Question: How many years was Newton the president of the Royal Society?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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.
Correct Answer 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.
Question: Under whose reign was Newton honored with a knighthood?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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.
Question: When Newton was forty-seven, he sat for his first portrait. Who painted this now famous portrait of Newton?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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.
Question: How old was Newton when he became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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.
Question: Which activity did Newton not enjoy doing as a child?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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 ten 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.
Question: What was the occupation of Newton's father, also named Isaac, who died before Newton was born?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer 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.
Question: According to Pythagoras, the numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, etc. were called what?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer This can be explained by envisioning the numbers lined up, with 1 on the top row, 2 and 3 on the second row (creating a triangle at 3), 4, 5, 6 on the third row (another triangle) and 7, 8, 9 and 10 on the forth row...all creating triangular forms! Thank you...I hope you learned a little something about the man whose name is synonymous with a theorum!
Question: Which number was a perfect number, according to Pythagoras?
Incorrect Answer
Correct Answer Incidentally, this tradition of the perfect '10' has been carried down into the modern day. Perhaps our friend Pythagoras was on to something?
