Newton, Isaac

Newton, Isaac

A central figure in the foundation of modern physics, mathematics, optics, and the scientific method, Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was born in the Lincolnshire hamlet of Woolsthorpe on December 25. Newton matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1661, receiving there his B.A. (1665) and M.A. degrees (1668). He became a Fellow of the College in 1667, and in 1669, at the age of twenty-six, was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Election to the Royal Society followed in 1672. In 1696 Newton relocated to London, where he became Warden and then Master of the Royal Mint.He was elected President of the Royal Society in 1703 and knighted in 1705. He died on March 20 in London.

Newton's greatest discoveries and innovations came during his Cambridge years. In the mid-1660s he developed the calculus. His 1672 paper on colors confirmed the heterogeneous nature of light. In the early 1670s Newton constructed the first practical reflecting telescope. In the following decade, the mathematical physics of the Principia mathematica (1687) yielded spectacular results: the laws of motion, the inverse-square law of universal gravitation, elegant mathematics to underpin astronomy and physics, and the unification of terrestrial and celestial mechanics. In the three editions of this work, he also developed principles of an inductive method that still serve science in the early twenty-first century.

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