Isaac Newton is the man who from a young boy to adult man declared his mission in life was to discover the forces of nature. In a book Isaac Newton by James Gleick published by Vintage Books, NY, 2004 Mr. Newton’s life is examined. Mr. Gleick is a science writer and from that perspective Mr. Newton’s life emerges. There are many people who look to the skies or watch balls being thrown or apples drop, but very few do all the work that needs to actually describe it and be able to relate laws to it. Mr. Newton was born in 1643 to a farmer, but his father passed on early. His mother remarried and it was possible for Isaac to learn and eventually go to Cambridge because he was not going to much of a farmer. At Cambridge, the powers that be recognized his abilities and made him a professor which allowed him to go after his mission in life.

Isaac’s gift was when he looked at the world, he had an extra sense organ for peering into the frame or skeleton or wheels hidden beneath the surface of things. He sensed the understructure. His sight was enhanced by the geometry and calculus he had internalized. He made associations between seemingly disparate physical phenomena and across vast differences in scale. When he saw a tennis ball at Cambridge, he saw the invisible eddies in the air and linked them to the eddies he had watched as a child in the rock-filled stream of his boyhood.

Newton was the first person to imagine the properties of nature and give them names – mass, gravity and velocity. In his laws of motion 1. Every body perseveres in its state of rest or moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed. 2. A change in motion is proportional to the motive forces impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed. 3. To any action there is always an opposite and equal reaction. In giving the laws he also said, there is more to do predictions to be computed and then verified. The method of science which everyone does – hypothesis, research, results, repeat, repeat, till the result happens or the hypothesis changes.

If Mr. Newton had remained at Cambridge he would have been celebrated for his scientific feats, however he was also interested in other things and in 1696 he was named Warden of the Mint with a salary of 500 lbs and a percentage of every pound coined. At this time, the Mint was redoing the coins in England which made him wealthy. For this wealth he redid the Royal Society as well as published more from his life’s work.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, most of us do not look at the stars and wonder how the laws of nature work, but we are glad someone does. In terms of investing, most of do not understand the daily ebbs and flows of the stock market, but we can easily invest in very good companies which make profits and pay dividends and over the years have greater wealth. The trick is buy and hold companies that are in business for a long time. The dividends can either be reinvested or go into your account to diversify your holdings and even the market goes up and down, your dividends can keep growing. Ensure most of your wealth is in profitable companies and this will limit your losses.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.