Sir Isaac Newton's Life Trivia Quiz

Answer: He was born at Woolsthorpe, near Colsterworth, Lincolnshire.

Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor, a modest two-story house of gray limestone, on Christmas Day, 1642. Woolsthrorpe was located near the village of Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, about seven miles south of Grantham. (The date of Newton's birth is that of the Julian calendar, as the Gregorian calendar was not adopted in England until 1672).

Answer: Farmer

Isaac Newton was born in September of 1606. He was a prosperous yeoman farmer who owned around one hundred acres of fields, woods, pasture, and orchards. Newton died in early October, 1642, only five months after his marriage to Hannah Asycough and three months before his son's birth on Dec. 25, 1642.

Answer: Smith legally adopted Isaac.

Whether Rev. Smith, the wealthy Rector of North Whitham, did not want the boy in his household, or if Newton's mother left him at Woolsthorpe, to hold the estate against claims of other Newton family members, is not known. In any case, when she moved into Smith's house in North Whitham, about a mile from Woolsthorpe, Hannah Newton Smith left her three-year old son behind in Woolsthorpe, with her mother, Margery Ayscough. Under the marriage agreement, Newton received land from Smith worth a yearly income of £50, when he turned twenty-one. Smith died when Isaac was eleven, and Hannah Newton Smith then moved back to Woolsthorpe, along with her three young children by Smith: Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah, in 1653.

Answer: Singing and playing a harp

Newton was always interested in how things worked. As a young boy at Woolsthorpe, Newton constructed sundials accurate within fifteen minutes. During the years he attended Kings Grammar School in Grantham, from the age of twelve until sixteen, he built working models of windmills and a four feet tall working water clock.

He also made the first paper kites seen around Grantham, which he enjoy setting on fire and flying at night, causing the local people to think they were comets. He also loved to draw and sketch.

Answer: False

Newton received one of the finest educations a man of his times could hope for. As a small boy, he attended dame schools near Woolsthorpe. When he was about ten, he boarded at Grantham, and attended Kings Grammar School learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and practical arithmetic.

When Newton was sixteen, Hannah Smith took him out of Kings School to manage the family farm. Newton proved so inept and disinterested in farming that his mother, at the urging of her brother, Rev. William Ayscough, allowed him to enter Trinity College, Cambridge, in June of 1661. Newton was created Bachelor of Arts in the spring of 1665 and Masters of Arts in July, 1668.

Answer: 27 years old

Isaac Barrow became Cambridge's first Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1664. The colleges of Cambridge closed during the plague months of 1665-1666, and Newton returned to Woolsthorpe, where he did much of his serious work on optics, light, and motion.

In 1667, when he returned to Trinity, he was elected as a Trinity Fellow. He helped edit Barrow's lectures on optics for publication in 1669, but he did not tell Barrow that his own experiments proved much of Barrow's findings obsolete. (Newton had not yet made his own work known). Barrow resigned in 1669, and he recommended Newton, then twenty-seven, as his replacement. On Oct. 29, 1669 Newton became Cambridge's second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

Answer: Hannah Newton Smith (his mother)

Exactly what Hannah Newton Smith died of is not known. It was a contagious disease with symptoms that included blisters and a high fever. She contracted the illness while tending to her son, Benjamin Smith, at Stamford. He recovered, but she became gravely ill. Newton hurried from Cambridge, and personally attended his mother until her death in late May or early June of 1679.

She was buried in Colsterworth, on June 4, 1679.

Answer: Edmund Halley

"Principa Mathematica" was Newton's great work and contained his three Laws of Motion. It is still considered to be the most influential book written in the field of physics. Edmund Halley presented Part I of Newton's "Principa Mathematica" (which consisted of Parts I, II, and III) to the Royal Society on April 28, 1668.

After presenting Part III on May 19, 1668, Halley received approval for it to be printed under the Royal Society's license. The Society was short on cash, so Halley was charged with arranging and paying for the costs of publication. "Principa Mathematica" was first published in July of 1687.

Answer: Sir Godfrey Kneller

Newton sat for several portraits. His first portrait was painted when Newton was forty-six by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1689. His last portrait was painted by John Vanderbank in 1725 when Newton was eighty-two.

Answer: Warden of the Mint

In the 1690's Charles Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, took on the monumental task of withdrawing all of England's old coins from circulation and coining new money. Newton left for London in 1696 to take the position of Warden of the Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1700.

He was diligent in his work and became a justice of the peace to prosecute counterfeiters. Newton continued his work at the Mint until his death in 1727.

Answer: Queen Anne

On April 16, 1705, Queen Anne and her court traveled from the royal residence in Newmarket, to Cambridge, where she conferred twenty-three doctorates and knighted three men, one of whom was Newton.

Answer: Never

Newton chose to live a life of celibacy, and he never married. Fellows at Trinity took an oath of celibacy, and it was frowned upon even for a Master to marry. Newton took this oath seriously and even after leaving Trinity, there is nothing written about him, or by him, linking him with any women.

Answer: 24 years

In the seventh year of Newton's Trinity fellowship, he was expected to be ordained into the Anglican church or resign his professorship. On Feb. 9, 1675, Newton went to London and petitioned King Charles II for a dispensation. While in London, Newton attended his first meeting of the Royal Society and was admitted as a member.

He became president of the Royal Society in 1703 and served until his death on Mar. 27, 1727. On April 27,1675, the king granted Newton's petition, and the Lucasian professorship was no longer tied to the taking of holy orders.

Answer: Sir Isaac Newton died a pauper.

Sir Isaac Newton died on Mar. 27, 1727 at age eighty-four of complications of a stone in his bladder. He was the first British scientist to be given a state funeral. His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey from March 28 until his burial in the nave on April 4, 1727. Newton died without a will, but at the time of his death, his estate was valued at £32,000.

The inventory included his library of over 2,000 books, gold and silver bars, furniture, wine, etc. Newton also left vast amounts of unpublished manuscripts, papers, and writings of nearly four million words.

Answer: Yes

Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace, became part of the National Trust in 1943, has been fully restored, and is located seven miles south of Grantham, Lincolnshire. It is said that an apple falling from the ancient, gnarled tree that stands in the front yard at Woolsthorpe, inspired Newton's work on gravity. What kind of man was Newton? Like us all, Newton had a many faceted personality. Selfish in giving credit to other academics, he was extremely generous with his half-brother, half-sisters, and their families. Cold as ice and hard as stone to his enemies, Newton was warm and caring to his friends. Newton was one of most brillant scientific minds of his or any age.

In this there can be no contradiction. This quiz was based on "In the Presence of the Creator" by Gale E. Christainson and "Isaac Newton" by James Glick. Thank you for taking my quiz on Sir Issac Newton's life.