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Person1643 – 1727

Isaac Newton

Also called: Newton, Sir Isaac Newton

English physicist and mathematician whose Principia set out the laws of motion and universal gravitation, completing the Scientific Revolution

He was born on a Lincolnshire farm after his father’s death. When plague closed Cambridge University, he returned home in 1665–1666 and there conceived calculus, his theory of light and the germ of universal gravitation — his “miraculous years”. Using prisms he showed that sunlight is made of light of many colours, and he built a reflecting telescope. Later, as Master of the Mint, he pursued counterfeiters, and in 1705 he was knighted. He also devoted many years to alchemy and the study of the Bible.

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2 related events

  1. 1
    1660Founding of the Royal Societyrelated figure

    In 1660 London scientists formed a society to investigate nature by experiment, which received a charter from Charles II in 1662 and became the Royal Society.

  2. 2
    1687Newton’s Principiaauthor

    In 1687 Newton published the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia), explaining the motions of heaven and earth alike by three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation — the culmination of the Scientific Revolution.

Themes this person appears in

  • Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment and the English Revolutions1543 – 1796

    The Scientific Revolution from Copernicus to Newton, parliamentary government in England won through the Puritan and Glorious Revolutions, and the Enlightenment that sought to remake society by reason — the groundwork of the civic revolutions and the Industrial Revolution