Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Royal Mint (1699-1727) | The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of coins, tokens and banknotes The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of coins, tokens and banknotes The best-stocked coin and banknote shop in Ireland. We buy and sell old collections, attic accumulations and house-clearances. Exchange your old coins and banknotes for euro Menu The Old Currency Exchange / November 28, 2015 Introduction: Sir Isaac Newton is, perhaps, best known as an English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.

Isaac Newton: Portrait of man in black with shoulder-length, wavy brown hair, a large sharp nose, and a distracted gaze (Godfrey Kneller, 1689) His book “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics Newton made seminal contributions to optics He shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus Newton’s Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries By deriving Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar System His work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles His prediction that Earth should be shaped as an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by the measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, which helped convince most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over the earlier system of Descart

es Isaac Newton predicted the world would end in 2060 !

Among his less well known attributes and feats is the fact that he was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity – Newton may have been, in principle, a Unitarian !

During that time, any Fellow of a college at Cambridge or Oxford was required to take holy orders and become an ordained Anglican priest However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably to devote more time to science) Newton successfully argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this proposal – thus, at the age of 27, he became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge (a post now held by Stephen Hawking) Thus a conflict between Newton’s secretly held religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted Charles II, it should be remembered, may have secretly been a Catholic, and he publicly converted to Catholicism on his death bed Chales II’s brother, and successor, James II publicly declared his conversion in 1675 and when he became king, his Catholicism triggered the Glorious Revolution and, in turn, the Williamite Wars – so Newton was clever enough to avoid publicity Historian Stephen D.

Snobelen describes Newton as “a heretic” Snobelen concludes that Newton was “at least a Socinian sympathiser (he owned and had thoroughly read at least eight Socinian books), possibly an Arian and almost certainly an anti-trinitarian” Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death Newton was also an MP for Cambridge University in 1689–90 and 1701–2 According to some accounts, his only comments were to complain about “a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed” He was also Warden and Master of the Royal Mint – the topic of this numismatic article Despite his financial savvy, Newton was one of many people who lost heavily when the South Sea Company collapsed Their most significant trade was slaves, and according to his niece, he lost around £20,000 Warden of the Royal Mint Isaac Newton was appointed Warden of the Royal Mint in the spring of 1696 on the recommendation of Charles Montague, 1st Earl of Halifax, and Chancellor of the Exche

quer.

This was his first public appointment The Royal Mint was then in the Tower of London and Newton arrived in April 1696 to take up his new duties. It was a time of great activity, for the Royal Mint was grappling with financial challenges associated with the re-coinage of old silver coins dating back to the reign of Elizabeth I and beyond.

Auxiliary mints were being set up in various parts of the country Newton took on the the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch of the Royal Mint This enormous operation was completed within three years By mid-1699, Newton was able to devote more time to his main duty of investigating and bringing to justice those who clipped and counterfeited the coin of the realm Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during the Great Recoinage of 1696 were counterfeit Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by the felon’s being hanged, drawn and quartered Newton decided to use his powers to stop counterfeiting Despite this, convicting even the most blatent criminals could be extremely difficult Disguised as a habitué of bars and taverns, Newton gathered much of that evidence himself Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties Then he conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers, and suspects between June 1698 and Christmas 1699.

Newton successfully prosecuted 28 ‘coiners’ One notorious ‘coiner’ eluded him – William Chaloner Chaloner had trained as a nail maker’s apprentice, but he found a more lucrative application for molten metals: coining 30,000 guineas. This counterfeiter’s self-made wealth enabled him to pose as a gentleman and his undoubted knowledge of the law allowed him to evade prosecution Chaloner appeared before a parliamentary committee, where he insinuated that Newton was incompetent and blamed Mint employees for the epidemic of phony coins. Enraged, Newton intensified his efforts By September 1697, Newton had enough evidence to lock Chaloner up—but not for long. Working through intermediaries, Chaloner bribed the prosecution’s star witness into fleeing to Scotland.

Chaloner was released and accused Newton of framing an innocent man Newton then began to work ‘outside of the law’ in order to catch Chaloner – he bribed crooks for information, he started making threats, and he ‘leaned on’ the wives and mistresses of Chaloner’s crooked associates After nearly two more years of relentless pursuit, Newton’s extreme measures had gathered enough evidence to put Chaloner away for good. This time, the charges stuck. On March 3, 1699, the infamous Chaloner was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to hang. Master of the Royal Mint In 1699 the post of Master of the Royal Mint fell vacant by the death of Thomas Neale. Though technically less senior than that of Warden, it was a more lucrative post because the Master acted as a contractor to the Crown and profited from the rates at which he put the work out to sub-contractors.

Isaac Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller The Mastership was offered to Newton and he took up its duties with effect from Christmas Day 1699 The positions of Warden and Master were intended as sinecures (offices that require or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service), but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701 Surviving the political upheavals of those troubled times, he remained as Master until his own death in March 1727 In April 1705, Queen Anne knighted Newton during a royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge The knighthood is likely to have been motivated by political considerations connected with the Parliamentary election in May 1705, rather than any recognition of Newton’s scientific work or services as Master of the Mint Newton was the second scientist to be knighted, after Sir Francis Bacon As a result of a report written by Newton on 21 September 1717 to the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and silver coins was changed by Royal proclamation on 22 December 1717, forbidding the exchange of gold guine

as for more than 21 silver shillings This inadvertently resulted in a silver shortage as silver coins were used to pay for imports, while exports were paid for in gold, effectively moving Britain from the silver standard to its first gold standard.

It is a matter of debate as whether he intended to do this or not Isaac Newton: The Irish Connection Drapier’s Letters (1724) was a series of pamphlets against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to provide the Irish with copper coinage. It was widely believed that Wood would need to flood Ireland with debased coinage in order make a profit. In these “letters” Swift posed as a shop-keeper—a draper—to criticise the plan. Swift’s writing was so effective in undermining opinion in the project that a reward was offered by the government to anyone disclosing the true identity of the author. Though hardly a secret (on returning to Dublin after one of his trips to England, Swift was greeted with a banner, “Welcome Home, Drapier”) no one turned Swift in 1722 Wood’s Hibernia Halfpenny, D: G: REX, Rocks at Right (pattern) The government eventually resorted to hiring none other than Sir Isaac Newton to certify the soundness of Wood’s coinage to counter Swift’s accusations.

The Drapier does not directly attack Isaac Newton’s assay of Wood’s coin, but instead attacks the process behind the assay and the witnesses who testified before the Privy Council. In his criticism of the Privy Council’s report, the Drapier claims that the report is part of Wood’s propaganda and lies, because Wood released three proposals concurrent with the report: lowering the patent production quota from £100,800 to £40,000 worth; that no one is obliged to accept more than five pence halfpenny per transaction; and to sell the coin at 2s 1d a pound or his raw copper at 1s 8d a pound.

Wood’s choice of wording, that the Irish would be “obliged” to accept the coin, was criticised by the Drapier who then accused Wood of “perfect High Treason” for obliging the people to take any copper coin when the king lacked the constitutional authority to do such a thing In the second letter, the Drapier walks a careful line between openly indicting the king and merely hinting at his relationship with Wood’s patent; while the Drapier accuses Wood, he constantly refers to the king’s authority and power to issue legal tender (this is called “the King’s Prerogative”). In particular, the Drapier claims that the king is unable to force his people to accept any copper based currency. As the Drapier points out, the constitution establishing Ireland as a kingdom limits the authority of the monarch because it forces the people of Ireland to use only gold or silver coins as official currency FAQs The superb Celebration of Britain Series contains 18 coins each honouring Britain's past, people and places. This magnificent new £5 coin is an official product of London 2012 and celebrates the life of Sir Isaac Newton.

Born in 1642 at Woolsthorpe near Grantham in Lincolnshire, Sir Isaac Newton came to be one of the foremost mathematicians and physicists the world has ever seen. The discoveries that he made in the second half of the seventeenth century changed our understanding of the natural world forever. His explanation of gravity and his investigations into the properties of light had a profound impact and he is rightly regarded as one of the greatest scientists of his or any other generation. Isaac Newton was one of Britain’s greatest scientists and made major contributions in several fields. Coin Design This official UK £5 coin depicts Eduardo Paolozzi’s popular sculpture of Newton along with the quote ‘Make not your thoughts your prisons’ by William Shakespeare and features the Olympic Rings and the London 2012 logo. The Life of Isaac Newton Early Life Isaac Newton was born on 25 December 1642 (Julian/old calendar), to a relatively poor farming family. His father died three months before he was born. His mother later remarried and went to live with her new husband, leaving Isaac in the care of his maternal grandmother. The young Isaac was educated at Grantham Grammar School in Lincolnshire.

He was a top student, but before completing his studies his mother withdrew him from school, so he could work as a farmer. It was only through the intervention of the headmaster, Henry Stokes, that Isaac was able to return to finish his studies. Cambridge Years Isaac Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge where he became interested in mathematics, optics, physics and astronomy. The years he spent studying and lecturing at Cambridge University were said to be his most productive, however it was the outbreak of the Great Plague in 1664 that indirectly led to his most creative period. At this time the university was closed down and it was in the isolation of his Lincolnshire home that Newton laid the basis for all his great discoveries. In 1665 Newton began to investigate the phenomenon of gravitation, inspired; legend has it, by seeing an apple fall from a tree in his orchard. During 1665-66 he also developed the binomial theorem and differential and integral calculus. In 1667, Newton was made a fellow of Trinity College and two years later he was appointed second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Newton was also interested in the nature of light and the construction of telescopes.

From the mid-1660s, he conducted a variety of experiments on the composition of light and discovered that white light is composed of the same system of colours that can be seen in a rainbow. It was Newton's reflecting telescope, made in 1668, that finally brought him to the attention of the scientific community. In 1672 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. By 1684 Newton had demonstrated the whole gravitation theory which he published first in De Motu Corporum (1684) and later in Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687). This showed how a universal force, gravity, applied to all objects in all parts of the universe. Later Life/Royal Mint Years Isaac Newton was appointed Warden of the Royal Mint in the spring of 1696 on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Montague. At first sight this may seem a somewhat curious, even backward, step for a man in his early fifties whose life had been spent in the academic surroundings of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Public office was something new to him, but it was actually something that he had sought, and so the offer of the position of Warden of the Mint would not have been unwelcome. In 1699 Isaac Newton became Master of the Royal Mint; a post which he occupied until his death in 1727. During this time Newton took an active role in reforming the nation’s coinage. Scrupulously exact, he was an honest and respected man who cared for his reputation. There is no doubt that throughout his 30-year career at the Royal Mint he set a high standard and raised its status by his presence. He is indeed a distinguished part of a distinguished history. In 1704 Newton’s research on light and colour was published in Opticks. He also studied and published works on history, theology and alchemy. Isaac Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in Cambridge in 1705 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

A History of The British Royal Mint › Buy Gold You are here: Home › Gold › Silver › A History of The British Royal Mint A History of The British Royal Mint By Coin Invest on November 26, 2013 in Gold , Silver The Royal British Mint was originally founded over 1100 years ago during the reign of Alexander the Great. For centuries, coins produced by the Royal Mint have been held in high esteem for the power and prestige they symbolized during the days of the British Empire. When the Royal Mint was first inaugurating in 886, it was merely one of many in the British Isles. It did not become the central mint until it was moved to the Tower of London in 1279 which would be its home for the next 500 years and would see the establishment closely intertwine itself with the increasing influence Britain was having throughout the world. In the late 17th century, the famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton was appointed Warden of the Mint with the principle aim of investigating counterfeit coins. In 1699, Newton was promoted to Master of the Royal Mint, a position he retained until his death in 1727.

Mint moves During the Napoleonic wars, demand for gold and silver bullion was more than the Royal Mint could produce with the old machinery. The premises in the Tower of London however were too small to accommodate the latest technology, so the Mint was moved to a building in East Smithfield. In 1967, the Mint was moved to new premises located near Cardiff in Wales and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. The last coin to be struck by the Royal Mint in London was a gold sovereign in November 1975, seven months after the Mint became a trading fund to help improve efficiency. On 31st December 2009, the Royal Mint became a limited company but is owned by the Government under the hood of the HM Treasury. Visitors are encouraged to browse around the onsite museum which has an unrivalled collection of important British coins revered for their artwork, design and manufacturing that is synonymous with Royal Minted coins. Royal Mint Trial of the Pyx One long-standing tradition few people outside the Royal Mint and avid coin collector´s symposiums, is the peculiar procedure known as the trial of the Pyx.

The procedure which first began in the 12th Century is to ensure that all minted coins in the UK conform to the required standard of proof. The trials involve an annual ceremony which includes a judge and expert jury passing judgment over the authenticity of the new coins. The trial of the Pyx is still continued as a formal tradition to this very day, despite no such problems with below-par standards given the technology and production methods we use today, but historically poorly minted coins was a problem. There are several iconic coins produced by the Royal Mint that are popular with both investors and collectors; the Britannia and the sovereign. Both coins are held in high-esteem and have several collector´s editions which commemorate special years, such as 2013. You can find the latest prices of Royal minted coins visiting coininvestdirect.com today. Subscribe Isaac Newton's Life | Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for their contribution to our site. The following information came from Microsoft Encarta. I INTRODUCTION Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time.

Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687. As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint.

He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705. As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. II OPTICS In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium.

He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces. The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead.

The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation. III MATHEMATICS In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another.

Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous. Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707. The Calculus Priority Dispute Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677.

Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas. In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.

IV MECHANICS AND GRAVITATION According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion. Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.

Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles. Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves. Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.

Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity. V ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created.

Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death. VI HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principiareveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.

VII RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND PERSONALITY Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature. VIII PUBLICATIONS Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676.

Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733). Contributed By: Alfred Rupert Hall "Sir Isaac Newton" Microsoft® Encarta®. Copyright © 1998 Microsoft Corporation. The Royal Mint The Royal Mint Royal Mint - the most famous mint worldwide The bullion coins of the tradition-rich Royal Mint have been solid parameters on the market for many decades. The collectors' coins of the British Royal Mint have always been very popular thanks to their sophisticated design and classical motifs. If you want to complement your investment portfolio, your collection or both with coins from one of the oldest mints in the world, take a look at our comprehensive offer.

Should you have any questions, please contact our advisers by telephone or e-mail . The Royal Mint 1000 + 19,61 € Add To Cart Coin minting for more than 1100 years The Royal Mint is one of the oldest still existing mints in the world. In 886, this mint - which was then known as the London Mint - was first mentioned in a public deed. After it was moved to the Tower of London in 1279, it still took about 260 years until the mint was renamed the Royal Mint, and it was given the monopoly to mint coins in the British kingdom in the 1540s. A few years later the first attempts were made to mechanically mint coins. But it still took until the 1660s to mostly mechanise the production using horse-operated roller mills and screw presses. Both famous coins and famous personalities are linked to the Royal Mint. In addition to the British monarchs whose faces have adorned many coins we must mention the Master of the Mint from the years 1699 to 1727.

The scientist Isaac Newton, whose findings have revolutionised our understanding of physics, was the head of the Royal Mint until he died. As the extended capacities of the Royal Mint had led to conflicts with the military that was also stationed in the Tower, the Royal Mint was moved to a new establishment in 1809. After the coin system was comprehensively reformed in 1851, the first branches of the Royal Mint were established in the different colonies of the British Crown from 1855. This created two very important mints: the Perth Mint in Australia and the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa. Shortly before the end of the 19th century, the mint exceeded the threshold of 100 million minted coins per year for the first time in 1899. In World War I, German planes brought the war to London, and four workers were killed during an attack on the mint. It quickly recovered from the destruction and loss, and gained two minting orders from abroad. The Soviet Union became an important customer of the Royal Mint. In 1922 the Royal Mint Advisory Committee was formed, which has since then been responsible for drafting the coins, medals and seals.

World War II also did not pass the Royal Mint without it having to suffer losses. Eight workers were killed during a bomb attack, and the destructions forced the British finance ministry to build a substitute mint in Buckinghamshire, which was operated until the end of the war. However, the Royal Mint could quickly recover from these setbacks and produced more than 1 billion coins per year in 1964. Seven years later the British coin system, which was still based on the Carolingian system , was changed to the decimal system. Only a few years later the remaining rooms at Tower Hill were abandoned, and the coin minting was fully transferred to Llantrisant in the south of Wales. The last change of the Royal Mint took place in 2009, when it was transformed into a state-owned limited company. The Royal Mint today When looking back at its long history the Royal Mint today is one of the biggest and most important mints in the world. In addition to the British circulatory coins and bullion coins, collectors' coins, civil and military medals and coins from more than 60 countries are minted here.

Thanks to this varied range of duties 15% of the worldwide production of coins is handled by the Royal Mint today. Only such a state-of-the-art and efficient facility can cope with such a large amount of production. Therefore, not only the design, but also the method of production and the minting quality of the coins of the Royal Mint are trend-setting. These are the best prerequisites to be able to produce some of the most successful bullion coins in the market. One of these coins is the Britannia, which was first published in 1987. The coin is mainly aimed at the British market. The motif is the Goddess, who gave it its name and was already worshipped by the British Romans as the tutelary Goddess of their home country. Today, she is regarded as the embodiment of the British nation carrying a trident and a shield. Thanks to its sophisticated design the coin is available in gold and silver , and is popular amongst collectors even outside the British Isles. The most important coin of the Royal Mint and of international importance in the investors' market is the Sovereign . The history of the coin began in 1489, when it was first minted under the reign of Henry VII.

In 1604, the last "old" Sovereign was minted, and it lost its significance in the 17th and 18th centuries. With the “great recoinage of 1816” the Sovereign was again used as a circulatory coin from 1817. At that time the design with George the dragon slayer was introduced. It was drafted by Benedetto Pistrucci and is still used today, Until today the image of George the dragon slayer is still regarded as Pistrucci's most famous piece of work. It was lastly also the Sovereign that contributed to this fame. But even such a famous motif could not avoid the end of the Sovereign as a regular means of payment when the gold coverage came to an end. It was used as such in Great Britain until 1917, and in South Africa until even 1932. In 1957, the Sovereign witnessed a renaissance as a bullion coin. Since then it has been very popular amongst investors thanks to its long tradition and stability in value.

The Sovereign is one of the very few bullion coins that is weighted not in ounces, but unitised in pounds according to its nominal value. Today in addition to the Sovereign, the Half Sovereign and the Quarter Sovereign are also minted. Social Sir Isaac Newton, Warden, then Master of the Royal Mint, Mint-Office Reports (London, 1701-1725) : Coins, Currency, Currencies Europe, European, Gold + Silver Price. Introduction by W. A. Shaw, 1896 SIR ISAAC NEWTON was offered the post of Warden of the Mint by Montagu on the 19th March 1696. The offer was accepted, and for the three years which witnessed the great recoinage Newton acted in that capacity. In 1699 he succeeded as Master of the Mint, and held the post until his death in 1727. The thirty years or more during which he continued Master and Warden of the Mint are of no little interest in English monetary history.

Apart from the recoinage of 1696, through which he piloted the nation, apart too from the adventitious drama of Wood's halfpence, and Swift's nefarious rancour, these years witnessed that change in the relative values of the precious metals which virtually consecrated England to gold by actually, through the greater part of the eighteenth century, restricting the currency to that metal. Yet there is a paucity of first-hand information on mint affairs during those years. Newton contented himself with official reports to the Lords of the Treasury on the subject of exchange, or on the state of the coins. He never appeared before the world as an author in this connection. Of these official reports only three have hitherto appeared in print. In the following pages, however, I have reprinted from the original copies in the Treasury Board Papers at the Record Office all these papers which distinctly bear on coinage or exchange matters. The papers are mostly in Newton's own hand; and as being the copies actually forwarded as reports to the Treasury, must be regarded as the most final and authentic form of the documents he drafted.

On the other hand, it is quite apparent that the Treasury Board Papers do not now contain many reports and papers of Newton on mint, coinage, and exchange affairs, which he drew up during his official career. Newton's stepniece, Elizabeth Barton, daughter of his stepsister, Hannah Barton, married John Conduitt, who succeeded Newton in the Mastership of the Mint, on the latter's death. Conduitt's daughter Catherine married John Viscount Lymington, eldest son of the first Earl of Portsmouth, and carried with her into the Portsmouth family all Newton's papers. Of these papers the scientific portion has been presented to the Cambridge University Library. But the portion containing his official papers, mint documents and correspondence, etc., are still preserved in the library of the Earl of Portsmouth, Hurstbourne Park, Hampshire. The mint papers were arranged with loving care by Conduitt, and are now bound in three large folios. A glance at their contents (see Historical Manuscripts Reports, viii.

60) reveals the fact of Newton's immense industry in equipping himself for and in executing his office, and at the same time the smallness of the number of his papers which have survived in the national archives as compared with the drafts and reports which are preserved in these family papers. It would be gratifying if this attempt at a reproduction of the official papers of Newton should lead to something further. All merely administrative papers-such as relate to appointments of officers under Newton at the mint, or to the conduct of the Scotch mint, or to the management of the tin revenues of the Crown, on all which subjects numerous papers exist among the Treasury Board Papers — are here omitted. Those alone are printed in which Newton reports on questions relating to coinage or exchange. They will speak for themselves, with their masterly brevity and clearness. And if the train of thought which runs through this volume has been grasped, it will be at once apparent how different, and more expert and true, was his attitude of mind towards the monetary difficulty of his time than that of John Locke in 1696. It would be difficult to express sufficient admiration of the skill and modesty with which Newton pierced the secrets of the exchanger's craft. William A.

Shaw, Select Tracts and Documents Illustrative of English Monetary History 1626-1730 (London: Wilsons & Milne, 1896) [reprint: (New York: Augustus Kelley Publishers, 1967)], p.132-134 — html by Olaf Simons, Sep. 2004. Which awards were given to Isaac Newton? | Reference.com Which awards were given to Isaac Newton? A: Quick Answer Sir Isaac Newton was awarded many honors during his life, mostly in the form of titles and positions. In addition to serving as a member, and later president, of The Royal Society, Isaac Newton served as a member of Parliament and professor at Cambridge University. The mathematician and astronomer invented calculus, defined universal laws of motion and gravity, and made discoveries in astronomy and chemistry. Full Answer Isaac Newton was awarded his first honor in 1665, at the age of 22, in the form of a bachelor's degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1667, he was elected a fellow of Trinity College and later earned a master's degree from Trinity. Academic honors followed quickly.

Newton was appointed a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667. He became the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1668, a role he would fill until his resignation in 1701. In 1672, Isaac Newton was admitted to The Royal Society, of which he became president in 1703. Newton was elected to Parliament on behalf of Cambridge University for the first time in 1688 and again in 1701. Newton became a foreign associate of the French Académie Royal des Sciences in 1699. In 1696, Newton was named master of the Royal Mint. After he died in 1727, he became the first scientist to be honored with interment in Westminster Abbey. Sir Isaac Newton - did you know? | The Royal Mint Blog The Royal Mint blog Sir Isaac Newton. From a portrait by Kneller in 1689 Isaac Newton was appointed Master of the Mint between 1699-1727. The title ‘Master of the Mint’ is held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer who, at the time of writing, is The Right Honourable George Osborne.

Isaac Newton is the most famous ‘Master of the Mint’ in our history – here are ten relatively little known facts about him: Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642…however there is controversy about this date, some say that he was born on 4 January 1643 (the date varies according to the Gregorian calendar). His father died three months before he was born. The common belief that he was a premature baby, not expected to survive, may have been something that came about later as Newton was keen to avoid the idea that he was conceived outside wedlock. Isaac Newton graduated from Cambridge University …but with no honours or distinctions. Two eminent peers of Newton refer to the ‘falling apple’ inspiration for the theory of gravitation…the French writer, Voltaire wrote about this, citingNewton’s half-niece as his source for the story. But the English Antiquarian, William Stukeley claimed to have received the story first-hand from Newton in 1726. Whatever the origins of this well-known story may be, it is a fact that Newton called the force he discovered ‘Gravity’, which kept the universe balanced, made it work, and brought heaven and earth together in one great equation.

Newton discovered white light …through his experiments with the reflecting telescope he made in 1668. He found that white light is composed of the same system of colours as seen in a rainbow, oil on water, or soap bubbles. His work established the modern study of optics, publishing in 1704 ‘The Opticks’ which dealt with light and colour. In 1678 Newton suffered a complete nervous breakdown …followed by a further but shorter-lived one in 1693. This latter one was, perhaps, due to chronic mercury poisoning after decades of alchemical research. ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ …the quote found on the edge of a £2 coin, comes from a letter written in 1676 by Sir Isaac to his fellow-scientist Robert Hooke, acknowledging the debt he owed to other scientists. Newton was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge University …from Dec1688 -90 and 1701–02. Newton was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and its President in 1703 …a post to which he was annually re-elected for the rest of his life.

Queen Anne knighted Newton in Cambridge 1705 …by which time he had become the dominant figure in British science and was considered the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. A crater on the Moon has been named after Newton …it is considered the deepest crater on the near side of the Moon. Popular interest in Isaac Newton’s life continues to this day, and it is rumoured that he will be the subject of a forthcoming action film to be produced by Hollywood director Rob Cohen (who also made The Fast and The Furious). You can expect to hear a lot more about Isaac Newton, because there’s a lot more to tell! For more on Sir Isaac Newton visit The Royal Mint Museum website Understand that Newton “invented the milled edge to prevent “clipping” of the edge jamesroyalmint Newton made milled edges a feature of the coins made at The Royal Mint. I am not sure if he invented the process, though it is often attributed to him. Mike Taylor Extension of fact 6…..The full quotation in a letter to Hooke, 05 February 1676 was, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Mike Taylor.

James You didn’t mention that he had people executed for forgery while at the royal Mint. James See Mike Taylor’s comment “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton was not being complimentary, he was being his normal, nasty self. Basically he was “dissing” Robert Hooke. Newton was vindictive to say the least!

Question: Which scientist became Master of the Royal Mint in 1699 ?
Answer: (SIR) ISAAC NEWTON