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Isaac Newton's Birthday
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
~ Isaac Newton, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton: Volume 5, 1709–1713
Attention physicists and science enthusiasts! This historical tartan includes fascinating facts and dates embedded into the sett! This tartan is intended to honour Sir Isaac Newton, an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author, a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His groundbreaking 1704 work, 'Opticks' is the focus for this tartan's asymmetrical pattern! The featuring of pattern widths of 17, 4, 12, 6, 6, 12, 4, 17 threads, reveals a geometric prismatic element when viewed at a 45-degree rotation – a tribute to Newton's prism and his pioneering experiments with light. Thread counts of ’84’ (Newton's age at passing) and ‘1704’ (the publication year of 'Opticks') weave historical reverence into the design and acknowledge his enduring legacy. The 7 monochromatic pinstripes in the sett represent the spectrum of light waves contained within white light, alluding to Newton's discoveries, and future colour variants of this tartan by the designer are in the works! 🍎 ⚡ ⚛️ 🌈
This tartan was designed by Steven Patrick Sim. See more of his work at The Tartan Artisan.
Isaac Newton was the greatest English mathematician of his generation. He laid the foundation for differential and integral calculus. His work on optics and gravitation make him one of the greatest scientists the world has known.
Opticks is a book by English natural philosopher Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704. (A scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706.) The book analyses the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behavior of color mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders. It is considered one of the great works of science in history. Opticks was Newton’s second major book on physical science.
For more on Isaac Newton, click the 1874 illustration of Newton using a prism to separate white light into the colours of the spectrum, watched by his Cambridge University room mate John Wickins.