Sir Isaac Newton

Mathematician and natural philosopher, 1643-1727

Cited as Sir I. Newton. — 62 quotations

Assimilate

Hence also animals and vegetables may assimilate their nourishment.

Bring

In distillation, the water . . . brings over with it some part of the oil of vitriol.

Color

The rays, to speak properly, are not colored; in them there is nothing else than a certain power and disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that color.

Commix

The commixed impressions of all the colors do stir up and beget a sensation of white.

Compact

Glass, crystal, gems, and other compact bodies.

Component

The component parts of natural bodies.

Composition

The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition.

Concentric

Concentric circles upon the surface of the water.

Concourse

The drop will begin to move toward the concourse of the glasses.

Contiguous

The two halves of the paper did not appear fully divided . . . but seemed contiguous at one of their angles.

Contrition

The breaking of their parts into less parts by contrition.

Convene

In shortsighted men . . . the rays converge and convene in the eyes before they come at the bottom.

Cross

The cross refraction of the second prism.

Curl

If the glass of the prisms . . . be without those numberless waves or curls which usually arise from the sand holes.

Define

Rings . . . very distinct and well defined.

Difform

The unequal refractions of difform rays.

Dilute

Lest these colors should be diluted and weakened by the mixture of any adventitious light.

Discontinuation

Upon any discontinuation of parts, made either by bubbles or by shaking the glass, the whole mercury falls.

Dissolvable

Such things as are not dissolvable by the moisture of the tongue.

Distance

Every particle attracts every other with a force . . . inversely proportioned to the square of the distance.

Emergence

The white color of all refracted light, at its very first emergence . . . is compounded of various colors.

Fissile

This crystal is a pellucid, fissile stone.

Globule

Globules of snow.

Gray

These gray and dun colors may be also produced by mixing whites and blacks.

Gyration

If a burning coal be nimbly moved round in a circle, with gyrations continually repeated, the whole circle will appear like fire.

Impinge

The cause of reflection is not the impinging of light on the solid or impervious parts of bodies.

Incidence

In equal incidences there is a considerable inequality of refractions.

Incrassate

Acids dissolve or attenuate; alkalies precipitate or incrassate.

Indistinctly

In its sides it was bounded distinctly, but on its ends confusedly and indistinctly.

Inflect

Are they [the rays of the sun] not reflected, refracted, and inflected by one and the same principle ?

Influence

These experiments succeed after the same manner in vacuo as in the open air, and therefore are not influenced by the weight or pressure of the atmosphere.

Ingredient

By way of analysis we may proceed from compounds to ingredients.

Intend

Magnetism may be intended and remitted.

Lap

About the paper . . . I lapped several times a slender thread of very black silk.

Lively

The colors of the prism are manifestly more full, intense, and lively that those of natural bodies.

Lucid

Lucid, like a glowworm.

Magnitude

Conceive those particles of bodies to be so disposed amongst themselves, that the intervals of empty spaces between them may be equal in magnitude to them all.

Manage

Long tubes are cumbersome, and scarce to be easily managed.

Mass

If it were not for these principles, the bodies of the earth, planets, comets, sun, and all things in them, would grow cold and freeze, and become inactive masses.

Notion

What hath been generally agreed on, I content myself to assume under the notion of principles.

Office

In this experiment the several intervals of the teeth of the comb do the office of so many prisms.

Outward

Light falling on them is not reflected outwards.

Patient

Whatever I have done is due to patient thought.

Polish

Another prism of clearer glass and better polish.

Polite

Rays of light falling on a polite surface.

Query

I shall conclude with proposing only some queries, in order to a . . . search to be made by others.

Rare

Water is nineteen times lighter, and by consequence nineteen times rarer, than gold.

Rebound

Bodies which are absolutely hard, or so soft as to be void of elasticity, will not rebound from one another.

Refraction

Refraction out of the rarer medium into the denser, is made towards the perpendicular.

Reproduce

Those colors are unchangeable, and whenever all those rays with those their colors are mixed again they reproduce the same white light as before.

Sesquiplicate

The periodic times of the planets are in the sesquiplicate ratio of their mean distances.

Sideways

A second refraction made sideways.

Sort

Rays which differ in refrangibility may be parted and sorted from one another.

Step

To derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be a very great step in philosophy.

Stifle

Bodies . . . stifle in themselves the rays which they do not reflect or transmit.

Stop

Occult qualities put a stop to the improvement of natural philosophy.

Successively

The whiteness, at length, changed successively into blue, indigo, and violet.

Swelling

The superficies of such plates are not even, but have many cavities and swellings.

Twinkle

These stars do not twinkle when viewed through telescopes that have large apertures.

Variety

The variety of colors depends upon the composition of light.

Vein

Let the glass of the prisms be free from veins.

Volatilize

The water . . . dissolving the oil, and volatilizing it by the action.