all about NEWTON
I INTRODUCTION Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.
As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.
As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.
Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
II OPTICS In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.
The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.
III MATHEMATICS In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.
Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707.
The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.
In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.
IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.
Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.
Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles.
Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.
Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.
Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity.
V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created. Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.
VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"—explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principia—reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.
VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature.
VIII PUBLICATIONS Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733).I INTRODUCTION Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.
As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.
As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.
Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
II OPTICS In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.
The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.
III MATHEMATICS In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.
Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707.
The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.
In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.
IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.
Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.
Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles.
Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.
Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.
Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity.
V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created. Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.
VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"—explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principia—reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.
VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature.
VIII PUBLICATIONS Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733).
As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.
As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.
Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
II OPTICS In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.
The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.
III MATHEMATICS In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.
Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707.
The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.
In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.
IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.
Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.
Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles.
Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.
Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.
Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity.
V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created. Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.
VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"—explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principia—reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.
VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature.
VIII PUBLICATIONS Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733).I INTRODUCTION Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.
As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.
As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.
Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
II OPTICS In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.
The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.
III MATHEMATICS In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.
Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707.
The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.
In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.
IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.
Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.
Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles.
Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.
Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.
Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity.
V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created. Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.
VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"—explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principia—reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.
VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature.
VIII PUBLICATIONS Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733).
ITS ALL ABOUT THE GREATEST SCIENTIST ..ALBERT EINSTEIN
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich and he began his schooling there at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War? (1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.
SYDNEY AT A GLANCE
Sydney at a Glance
The City of Sydney Local Government Area (LGA) covers approximately 26.15 square kilometres. This includes the former City of Sydney comprising the Central Business District (CBD), the Rocks, Millers Point, Ultimo, Pyrmont, Surry Hills, Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Darlinghurst, Chippendale, Darlington, Camperdown, Forest Lodge and Glebe.
The other part of the merged entity is the former City of South Sydney comprising the suburbs of Alexandria, Beaconsfield, Centennial Park, Erskineville, Newtown, Redfern, Rosebery, Waterloo, Zetland, and the remainder of Surry Hills.
Within the boundaries of the City of Sydney, waterways and some public areas are under the executive control of various State Government agencies. These include the Sydney Harbour Foreshores Authority, the Department of Transport, Sydney Ports Corporation, the Centennial and Moore Park Trust and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
Other State Government agencies also have environmental responsibilities in the Sydney LGA. The Commonwealth Department of Defence has administrative control over Garden Island.
The amalgamated area – with the attendant residents, business activities and attractions – has enhanced the diversity of the City of Sydney whilst at the same time maintaining its community of interest.
In the data that follows, every attempt has been made to adjust the data to reflect the amalgamated area based on currently available information. Where the data only refers to part of the LGA that distinction is explicitly made.
The Physical Environment and Climate
The City of Sydney is located at 33 degrees 52 minutes South and 151 degrees 12 minutes East. Sydney Harbour forms approximately a quarter of the City’s boundaries.
Sydney annual average of sunshine is almost seven hours a day. Its temperature ranges from a moderate average winter minimum of 9 and a maximum of 16 degrees Celsius to a peak summer maximum of 26 degrees Celsius.
Sydney’s rainfall totals 1183 mm a year. More than one third of this falls between March and May. The number of wet days each month averages twelve.
The City in a National Context
Based on industry-mix and relative occupational wage levels, it is estimated that Economic Activity (GDP) generated in the City of Sydney in 2003-2004 was approximately $63 billion.
This represents over 8% (nearly one-twelfth) of the total national Australian economy, over 30% of the Sydney metropolitan area and almost one-quarter of the GDP of the entire state of NSW. Put into perspective, this is larger than the economies of South Australia and Tasmania combined.
Most importantly, the majority of this economic activity is in those industries which are dominant in the global economy – Business and Financial Services and Telecommunications.
The City is also Australia’s iconic face to the world- its international visitor flag-bearer. Over half of all international visitors come to Sydney and two-thirds of international business visitors.
According to the International Visitor Survey, seven of the top ten most popular attractions in Australia are in the City of Sydney LGA, headed by Sydney Shopping and the Opera House.
The consequence is that the City is the prime driver of the Australian economy. In the past decade, the economy of the City grew at a rate which averaged over 1% more than the Australian average.
The City in a Metropolitan Context
In the period 1996-2001, the City of Sydney absorbed a massive 28% of the entire Sydney metropolitan employment growth. This rate of employment growth in the City was double its current share of Sydney employment (14%).This employment growth supported and encouraged an exceptional renaissance in inner-city living.
Since 1996, the resident population of the City of Sydney has increased by just under 50,000 people, over 40 %, and by more than 20,000 since the last Population census in 2001.
At June 2004, the ABS estimated the resident population at 146,297. By December 2004, it had just ticked over 150,000, based on dwelling completions.
This rapid growth is expected to continue into the immediate future with the resident population set to increase to 180,000 by 2009, a further increase of 30,000 or almost 20% higher than the June 2004 estimate.
The Built Form of the City
Given its location as the economic and cultural heart of the Sydney metropolitan area, the City of Sydney is highly and densely urbanised. Its land is intensively used for a variety of purposes including residential and commercial use as well as tourist and cultural attractions and parks and open space. Indeed, it is home to the highest commercial and residential densities in Australia. This intensity of land-use very much determines its built form.
Given its density, most floor space in the City of Sydney is used for commercial purposes, devoted to financial, retail, tourism, entertainment and other business services. It is estimated that there are over 20,800 business establishments in the total LGA.
There are over 15 million square metres of built form within the CBD of the City. Over 5.3 million square metres of internal floor area is devoted to office uses. This is the largest CBD office market in Australia and well within the top 20 world-wide.
A Community of Diversity
The City of Sydney has a diverse ethnic mix with half of its residents born overseas. Almost 30% of the resident population speaks a language other than English. Apart from English, the most common languages spoken at home are Chinese, Indonesian, Greek and Russian. The City is home to one of Sydney’s largest communities of Aboriginal peoples.
Almost half of city residents are aged between 20 and 40. Conversely, there are fewer teenagers, children and older people residing in the City of Sydney than in the Sydney metropolitan area.
The influx of young residents into the City of Sydney is reflected in the growing number of single people living here. More than half of City residents aged 15 and over have never married, compared with one-third in the Sydney Metropolitan area.
Just less than a quarter of city residents live alone in one-person households. The majority (60%) of city residents live in family households with a partner and/or children or other relatives. Group households accommodate just under one-in-five.
Over a quarter of City residents are currently attending an educational institution, including just under one in five of those aged 15 and over undertaking a post-school course. There are 18,736 residents attending either a TAFE or University with nearly 9,000 on a full-time basis.
On average, individual residents in the City earn more than their counterparts in the Sydney Metropolitan Area ($577 per week median compared to $445). Over a quarter of residents aged 15 or more have a weekly income of over $1000 a week. Conversely, over 20% receive less than $200 per week.
One-third of the City resident households either own or are paying off their dwelling. Of the remaining two-thirds who rent, the vast majority rent from the private sector. These represent just on half (49%) of all resident households. However, a significant further 14% are public and community housing tenants.
Less than 60% of households in the City of Sydney own a car, compared to more than 85% for the Sydney metropolitan area. The average number of cars per household is only 0.7 compared to 1.4 for the Sydney metropolitan area.
Almost a quarter of City of Sydney residents walk to work (24%), compared to only 4.3% for the Sydney metropolitan area. Only marginally more (28%) drive a car to work. This is less than the proportion that use public transport (32%).
Workforce of the City of Sydney
It is estimated that employment for the current City of Sydney LGA totalled approximately 345,000. This represents an increase of more than 12% since 1996.
With the prospective improvement in the global economy and the translation of this into white-collar job growth in the latter part of 2004, together with continued strong growth in the domestic economy, is expected to see a continuation of the “recovery” in the levels of the City of Sydney workforce, recently evident.
One-third (33%) of the City’s workforce is in a Professional occupation with a further 27% employed either as Managers or Associate Professionals. The proportion of these skilled workers has increased significantly in the last decade.
Just under 40% of the City workforce was born overseas, with one-third of overseas born workers coming from Asia. A further 18% and 9% were born in UK and New Zealand respectively.
The median average income of the City Workforce is $860 per week, or an annual income of $44,850. One-fifth of the workforce has an income of more than $1,500 per week and a further fifth receives between $1,000 and $1,500.
Visitors to the City of Sydney
In the year to Dec 2004, 2.4 million international visitors came to the Sydney Metropolitan area. This represented more than half of all international visitors to Australia. Accommodation establishments in the City of Sydney LGA provide almost three-fifths of all rooms in the Sydney metropolitan Tourism Region.
In calendar year 2004, annual room nights occupied in the City of Sydney totalled an estimated annual 5.3 million. This room night demand was represented an increase of over 200,000 or 4.1% over 2003. Industry experts forecast demand to expand by an annual average of 4.4% over the next seven years.
In addition, to these overnight visitors in hotels and service apartments, it is estimated that a further 400,000 people travel to the City on any day to shop, be educated, conduct business with firms in the City or simply to be entertained. This is additional to the 350,000 daily workforce in the City.
The City of Sydney Local Government Area (LGA) covers approximately 26.15 square kilometres. This includes the former City of Sydney comprising the Central Business District (CBD), the Rocks, Millers Point, Ultimo, Pyrmont, Surry Hills, Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Darlinghurst, Chippendale, Darlington, Camperdown, Forest Lodge and Glebe.
The other part of the merged entity is the former City of South Sydney comprising the suburbs of Alexandria, Beaconsfield, Centennial Park, Erskineville, Newtown, Redfern, Rosebery, Waterloo, Zetland, and the remainder of Surry Hills.
Within the boundaries of the City of Sydney, waterways and some public areas are under the executive control of various State Government agencies. These include the Sydney Harbour Foreshores Authority, the Department of Transport, Sydney Ports Corporation, the Centennial and Moore Park Trust and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
Other State Government agencies also have environmental responsibilities in the Sydney LGA. The Commonwealth Department of Defence has administrative control over Garden Island.
The amalgamated area – with the attendant residents, business activities and attractions – has enhanced the diversity of the City of Sydney whilst at the same time maintaining its community of interest.
In the data that follows, every attempt has been made to adjust the data to reflect the amalgamated area based on currently available information. Where the data only refers to part of the LGA that distinction is explicitly made.
The Physical Environment and Climate
The City of Sydney is located at 33 degrees 52 minutes South and 151 degrees 12 minutes East. Sydney Harbour forms approximately a quarter of the City’s boundaries.
Sydney annual average of sunshine is almost seven hours a day. Its temperature ranges from a moderate average winter minimum of 9 and a maximum of 16 degrees Celsius to a peak summer maximum of 26 degrees Celsius.
Sydney’s rainfall totals 1183 mm a year. More than one third of this falls between March and May. The number of wet days each month averages twelve.
The City in a National Context
Based on industry-mix and relative occupational wage levels, it is estimated that Economic Activity (GDP) generated in the City of Sydney in 2003-2004 was approximately $63 billion.
This represents over 8% (nearly one-twelfth) of the total national Australian economy, over 30% of the Sydney metropolitan area and almost one-quarter of the GDP of the entire state of NSW. Put into perspective, this is larger than the economies of South Australia and Tasmania combined.
Most importantly, the majority of this economic activity is in those industries which are dominant in the global economy – Business and Financial Services and Telecommunications.
The City is also Australia’s iconic face to the world- its international visitor flag-bearer. Over half of all international visitors come to Sydney and two-thirds of international business visitors.
According to the International Visitor Survey, seven of the top ten most popular attractions in Australia are in the City of Sydney LGA, headed by Sydney Shopping and the Opera House.
The consequence is that the City is the prime driver of the Australian economy. In the past decade, the economy of the City grew at a rate which averaged over 1% more than the Australian average.
The City in a Metropolitan Context
In the period 1996-2001, the City of Sydney absorbed a massive 28% of the entire Sydney metropolitan employment growth. This rate of employment growth in the City was double its current share of Sydney employment (14%).This employment growth supported and encouraged an exceptional renaissance in inner-city living.
Since 1996, the resident population of the City of Sydney has increased by just under 50,000 people, over 40 %, and by more than 20,000 since the last Population census in 2001.
At June 2004, the ABS estimated the resident population at 146,297. By December 2004, it had just ticked over 150,000, based on dwelling completions.
This rapid growth is expected to continue into the immediate future with the resident population set to increase to 180,000 by 2009, a further increase of 30,000 or almost 20% higher than the June 2004 estimate.
The Built Form of the City
Given its location as the economic and cultural heart of the Sydney metropolitan area, the City of Sydney is highly and densely urbanised. Its land is intensively used for a variety of purposes including residential and commercial use as well as tourist and cultural attractions and parks and open space. Indeed, it is home to the highest commercial and residential densities in Australia. This intensity of land-use very much determines its built form.
Given its density, most floor space in the City of Sydney is used for commercial purposes, devoted to financial, retail, tourism, entertainment and other business services. It is estimated that there are over 20,800 business establishments in the total LGA.
There are over 15 million square metres of built form within the CBD of the City. Over 5.3 million square metres of internal floor area is devoted to office uses. This is the largest CBD office market in Australia and well within the top 20 world-wide.
A Community of Diversity
The City of Sydney has a diverse ethnic mix with half of its residents born overseas. Almost 30% of the resident population speaks a language other than English. Apart from English, the most common languages spoken at home are Chinese, Indonesian, Greek and Russian. The City is home to one of Sydney’s largest communities of Aboriginal peoples.
Almost half of city residents are aged between 20 and 40. Conversely, there are fewer teenagers, children and older people residing in the City of Sydney than in the Sydney metropolitan area.
The influx of young residents into the City of Sydney is reflected in the growing number of single people living here. More than half of City residents aged 15 and over have never married, compared with one-third in the Sydney Metropolitan area.
Just less than a quarter of city residents live alone in one-person households. The majority (60%) of city residents live in family households with a partner and/or children or other relatives. Group households accommodate just under one-in-five.
Over a quarter of City residents are currently attending an educational institution, including just under one in five of those aged 15 and over undertaking a post-school course. There are 18,736 residents attending either a TAFE or University with nearly 9,000 on a full-time basis.
On average, individual residents in the City earn more than their counterparts in the Sydney Metropolitan Area ($577 per week median compared to $445). Over a quarter of residents aged 15 or more have a weekly income of over $1000 a week. Conversely, over 20% receive less than $200 per week.
One-third of the City resident households either own or are paying off their dwelling. Of the remaining two-thirds who rent, the vast majority rent from the private sector. These represent just on half (49%) of all resident households. However, a significant further 14% are public and community housing tenants.
Less than 60% of households in the City of Sydney own a car, compared to more than 85% for the Sydney metropolitan area. The average number of cars per household is only 0.7 compared to 1.4 for the Sydney metropolitan area.
Almost a quarter of City of Sydney residents walk to work (24%), compared to only 4.3% for the Sydney metropolitan area. Only marginally more (28%) drive a car to work. This is less than the proportion that use public transport (32%).
Workforce of the City of Sydney
It is estimated that employment for the current City of Sydney LGA totalled approximately 345,000. This represents an increase of more than 12% since 1996.
With the prospective improvement in the global economy and the translation of this into white-collar job growth in the latter part of 2004, together with continued strong growth in the domestic economy, is expected to see a continuation of the “recovery” in the levels of the City of Sydney workforce, recently evident.
One-third (33%) of the City’s workforce is in a Professional occupation with a further 27% employed either as Managers or Associate Professionals. The proportion of these skilled workers has increased significantly in the last decade.
Just under 40% of the City workforce was born overseas, with one-third of overseas born workers coming from Asia. A further 18% and 9% were born in UK and New Zealand respectively.
The median average income of the City Workforce is $860 per week, or an annual income of $44,850. One-fifth of the workforce has an income of more than $1,500 per week and a further fifth receives between $1,000 and $1,500.
Visitors to the City of Sydney
In the year to Dec 2004, 2.4 million international visitors came to the Sydney Metropolitan area. This represented more than half of all international visitors to Australia. Accommodation establishments in the City of Sydney LGA provide almost three-fifths of all rooms in the Sydney metropolitan Tourism Region.
In calendar year 2004, annual room nights occupied in the City of Sydney totalled an estimated annual 5.3 million. This room night demand was represented an increase of over 200,000 or 4.1% over 2003. Industry experts forecast demand to expand by an annual average of 4.4% over the next seven years.
In addition, to these overnight visitors in hotels and service apartments, it is estimated that a further 400,000 people travel to the City on any day to shop, be educated, conduct business with firms in the City or simply to be entertained. This is additional to the 350,000 daily workforce in the City.
HIS CONTRIBUTIONS....AND ALL ABOUT HIM....
Gregor Mendel's experiments with hybridization of pea plants were conducted in the garden at the Augustinian Monastery in Br?nn. He reported on these experiments in two lectures which were read before the Natural Sciences Society of Br?nn on February 8th and March 8th, 1865. The manuscript was published in the Society's Proceeding in 1866. An English translation, "Experiments in Plant Hybridisation", was first published in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, London, 26, 1901
WHO WAS GREGOR MENDEL?
Gregor Johann MENDEL was an Austrian monk and biologist whose work on heredity became the basis of the modern theory of genetics.
Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 in Heizendorf, Austria, (now known as Hyncice in Czechoslovakia). He was born Johann Mendel into a poor farming family. At that time it was difficult for poor families to obtain a good education and the young Mendel saw the only way to escape a life of poverty was to enter the monastery at Brunn in Moravis, (now Brno in Czechoslovakia). Here he was given the name Gregor. This monastery was the Augustinian Order of St Thomas, a teaching order with a reputation as a centre of learning and scientific enquiry.
MENDEL THE FAILURE
To enable him to further his education, the abbot arranged for Mendel to attend the University of Vienna to get a teaching diploma. However, Mendel did not perform well. He was nervous and the University did not consider him a clever student. Mendel's examiner failed him with the comments, " he lacks insight and the requisite clarity of knowledge". This must have been devastating to the young Mendel. who in 1853 had to return to the monastery as a failure. As this was a teaching order, Mendel had to decide whether to stay on at the monastery as a failed teacher - or return to what?
WHAT TO DO NEXT?
While studying in Vienna, Mendel had been impressed by the work of a biologist called Frank Unger whose practical view of inheritance, free from spiritual influences, seemed to reflect his own farming background. This gave Mendel the idea to stay on at the monastery and use his time to carry out practical experiments in biology. He must have had to approach the abbot very carefully to ask to be allowed to do this, as the bishop refused to allow the monks to even teach biology.
After about two years Mendel began his investigation into variation, heredity and evolution in plants. He chose to study in detail the common garden pea, Pisum, which he grew in the monastery garden.
Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel patiently cultivated and tested at least 28 000 pea plants, carefully analysing seven pairs of seeds for comparison, such as shape of seed, colour of seed, tall stemmed and short stemmed and tall plants and short plants. Mendel worked on this for several years, carefully self-pollinating and wrapping each individual plant to prevent accidental pollination by insects. He collected the seeds produced by the plants and studied the offspring of these seeds observing that some plants bred true and others not. Mendel discovered that by crossing tall and short parent plants he got hybrid offspring that resembled the tall parent rather than being a medium height blend. He explained this conceived the concept of heredity units, now called genes. These often expressed dominant or recessive characteristics. He then worked out the pattern of inheritance of various traits and produced two generalisations that became known as the laws of heredity. Mendel's observations led him to coin two terms which are still used in present-day genetics:
* dominance for a trait that shows up in an offspring
* recessiveness for a trait masked by a dominant gene.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
In 1866 Mendel published his work on heredity in the Journal of the Brno Natural History Society. It had absolutely no impact. The complex and detailed work he had produced was not understood even by influential people in his field such as Karl Nageli. If Mendel had been a professional scientist he might have been able to project his work more extensively and perhaps publish his work abroad. He did make some attempt to contact scientists abroad by sending them reprints of his work but this was a uphill struggle for an unknown author writing in an unknown journal.
1868 two years after Mendel had produced his paper he was elected abbot of the monastery and his work lay unrecognised for about 34 years.
For much of the remainder of his life, Mendel devoted himself to the duties of the monastery. He did continue with some breeding experiments, this time with bees. A natural progression, as he had always wanted to transfer his experiments from plants to animals. Mendel successfully produced a hybrid strain of bees which produced excellent honey, however, they were so vicious they stung everybody around for miles and had to be destroyed. Some of Mendel's later experiments with the hawkweed Hieracium were inconclusive and the pressures of running the monastery took over so he ended his experiments by the 1870's.
During his time as abbot Mendel seems to have been more concerned with the financial running of the monastery rather than the religious side. It is suggested Mendel was seen as unreliable by the Emperor's Secret Police. It is likely the bishop and many in the monastery did not like what Mendel was doing, particularly his interest and enthusiasm for the work of such contemporaries as Charles Darwin.
When Mendel died in 1884 aged 62, the Czech composer Leos Janacek played the organ at his funeral.
The new abbot of the monastery burned all Mendel's papers.
MENDEL RE-DISCOVERED
In 1900 Mendel's work was at last recognised by three independent investigators. One of these being the Dutch botanist, Hugo De Vries. But it was still not until the early 1920s and early 1930s that the full significance of his work was recognised particularly in relation to evolutionary theory. As a result of years of research in population genetics, investigators were able to demonstrate that the Darwinian theory of evolution could be described in terms of the change in gene frequency of Mendelian pairs of characteristics in a population over successive generations.
WHO WAS GREGOR MENDEL?
Gregor Johann MENDEL was an Austrian monk and biologist whose work on heredity became the basis of the modern theory of genetics.
Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 in Heizendorf, Austria, (now known as Hyncice in Czechoslovakia). He was born Johann Mendel into a poor farming family. At that time it was difficult for poor families to obtain a good education and the young Mendel saw the only way to escape a life of poverty was to enter the monastery at Brunn in Moravis, (now Brno in Czechoslovakia). Here he was given the name Gregor. This monastery was the Augustinian Order of St Thomas, a teaching order with a reputation as a centre of learning and scientific enquiry.
MENDEL THE FAILURE
To enable him to further his education, the abbot arranged for Mendel to attend the University of Vienna to get a teaching diploma. However, Mendel did not perform well. He was nervous and the University did not consider him a clever student. Mendel's examiner failed him with the comments, " he lacks insight and the requisite clarity of knowledge". This must have been devastating to the young Mendel. who in 1853 had to return to the monastery as a failure. As this was a teaching order, Mendel had to decide whether to stay on at the monastery as a failed teacher - or return to what?
WHAT TO DO NEXT?
While studying in Vienna, Mendel had been impressed by the work of a biologist called Frank Unger whose practical view of inheritance, free from spiritual influences, seemed to reflect his own farming background. This gave Mendel the idea to stay on at the monastery and use his time to carry out practical experiments in biology. He must have had to approach the abbot very carefully to ask to be allowed to do this, as the bishop refused to allow the monks to even teach biology.
After about two years Mendel began his investigation into variation, heredity and evolution in plants. He chose to study in detail the common garden pea, Pisum, which he grew in the monastery garden.
Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel patiently cultivated and tested at least 28 000 pea plants, carefully analysing seven pairs of seeds for comparison, such as shape of seed, colour of seed, tall stemmed and short stemmed and tall plants and short plants. Mendel worked on this for several years, carefully self-pollinating and wrapping each individual plant to prevent accidental pollination by insects. He collected the seeds produced by the plants and studied the offspring of these seeds observing that some plants bred true and others not. Mendel discovered that by crossing tall and short parent plants he got hybrid offspring that resembled the tall parent rather than being a medium height blend. He explained this conceived the concept of heredity units, now called genes. These often expressed dominant or recessive characteristics. He then worked out the pattern of inheritance of various traits and produced two generalisations that became known as the laws of heredity. Mendel's observations led him to coin two terms which are still used in present-day genetics:
* dominance for a trait that shows up in an offspring
* recessiveness for a trait masked by a dominant gene.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
In 1866 Mendel published his work on heredity in the Journal of the Brno Natural History Society. It had absolutely no impact. The complex and detailed work he had produced was not understood even by influential people in his field such as Karl Nageli. If Mendel had been a professional scientist he might have been able to project his work more extensively and perhaps publish his work abroad. He did make some attempt to contact scientists abroad by sending them reprints of his work but this was a uphill struggle for an unknown author writing in an unknown journal.
1868 two years after Mendel had produced his paper he was elected abbot of the monastery and his work lay unrecognised for about 34 years.
For much of the remainder of his life, Mendel devoted himself to the duties of the monastery. He did continue with some breeding experiments, this time with bees. A natural progression, as he had always wanted to transfer his experiments from plants to animals. Mendel successfully produced a hybrid strain of bees which produced excellent honey, however, they were so vicious they stung everybody around for miles and had to be destroyed. Some of Mendel's later experiments with the hawkweed Hieracium were inconclusive and the pressures of running the monastery took over so he ended his experiments by the 1870's.
During his time as abbot Mendel seems to have been more concerned with the financial running of the monastery rather than the religious side. It is suggested Mendel was seen as unreliable by the Emperor's Secret Police. It is likely the bishop and many in the monastery did not like what Mendel was doing, particularly his interest and enthusiasm for the work of such contemporaries as Charles Darwin.
When Mendel died in 1884 aged 62, the Czech composer Leos Janacek played the organ at his funeral.
The new abbot of the monastery burned all Mendel's papers.
MENDEL RE-DISCOVERED
In 1900 Mendel's work was at last recognised by three independent investigators. One of these being the Dutch botanist, Hugo De Vries. But it was still not until the early 1920s and early 1930s that the full significance of his work was recognised particularly in relation to evolutionary theory. As a result of years of research in population genetics, investigators were able to demonstrate that the Darwinian theory of evolution could be described in terms of the change in gene frequency of Mendelian pairs of characteristics in a population over successive generations.
