Isaac Newton: The Most Influential Person

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Throughout history, society has been impacted by influential people across the world. Michael Hart has fabricated a list containing his idea of the most influential people. Hart rated Isaac Newton to be number two of The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. He said, “Newton was not only the most brilliant of all scientists; he was also the most influential figure in the development of scientific theory, and therefore well merits a position at or near the top of any list of the world’s most influential persons” (Hart 16). It is reasonable for Isaac Newton to be ranked as the second most influential person because he was impacted by the works of Galileo, discovered the nature of light, and discovered the laws of motion and …show more content…

In 1761, Newton created the reflecting telescope. He took Galileo’s refracting telescope and added an additional mirror at an angle inside the tube. The second mirror caught the reflected light and redirected it to the focusing lens. Because of his successful discovery, Newton was nominated to be a part of the Royal Society (Boerst 56). He proudly claimed that the analysis of dispersion and the composition of white light was, “the oddest if not the most considerable detection yet made in the operations of nature” (Encyclopedia). As a result of constructing the telescope, Newton had announced to Oldenburg that he had developed a new understanding of Optics. Optics is a type of physics that involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it (Boerst 57). Newton’s understand of Optics, guided him to his famous discovery of the three laws of motion and …show more content…

It is reasonable because he was impacted by the works of Galileo, causing him make greater discovers. That includes his discovery of the nature of light through creating the first working reflecting telescope. Newton was also a person of great importance because he discovered the laws of motion and gravitation. I named Isaac Newton the “surpassing man” because he always exceeded expectations. Newton was thought to die at birth, but he lived. Newton was not expected to be the most important scientist of all time, but he was. Later in Newton’s life, when he was asked for an assessment of his achievements, he replied, "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 prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me"

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