h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Newton, Isaac (1642–1727) - A683129
Author: Andrew Pickering - U181368

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A683129

Useful info on Isaac Newton.

Good entry, I'm surprised no-one's written an entry on the great man before.

I will have a closer look later, but the one thing that strikes me straight away is formatting, As some of the sections are so short, it might be a better idea just to have bold titles, rather than full-blown sub headers. They make the article look rather cramped and cluttered.

Add a here and there to space it out.

Alji

Andrew,

If you put at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end, it will sort out the formatting. Having everything running into everything else makes uncomfortable reading.

ok, thanks

i'll try and get round to that at some point soon-ish

Hmm...

I once heard a story about a plague in London, and people being evacuated to the countryside. Newton was among those, and the apple story happened during this evacuation period.

About the entry: Nice, but... I expected more, not that I would have any better suggestions, but somehow I feel that the data presented here is sort of the standard biography. Do you know any anecdotes involving Newton? Some peculiarities? Fuerthermore you could lik his bio to the 'Gravity' entry and to the 'Newton's laws' entry.

Please write more,

HELL

if i get time...

I think this is a good start, but I think this is lacking in detail, and depth. It seems to be mainly a list of facts, without going into much detail on each.

I am also am not sure that the splitting of his achievements is very eful. In particular, the division between mathematical, scientific, and literary achievement seems rather arbitrary, as the literary achievements you have listed seem more to fit into the category of mathematical and scientific ones.

I think that the mathematical achievement section is fairly redundant, as it doesn't give any detail about what contribution Newton made to mathematics.

There are also other things that could be included, but aren't. Newton is known to have invented calculus as did Liebnitz, at about the same time. That in itself is interesting, as it Newton apparently set up commitee's and the like to prove that he had invented it, whilst now it seems that both did. Also, this apparently caused a split between Britain and the rest of europe in maths, for quite a long time. as Britain used Newton's notation, and Europe Liebnitz's.

Also, some mention of Newton's Three laws of motion is probably in order.

So, basically, the problem is that the entry seems mainly to be a list of facts, without going into much detail about them, and with little depth. Also, the entry appears unfocused. I think there are probably quite a lot of the entry that is not worth mentioning, but you should go into more detail about what you do decide to mention.

Hi Andrew,

I think the problem that people are having with this entry is not the entry itself but rather that there is so much more that could be said. What you have included is good & as far as I know accurate but it is a bit like describing Shakespere as "A writer who was born X, died Y and wrote some plays including Hamlet. Also interested in poetry" - quite accurate but somehow unsatisfying.

I like long entries, but that's just me - you can't work in patents if you get bored easily! Even so, I think most people would agree that this could have much more detail. I.N. was master of the Royal Mint for years, for example, and introduced a policy where forgers were automatically executed unless they grassed on (I don't remember the number exactly) some number of other forgers, who were then offered the same deal. Brutal but effective! Also, he made every effort to rubbish up and coming scientist who might one day have challenged him for the top spot. As a result, it has been said that science & maths in England stagnated for some considerable number of years after Newton.

I would like to see this entry in the Guide because there should be one on I.N. but it would be nice if it contained a bit more depth. That said, I don't have time to write & research it so if you don't either then something has to give and, as I say, it's good as far as it goes.

If you have time to add some more then please do. If not, I don't see why tihs shouldn't go in & some day someone with more time will update it with further details.



Ugi

ok, thanks guys

Alternatively, this entry could be removed from the PR - remember it's still in the guide, it's just not 'Edited'. And when you have time you finish it and give it another go here...

HELL

I am in agreement here with Ugi and Silverfish here, Andrew. I.N. is probably one of the most imporant people of the last millennium, and I think there should be a bit more investigation of his contributions - calculus, the light spectrum, the laws of motion, gravitation, etc. Amazing stuff. How did he come up with these ideas?

Maybe, if you don't have time, you could put it in the Collaborative Writers Workshop, and seek input from other people?

Woodpigeon

One small niggle can you make the title Isaac Newton rather than Newton, Isaac people will still be able find it through the search engine. it looks neater that way

I wouldn't recommend the CWW (Collaborative Workshop), people rarely go there to contribute. Asking directly is IMO a lot better. You could wade through some science/technology/biography entries and find people from there. Then you'd just post a question and the link to the entry in progress to their personal spaces. I, for one, would be pleased if people came to my space requesting input / oppinions. In the end I think this approach will work better than posting to the writing workshops. When the entry is then coarsely finished it's time to put it back into PR and see what everyone else has to say.

Just a thought,

HELL

i also have found that putting the page number in your name helps loads to get publicity!

ok. perhaps i'll just put it in the flea market... i dunno

Any final decision yet?

a few behavioral quirks of newton's to add.

If someone produced results that newton thought that he should have produced, he would often go away and obsesively research the subject. as an example, someone produced an article on optics for the royal society. newton disagreed with it, and then spent something like 18 months thoroughly researching optics.

he ended up producing a book on the subject. (as a side issue, his book set the science of chaos theory back centuries, as there was work at the time that looked into the chaotic effects associated with light, which newton didn't aggree with, and dismissed in his book).

He was also very secretive about his discoveries. it was his hiding the discovery of calculus (leibnitz did as well) for more than 15 years which produced such a stink when a third person who was relatively unknown produced a lesser version and published it, causing both leibnitz and newton to claim that they had invented it, and that somehow the other 2 had managed to steal it.

I can't help feeling the article is a little brief