Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 17
Isaac Newton as a young man, dressed in the robes of a bachelor of arts, as he
appeared at the height of his scientific creativity
People
Jean Richer (1630-1696)
Little is known of Richer's life except for his published work. What is known is that he
became a member of the Academy in 1666 and carried out various tasks for the Academy
in France, Canada and Cayenne. He observed the opposition of Mars in 1672 and estab-
lished its parallax or distance, which determined the most accurately known value of the
scale of the solar system (the astronomical unit) of the time. When he returned to Paris he
transferred to work on military engineering problems, such as the design of fortifications
- it is not known what provoked this change of activities.
Newton gave an explanation for his results based on his theory of gravity and his
laws of motion. He did so with a powerful intuition that others did not find easy to
follow (Greenberg 1995). Johann Bernouilli, the third most able mathematician of
the time (after Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz), confessed: “I tried to understand it.
I read and reread what he had to say concerning the subject, but … I could not
understand a thing. I do not know whether the fault lies with my impatience, resulting
from my reaction to references to things back in Book I or whether I do not under-
