Isaac Newton
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Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton at 46 in Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait
Born 4 January 1643 [OS: 25 December 1642][1]
Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England
Died 31 March 1727 [OS: 20 March 1727][1]
Kensington, London, England
Residence England
Nationality English
Field Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher,
and alchemist
Institution University of Cambridge
Alma mater Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Known for Newtonian mechanics
Universal gravitation
Infinitesimal calculus
Classical optics
Sir Isaac Newton, (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) [ OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March
1727][1] was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and
alchemist, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science.[2] His treatise
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal
gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics.
By demonstrating consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and this
system, he was the first to show that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial
bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws. The unifying and predictive power
of his laws was central to the scientific revolution, the advancement of heliocentrism, and
the broader acceptance of the notion that rational investigation can reveal the inner
workings of nature.
In mechanics, Newton also markedly enunciated the principles of conservation of
momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and
developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white
light into a visible spectrum. Newton notably argued that light is composed of particles.
He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and proposed
a theory of the origin of stars. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried
Leibniz for the development of calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial
theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a
function, and contributed to the study of power series.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Biography
o 1.1 Early years
o 1.2 Middle years
1.2.1 Mathematics
1.2.2 Optics
1.2.3 Mechanics and gravitation
o 1.3 Later life
• 2 Religious views
o 2.1 Newton's effect on religious thought
• 3 Newton and the counterfeiters
• 4 Enlightenment philosophers
• 5 Newton's laws of motion
• 6 Newton's apple
• 7 Writings by Newton
• 8 Fame
• 9 See also
• 10 Footnotes and references
• 11 Resources
o 11.1 References
o 11.2 Further reading
• 12 External links
Biography
The life of
Isaac Newton
Early life
Middle years
Later life
Writing Principia
Religious views
Occult studies
Early years
Main article: Isaac Newton's early life and achievements
Newton in 1702. Portrait by Godfrey Kneller.
According to the modern calendar, Isaac Newton was born on January 4th 1643 at
Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of
Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal
calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day 1642. Newton
was born three months after his father, also called Isaac, died. Born prematurely, he was a
small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a
quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new
husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal
grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his step-father and held some
enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry to the list of sins
committed up to the age of 19:
Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them[3]
According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:
Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The
King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At
King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually
became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storey, before he went off
to Cambridge University at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his
studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storey married someone else. It is said he
kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-
hearts" and never married.[4]
However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the
former Miss Storey - actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton
entertained "a passion" for Storey while he lodged at the Clarke house. From the age of
about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School,
Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was
removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-
Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a
farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with
the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who
persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education.
This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.
In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's
teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more
advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as
Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem
and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after
Newton had obtained his degree in 1665, the University closed down as a precaution
against the Great Plague. For the next 18 months Newton worked at home on calculus,
optics and the law of gravitation.
Middle years
Main article: Isaac Newton's middle years
Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.,
1889)
Mathematics
Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz developed calculus
independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle,
Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost
nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile,
Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's
notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after
1820 or so, in the British Empire. While Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of
the ideas from early stages until maturity, There is only the end product in Newton's
known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because
he feared being mocked for it. Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of
which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out
in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton
who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt
when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on
Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the
lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716. This dispute created a
divide between British and Continental mathematicians that may have impeded the
progress of British mathematics by at least a century.
Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any
exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane
curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to
the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ
coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated
partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation
formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series.
He also discovered a new formula for pi.
He was elected Lucasian professor of mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of
Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the
Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably
so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from
the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this
argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was
averted.
Optics
From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the
refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a
spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the
multicoloured spectrum into white light.
A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.
He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a
coloured beam and shining it on various objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether
it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we
observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not
the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of
colour.
From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the
dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a
Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using
Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to
produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider
diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his
reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which
he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's
ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men
remained enemies until Hooke's death.
Newton argued that light is composed of particles, but he had to associate them with
waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists
instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's
quantum mechanics restores the idea of "wave-particle duality", although photons bear
very little resemblance to Newton's corpuscles (e.g., corpuscles refracted by accelerating
toward the denser medium).
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit
forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his
interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of
attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of
Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason:
he was the last of the magicians."[5] Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from
his contributions to science.[6] (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction
between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a
distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also
Isaac Newton's occult studies.)
In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light.
He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter
was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical
transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another,...and may
not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their
Composition?"[7] Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic
generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).
Mechanics and gravitation
Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand written corrections for the second edition.
Further information: The writing of Principia Mathematica
In 1679, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the
orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with
Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum
(1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the
Principia.
The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was
published on July 5, 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley.
In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be
improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas
(weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of
universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination,
based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.
With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of
admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom
he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led
Newton to a nervous breakdown.
Later life
For more details on this topic, see Isaac Newton's later life.
Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.
In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal
interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian
dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John
Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the
Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) — were published after his
death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701,
but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and
request that the window be closed.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a
position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of
Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining,
somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy
comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became
perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton
held until his death. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took
them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to
reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in
1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold
standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law
of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the
wealth and stability of England. It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier
contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.
Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey
Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French
Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of
John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star
catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.
Newton died in London on March 20, 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His
half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt,[8] served as his hostess in social affairs at his house
on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle",[9] according to his letter to
her when she was recovering from smallpox. Although Newton, who had no children, had
divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.
After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury
in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain
Newton's eccentricity in late life.[10]
Religious views
Main article: Isaac Newton's religious views
See also: Isaac Newton's occult studies
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known
discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if
akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot
explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can
be done."[11]
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's study of the Bible and of the early Church
Fathers were among his greatest passions. He devoted more time to the study of the
Scriptures, the Fathers, and to Alchemy than to science, and said, "I have a fundamental
belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the
Bible daily."[12] Newton himself wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An
Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. Newton also placed the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which is now the accepted traditional date.
He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (See Bible
code). Despite his focus on theology and alchemy, Newton tested and investigated these
ideas with the scientific method, observing, hypothesising, and testing his theories. To
Newton, his scientific and religious experiments were one and the same, observing and
understanding how the world functioned.
Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C.
Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity
rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants.[13]
In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal
Society and in the court of Charles II).[14]
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He
believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz
and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be
understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect
and ordained, had to be regular.
Newton's effect on religious thought
"Newton," by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a 'divine geometer'
Newton and Robert Boyle’s mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist
pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted
hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians.[15]
Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and
metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism,[16]
and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to
demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."
The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical
elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle’s mechanical conception
of the universe. Newton gave Boyle’s ideas their completion through mathematical proofs
and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them.[17] Newton
refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God
that designs along rational and universal principles.[18] These principles were available for
all people to discover, allowed man to pursue his own aims fruitfully in this life, not the
next, and to perfect himself with his own rational powers.[19]
Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of
the grandeur of all creation.[20][21][22] But the unforeseen theological consequence of his
conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from
the world’s affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some
imperfection in God’s creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent
creator.[23] Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal"
by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the
world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo
Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil.[24]
On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the
millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but
finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so
hard to extinguish.[25]
Newton and the counterfeiters
As warden of the royal mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The
Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was treason, punishable by death by
drawing and quartering. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be
extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.
He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and
taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of
government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton
was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted
some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his
convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed. He later
ordered all records of his interrogations to be destroyed.[citation needed]
Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner.
One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in
the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to
posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing
tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to
inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt
his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking
false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about
Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He
immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to
Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with
conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and
quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows.[26]
Enlightenment philosophers
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors—Galileo,
Boyle, and Newton principally—as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the
singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day.
In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be
discarded.[27]
It was Newton’s conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally
understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and
Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights;
the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-
interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for
trying to fit history into Natural models of progress. Monboddo and Samuel Clarke
resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their
strong religious views of nature.
Newton's laws of motion
Main article: Newton's laws of motion
The famous three laws of motion:
1. Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest
tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform
motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
2. Newton's Second Law states that an applied force, F, on an object equals the time
rate of change of its momentum, p. Mathematically, this is written as
Assuming the mass to be
constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be
results in the famous equation which states that the acceleration of an
object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the
object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement,
mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force
in newtons (named in his honour).
3. Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
Newton's apple
A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in
Cambridge.
When Newton saw
“ an apple fall, he
found, in that slight
A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to
formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of
startle from his an apple from a tree. Cartoons have gone further to
contemplation, ‘tis suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its
said, a mode of impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity.
proving that the John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the royal mint and
earth turn’d round husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he
in a most natural wrote about Newton's life:
whirl, called
gravitation; and In the year 1666 he retired again from Cambridge to his
this is the sole mother in Lincolnshire. Whilst he was pensively meandering
mortal who could in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity
grapple, since (which brought an apple from a tree to the ground) was not
”
limited to a certain distance from earth, but that this power
Adam, with a fall,
must extend much further than was usually thought. Why not
or with an apple.[28]
as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so, that must influence her motion & perhaps retain
her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition.[29]
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth
that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the
force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the
Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was
responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".
A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's
Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton
recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned
by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always
descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go
sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote
in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the
first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These
accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in
his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.
Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's
School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and
transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National
Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their
gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen
growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton
lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale[30] can supply
grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-
fleshed cooking variety.
Writings by Newton
• Method of Fluxions (1671)
• Of Natures Obvious Laws & Processes in Vegetation (1671–75) unpublished work
on alchemy[31]
• De Motu Corporum in Gyrum (1684)
• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
• Opticks (1704)
• Reports as Master of the Mint (1701-25)
• Arithmetica Universalis (1707)
• Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of
Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published
posthumously in 1728.
• An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
Fame
French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest
genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we
cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish."[32] English poet Alexander
Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
“ ”
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a
letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676
"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants"
and then in a memoir later
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a
prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."[33]
