Newton, Sir Isaac

Newton, Sir Isaac (i642-1727), scientist, b. Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England.

In 1665, Isaac Newton was twenty-three years old and a student at Cambridge University. It was the year of the Great Plague. The University closed and Newton went home.

As he was sitting in the garden one day, he saw an apple fall from a tree and this made him think. Why did the apple fall to the earth? Eventually this led him to put forward the law of gravity, and to this he later added three laws of motion. From these can be calculated the paths of the planets around the Sun, the way the Moon affects tides, and many more things about the Universe.

Newton set these down in detail in a book, The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Some people say this is the greatest science book ever written.

Newton also showed that sunlight is made up of seven principal colors and invented a reflecting telescope.

He was brilliant at mathematics and made discoveries in that field, too. Newton became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University as a young man.

He was a Member of Parliament and was Master of the Mint from 1699 to his death.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society before he was thirty and Queen Anne knighted him in 1705.

Newton was a mild, pleasant man but he rarely laughed. He was absent-minded and often forgot meals when he was making notes about new ideas.

See Michael White Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer (Helix Books)