Karen Robbins, age 15, of Indianapolis, Ind., for her question:
Who discovered the principle of gravity?
Galileo, the greatest of all astronomers, died in 1642. His most astounding work was done around 1610, so the world had some 30 yours more of his lifetime to open its eyes to his findings. People became accustomed to the idea that our little globe was not the center of the Universe. For Galileo had proved that our earth is but a planet in a Solar System among a vast heaven of stars.
In the year that Galileo died Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe, England. He was born a scientist and destined to develop his mind in a scholarly climate of new and vivid ideas. It was he who took the torch from Galileo and. used it to reveal the very laws by which the heavenly bodies mono in their orderly parades.
Between them, these two men who never met, one an Italian and one an Englishman freed men’s minds from the old idea that the entire Universe circles around this planet.
Young Isaac's family were farm people and his father died before he was born. His widowed mother was poor and, the young scientist, naturally enough, was a dreamer, not too interested in farming. Ho was, however clover with his hands and made windmills water clocks and sundials. He also invented and made a self‑propelled carriage and made doll furniture for his small girl friends.
His mother remarried and there were three more children. Newton's parents sent their clever son to Cambridge University, Here he became absorbed in the great love of his life ‑ the study of mathematics. His college work was cut short by the Great Plague when students wore sent home for their protection. This, however, did not stop him from pursuing his studies.
For some 18 months he lived and worked and studied and dreamed in the little village of Woolsthorpea. He worked out a new theory of light, the differential calculus and the laws of gravitation. In a year and a half, he accomplished this greatest bulk of scientific work. Newton was only 25 years old when he formulated his great ideas, but his book setting them forth did not appear until 1687, when he was 45,
Newton's theory of light has been improved upon and the German Leipnitz claimed to have discovered the differential calculus also. But so far no one has challenged the laws of gravitation as set forth by Isaac Newton. Now, 300 years later, we are using these laws to get to the moon, the planets and, perhaps, venture forth across space.
The great man had a very small opinion about his own achievements. He felt that he had not touched the vast ocean of scientific truth around him. He said, perhaps thinking of the great Galileo, "If I have seen further than most men, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,"