Page 68 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1369
newton, isaac
newton, isaac 1369

Inertial navigation was developed for civilian en route
aviation use in the 1970s, replacing celestial navigation. Neolithic
At present, GPS is also seeing civilian use and expecta-
tions are that it will be playing an ever increasing role in Revolution
future aviation.
See Agrarian Era; Agricultural Societies; Foraging (Pale-
Willem F. J. Morzer Bruyns
olithic) Era; Secondary-Products Revolution
See also Cartography; Henry the Navigator; Maritime
History

Newton, Isaac
Further Reading
(1642/43–1727)
Cotter, C. H. (1968). A history of nautical astronomy. London: Hollis &
English mathematician
Carter.
Cotter C. H. (1983). A history of the navigator’s sextant. Glasgow, UK: and physicist
Brown, Son & Ferguson.
Hayward,T. (2003). The history of air navigation:A time line: Navigation
News. London: Royal Institute of Navigation. saac Newton was the dominant figure in the scientific
Hewson, J. B. (1963). A history of the practice of navigation. Glasgow, Irevolution, a creative period of experiment, observa-
UK: Brown, Son & Ferguson. tion, and theory known as the scientific revolution.
Hitchings, H. L., & May,W. E. (1955). From lodestone to gyro-compass.
London: Hutchinson’s Scientific and Technical Publications. According to many historians, this revolution in scientific
Hourani, G. F. (1995). Arab seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and thought began when astronomers learned about the the-
early medieval times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Howse, D. (1997). Greenwich time and the longitude. London: Philip ory of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)—that the
Wilson. earth revolved around the sun—which he proposed in a
Jonkers, A. R.T. (2003). Earth’s magnetism in the age of sail. Baltimore: book published shortly after his death, and had trans-
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lewis, D. (1972). We, the navigators:The ancient art of landfinding in the formed western Europe’s understanding of the universe
Pacific. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University Press. by the time of Newton’s own death. Other than Charles
Mörzer Bruyns,W. F. J. (1994). The cross-staff: History and development
of a navigational instrument. Zutphen, Netherlands,Walburg Pers. Darwin (1809–1882) and Albert Einstein (1879–
Schnall, U. (1975). Navigation der wikinger: Nautische probleme der 1955), Newton remains the world’s most widely known
wikingerzeit im spiegel der schriftlichen quellen. Oldenburg, Ger- scientist, an icon of the scientific method for nonscien-
many: Gerhard Stalling Verlag.
Stimson, A. N. (1988). The mariner’s astrolabe: A survey of known, sur- tists who only vaguely know what he accomplished, for
viving sea astrolabes. Utrecht, Netherlands: Hes. instance, discovering the theory of universal gravitation
Taylor, E. G. R. (1958). The haven-finding art: A history of navigation
from Odysseus to Captain Cook. London: Hollis & Carter. and inventing calculus. Newton himself was dissatisfied
Waters, D. W. (1958). The art of navigation in England in Elizabethan with such achievements, as they explained only certain
and early Stuart times. London: Hollis & Carter. aspects of the universe. Much more ambitious, he
Williams, J. E. D. (1992). From sails to satellites: The origin and devel-
opment of navigational science. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. searched vainly for a single system that could explain
everything, a unified system of the universe. Nor was he
satisfied with learning how things happened; he wanted
to know why.
Clearly unfit for the life of a farmer, Newton was sent
Neolithic Era by his family from its Lincolnshire farm to Cambridge
University. He did not immediately impress his teachers
See Agrarian Era; Foraging (Paleolithic) Era; Human there. He spent the most creative period in his life back
Evolution—Overview; Paleoanthropology in Lincolnshire when he temporarily left the university