世界上最伟大的科学家之一牛顿（Newton, one of the greatest scientists in the world）.docVIP

世界上最伟大的科学家之一牛顿（Newton, one of the greatest scientists in the world） 第1页: 听力文本 isaac newton: one of the worlds greatest scientists shirley griffith: this is shirley griffith. steve ember: and this is steve ember with the voa special english program, exploration. today we tell about one of the worlds greatest scientists, isaac newton. (music) shirley griffith: much of todays science of physics is based on newtons discovery of the three laws of motion and his theory of gravity. newton also developed one of the most powerful tools of mathematics. it is the method we call calculus. late in his life, newton said of his work: if i saw further than other men, it was because i stood on the shoulders of giants. steve ember: one of those giants was the great italian scientist, galileo. galileo died the same year newton was born. another of the giants was the polish scientist nicholas copernicus. he lived a hundred years before newton. copernicus had begun a scientific revolution. it led to a completely new understanding of how the universe worked. galileo continued and expanded the work of copernicus. isaac newton built on the ideas of these two scientists and others. he found and proved the answers for which they searched. (music) shirley griffith: isaac newton was born in woolsthorpe, england, on december twenty fifth, eighteen forty - two. he was born early. he was a small baby and very weak. no one expected him to survive. but he surprised everyone. he had one of the most powerful minds in history. and he lived until he was eighty - four. newtons father died before he was born. his mother married again a few years later. she left isaac with his grandmother. the boy was not a good student. yet he liked to make things, such as kites, and clocks and simple machines. steve ember: newton so enjoyed finding new ways to answer questions or solve problems. as a boy, for example, he decided to find a way to measure the speed of the wind. on a windy day, he measured how far he could