I divided it up into two more sections. I'll change "Biography" into "Early Life" for now. -- Brutannica
Dates and calendars
The current opening makes clear the difference between Newton's birth and death dates in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. However, the next sentence mentions the date of publication for Principia without indicating which calendar is being used. I'm guessing we need a statement that the rest of the dates in the article are all Gregorian dates. But how to do this without being too obtrusive - a comment in small text italics at the top? an asterisked footnote on the next date used? or perhaps a small right aligned sidebar, like an infobox. -- Solipsist 19:17, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Footnote formatted per Manual of Style. Ancheta Wis 21:16, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Secret meanings in the bible
I modified the sentence to be more neutral. Petrvs
An editor added the following paragraph which has POV problems
- Newton attempted to find secret meanings within the Bible. His attempts were not successful, as it was impossible without modern computers.
I can't remember exactly, but it seems likely that Newton did look for secret meanings in the Bible. The problem is that most people would then continue - His attempts were not successful, as there is no secret meanings to be found. If someone can come up with an NPOV phrasing, it is probably worth including in the article. -- Solipsist 19:53, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Childhood
The spurious sentence about being a childhood prodigy reminded me that he really didn't excel in school until after he beat up an older boy. Also he built a lot of fun toys, using a guide book given to him. More relevantly, he was a very poor shepherd, and his mom and stepfather concluded that he shouldn't remain in that field. Probably these stray facts could be collected into a paragraph sometime. Ancheta Wis 22:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- With or without the sheep puns? --Instant Classic 21:58, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've read that Newton's parents wanted him to be a farmer. --Petrus 15:34, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Storey vs. Storer
Can anyone fact-check the Susan Storer/Anne Storey change? a google search turns up both as having no link to newton. time to go to the old paper and ink. Bonus Onus 03:28, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
Too Editorial?
This is from the 3rd paragraph of the main article:
He was quite simply the greatest scientist in the world. Ever. No-one would challenge his basic laws governing the universe until Einstein, and even then his ideas only apply if you're travelling on a beam of light or if you're out in deep space.
Is it just me or is the a little too editorial? This is hardly an objective observation about Isaac Newton. Perhaps it should be changed?
Nigelquinine 00:15, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Religion
Under Religion I read: "Despite his fame as one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived, the Bible was Sir Isaac Newton's greatest passion." This is about as crazy as to write "Despite his fame as one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived, Sir Isaac Newton loved his wife." The prejudice that you have to be somewhat stupid to believe in the Bible should be avoided in the Wikipedia. --O'Barend 10:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I think the idea is that although he became famous for his scientific studies, it was his study of the bible that was most important to him. The remarkable thing being pointed out in the sentence you quoted isn't that Newton was a religious man and a scientist; the remarkable thing is that Newton's religious study was more important to him than the scientific theories that made him famous.
- For instance, the sentence "Despite his fame as one of the greatest physicists ever to have lived, Newton's greatest passion was for biology" would a fair amount of sense (if it were true) and clearly isn't casting aspersions on biology. Aquillion 19:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
References section
Many of those books and websites listed under "Further reading" and "External links" would be better classified as References. I already moved all the ones I knew were being used as references to the section; if anyone knows that more are so, please move them accordingly. --DanielNuyu 05:01, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"The British always get their priorities right!" - unnecessary invective. I've removed this an edited the preceding sentance appropriately. -- ae, 3 May 2005
Pets?
Someone wrote about Newton's pet animals, which appeared quite editorial and it also caused the page to go out of order.