Isaac Newton aboard the USS Voyager
A hologram of Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton was a noted Human scientist from Earth. In the 17th century, he invented calculus as well as Newtonian physics, which became the foundation of all physics that followed. Newton at one point held the Lucasian Chair of mathematics at Cambridge University. (TNG: "All Good Things...")
In his lifetime, Newton once encountered the man later known as Quinn. Quinn was sitting under the tree the day the apple fell on his head. As it happened, Quinn had jostled the tree when he got up to leave, just before the apple fell. As a result, a new era in Human science was born. (VOY: "Death Wish")
He was one of six Human astronomers honored with a monument located in front of the Griffith Observatory, the others being Hipparchus, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and William Herschel. (VOY: "Future's End")
It was later revealed by Q that if it wasn't for Quinn, then Newton would have died in a Liverpool debtor's prison as a suspect in several prostitute murders. (VOY: "Death Wish")
After hearing that Dixon Hill had struck Felix Leech, Cyrus Redblock referred to a "Newtonian truism", otherwise known as Newton's 3rd law of motion. Redblock told him that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," moments before Redblock allowed Leech to strike Hill with the butt of his gun. (TNG: "The Big Goodbye")
In 2153, when the Enterprise NX-01 encountered spatial anomalies in the Delphic Expanse which locally changed the laws of physics, Chief Engineer Tucker asked himself, "Where is Isaac Newton, when you need him?" (ENT: "Anomaly")
When Arev asked Captain Jonathan Archer what is Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics, Archer responded that he only knew Newton's first law of motion but imagined they could be the same. (ENT: "The Forge")
In 2369, Lieutenant Commander Data created a holodeck version of Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in order to watch how three of the greatest Human scientists would interact during a game of poker. Data's observations were "most illuminating." He inadvertently offended Newton by telling him that the story of the apple falling on his head was generally believed to be apocryphal. (TNG: "Descent")
In 2372, on stardate 49301.2, Q plucked Newton from his own time to testify at Janeway's hearings about Quinn. Newton did not remember the visit. (VOY: "Death Wish")
External links
- Template:NCwiki
- Isaac Newton at Wikipedia
- Newton's laws of motion at Wikipedia