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“A BOOK NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ” (1)

IN AUGUST 1684 A HANDSOME YOUNG ASTRONOMER NAMED EDMOND Halley boarded the London coach for Cambridge and sat back to ponder the events that had sent him on an important mission. Earlier in the year, he had entered into a lively conversation with Robert Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren, noted architect of the new St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Halley suggested that the force of attraction between the planets and the sun decreases in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them. If this were true, then each planet’s orbit should take the form of Kepler’s ellipse, a shape like a football, though somewhat more rounded.

Halley recalled that Hooke immediately “affirmed that upon that principle all the Laws of the celestial motions were to be demonstrated.” Wren, who was also deeply interested in the new science, claimed that he, too, had reached the same conclusion. The
problem, as all three admitted, was to find the mathematical means of proving it.

Anxious for a solution, Sir Christopher offered to give a valuable book to the friend who could deliver solid proof within the next two months. Hooke, to whom modesty was a stranger, claimed that he already possessed the required proof. However, he would keep it a secret for the time being so that his friends “might know how to value it, when he should make it public.”

The deadline came and went without a word from Hooke, and spring soon turned to summer. Finally, after seven months of silence, Halley decided to act. He cast an anxious eye in the direction of Cambridge and made a fateful decision. He would visit Trinity College to see if the secretive Isaac Newton could shed some light on the matter.

Newton was living an even more isolated existence than before. Some years earlier his mother, Hannah, had caught what was described as a “malignant fever,” a catchall term for any number of fatal illnesses. Newton hurried to Woolsthorpe and took charge of Hannah’s care, dressing her blisters and sitting up all night at her bedside. Unfortunately, she was beyond saving and died some days later. As her first child, Isaac inherited most of her property, making him an independently wealthy man.

Taken From : Isaac Newton