Why did Isaac Newton say he was able “to stand on the shoulders Essay

Why did Isaac Newton say he was able â€Å"to stand on the shoulders of giants† to construct his view of the universe - Essay Example d at Trinity College Cambridge where Aristotelian philosophy was the preferred mode of instruction, but Newton was more interested in the pioneering ideas of philosophers lying like Descartes, and the astronomers Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus. His landmark work ‘Principia† is a compendium on physics and contains the laws of motion that were to revolutionize physical theories. In this pursuit of mechanics, i.e. gravity and its effect on the orbits of planets, he was guided by the work of Kepler’s third law, and his law of attraction was an elaboration of Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens theory of centripetal acceleration of a body moving in a circle. He even consulted with his contemporaries like Edmund Halley on the problem of orbits suggesting an ellipse shape about which he wrote to the astronomer in â€Å"a curious treatise de motu.†(Westfall, Richard) Newton put the seal of justification on his concept of attraction, by acknowledging that the ancients had already known of the law of gravitation and for him, â€Å"they represented a deeper penetration into the prisca sapientia, possible only when the preliminary work has been accomplished through experience.† (J. E. McGuire and P. M. Rattansi, Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan’, pp. 137) Newton also gave an analytical account of the speed of sound in air which was based on Boyle’s law. Newtons three laws of motion represents a conscious diversion from Aristotles physics, and is more universal in nature, capable of being applied to the motion of a planet as to the fall of a stone. His theory of vortices moved away from that of Descartes’. (Ball 1908, p. 337) The reflecting telescope built by Newton was a further exposition of the ideas of Scottish mathematician James Gregory, who in 1663 had proposed the design. Before this Hans Lippershey, a German lens - maker who lived in the early 17th century had already applied for a patent for an optical retracting telescope, while Galileo was looking at the