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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Happy Newtonmas

Happy Newtonmas

by Tom Levenson|  December 25, 20151:23 pm| 51 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Let us raise a toast to a fatherless child, born on this day (sort of — given that Julian-Gregorian kerfluffle) who would one day bring a new revelation into the world.

Isaac Newton Kneller portrait 1689

Happy birthday, my man Izzy!

Top of the day to everyone here, in every mode of celebration.

Image: Sir Godfrey Kneller, Isaac Newton, 1689. (This one is likely a copy)

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Previous Post: « A Christmas Repast
Next Post: Open Thread: Shine A Brave Light, However Small & Wavering »

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    HinTN

    December 25, 2015 at 1:30 pm

    High in my Pantheon of “most influential people evah!”

    ETA: Wow, first time able to edit in mobile. Well done, Alain.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    December 25, 2015 at 1:37 pm

    F=ma motherfuckers.

  3. 3.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 25, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    @Baud: F and a are vectors so your equation is not quite right.
    Also its the resultant force.
    -Nitpicky physics nerd.

  4. 4.

    Mike E

    December 25, 2015 at 1:52 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: E = MC escher

  5. 5.

    Luthe

    December 25, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: May the resultant Force be with you!

  6. 6.

    Baud

    December 25, 2015 at 1:54 pm

    F=ma motherfuckers.

  7. 7.

    henqiguai

    December 25, 2015 at 1:56 pm

    @Luthe (#5):

    May the resultant Force be with you!

    Well, depends upon the direction of the velocity vector, doesn’t it?

  8. 8.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 25, 2015 at 1:56 pm

    @Baud: Better, now add a sigma before the F to signify the sum of all the forces acting on a body.

  9. 9.

    henqiguai

    December 25, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    @Baud (#6):

    F=ma motherfuckers.

    More like F=mdv/dt.

  10. 10.

    Germy

    December 25, 2015 at 2:03 pm

    Harpo Marx played Newton in The Story Of Mankind

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    December 25, 2015 at 2:05 pm

    FOX News will tell you that the Law of Gravity is a lie, and trot out several experts to back that up.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    December 25, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    Σ F=mdv/dt motherfuckers.

  13. 13.

    Mike E

    December 25, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    @Germy: His take on gravity sucked.

  14. 14.

    Germy

    December 25, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    @Mike in NC: They’ll say it’s only a theory.

  15. 15.

    Lamh36

    December 25, 2015 at 2:24 pm

    Just in case you thought she was done…say hello to our little Christmas elf…Zoe.

    And yes, she’s already tired of pictures…lol

  16. 16.

    Felonius Monk

    December 25, 2015 at 2:36 pm

    Fans of Mr. Leibniz might take issue with some of this unfettered homage to Mr. Newton.

  17. 17.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 25, 2015 at 2:38 pm

    @Felonius Monk: For calculus yes for mechanics no, that was all Newton with some assist from Galileo.

  18. 18.

    Felonius Monk

    December 25, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: For the most part true, but not entirely. Mr. Lanczos lays it out in the first couple paragraphs of the Introduction in his The Variational Principles of Mechanics.

  19. 19.

    oldgold

    December 25, 2015 at 2:51 pm

    Unfettered homage? Hell, after my freshman year in college, I always held the development of calculus against him!

  20. 20.

    gogol's wife

    December 25, 2015 at 2:52 pm

    Ooh, he was cute. He looked like Benedict Cumberbatch.

  21. 21.

    Bobby Thomson

    December 25, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    @Felonius Monk: Are you saying Newton’s calculus was derivative?

  22. 22.

    Felonius Monk

    December 25, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    @oldgold: @Bobby Thomson: I think Newton just integrated a bunch of ideas into a system that would cause college freshman to drink more beer.

  23. 23.

    John Revolta

    December 25, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    Wait- Roger Daltry is a scientist?

  24. 24.

    Redshift

    December 25, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    @gogol’s wife: Perhaps he can star in the film version of Tom’s book!

  25. 25.

    ? Martin

    December 25, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    He looked like Benadryl Pumpkinpatch.

    Get it right…

  26. 26.

    Baud

    December 25, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Are you saying Newton’s calculus was derivative?

    Partially.

  27. 27.

    ruemara

    December 25, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    Happy X-Wingmas! I got a little Star Wars in my Christmas. I’m playing WoW and getting ready to make some garlic cheese knots.
    I got a serenade for Christmas. This guy is kinda ruining my stance on avoiding humanity until I die or evolve to pure energy.

  28. 28.

    Mike J

    December 25, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    Dear front pagers: if putting five youtube clips in one post, please put all but one under the fold. Right now there are ten clips on the front page from two posts, and it makes page loading slooooow until I forbid youtube from running javascript.

    Looks like youtube changed something and screwed up click to play. Instead of the nice, pleasant, grey boxes that load instantly, there are pictures. Also, there are too many states. Please remove three.

  29. 29.

    Oatler.

    December 25, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    This calendar biz gets a lot of play in Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon book, where the “eleven missing days” are remembered fondly and stirs up fistfights.

  30. 30.

    Dork

    December 25, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    As a scientist, Newton was a tour de force.

    Also, unless Newton was a frog or Jesus or a Jesus frog, he wasnt fatherless. Perhaps his dad didnt live with him, but Im pretty sure he had a father.

  31. 31.

    delk

    December 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    It’s Joe Perry

  32. 32.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 25, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    @Dork: His parents died when he was a child and his grandmother brought him up.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    December 25, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    Holiday greetings from I-95 south! Hope everyone is enjoying the day.

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    December 25, 2015 at 3:33 pm

    @Lamh36:

    She’s the cutest!

    @ruemara:

    You deserve all the happy things.

  35. 35.

    The Golux

    December 25, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @oldgold:

    …after my freshman year in college, I always held the development of calculus against him!

    I thoroughly dug freshman calculus.

    Partial differential equations, however…way too much hand-waving for me.

  36. 36.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 25, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    @Baud: They told me there wouldn’t be any math.

  37. 37.

    Felonius Monk

    December 25, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    @The Golux:

    …way too much hand-waving for me.

    But you only get to wave your hands after the variables are separated!

  38. 38.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    December 25, 2015 at 3:56 pm

    @Lamh36: She’s such a doll. And bearing all the picture tomfoolery gracefully. Though she’s so precocious you should expect eyerolls next Xmas.

  39. 39.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 25, 2015 at 3:59 pm

    @Dork: His father died a couple of months before he was born. So technically….

  40. 40.

    Origuy

    December 25, 2015 at 4:05 pm

    Security warning: If you have a Steam account, disconnect PayPal and your credit cards from your account if you can. There is a problem where people are getting access to the wrong account. They haven’t shut it down yet. Twitter is going crazy about it.

  41. 41.

    The Marginal Prophet

    December 25, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    Newton, schmewton. Gravity is just a theory. I believe in Intelligent Falling.

  42. 42.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 25, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Mike in NC: And Glenn Beck will pitch his super new Terrestrial Attachment Device that for only $49.95 (plus S & H) will securely fasten you to the ground for those Obummer-instigated intervals when the gravity fails…

  43. 43.

    Anoniminous

    December 25, 2015 at 4:56 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    They lied.

  44. 44.

    ruemara

    December 25, 2015 at 6:23 pm

    @MomSense: I am embarrassingly tickled.

  45. 45.

    Felonius Monk

    December 25, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    I believe Newtonmas is a town about 7 or 8 miles west of downtown Boston. Seems like an MITer ought to know this.

  46. 46.

    tybee

    December 25, 2015 at 7:34 pm

    @MomSense:

    how far south on I-95?

  47. 47.

    Jim

    December 25, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    Here’s Wordsworth on Newton (from The Prelude)
    And from my pillow, looking forth by light
    Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold
    The antechapel where the statue stood
    Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
    The marble index of a mind for ever
    Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

  48. 48.

    SW

    December 26, 2015 at 10:05 am

    I too have a soft spot for alchemists.

  49. 49.

    Cermet

    December 26, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    Visited his home in England and is that an extremely well done and top-notch place to see! The house is very properly done (so I’d think it was the way Newton had it), and the displays are well worth seeing (including a first copy of his Physics book in english is worth the visit alone; but they have a very english cafe with fantastic light food/drinks (and very inexpensive …can’t figure that out.) Very knowledgeable people and the physic displays are both fun and really well done (and not silly nor improper (childish) but will even entertain a child (or child within) while demonstrating deep physics.The facilities are modern (a very nice modern bathroom in a barn(!)) so no roughing it at all.
    The location is not well marked – the signs are few and small so have a map before going! More than enough parking and can see (maybe) the apple tree (grown from a transplant) that he sat under (of course, they point out it likely isn’t really the tree but could be … .)
    Just too nice to be overlooked!

  50. 50.

    Zinsky

    December 26, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    @Felonius Monk: Rock on!

  51. 51.

    Zinsky

    December 26, 2015 at 5:36 pm

    @Cermet: Can you clog the stool?

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