saac Newton
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Sir Isaac Newton
Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46).
Born
25 December 1642
[NS: 4 January 1643]
[1]
Woolsthorpe-by-
Colsterworth,Lincolnshire, England
Died
20 March 1727 (aged 84)
[OS: 20 March 1726
NS: 31 March 1727]
[1]
Kensington, Middlesex, England,Great Britain
Resting place
Westminster Abbey
Residence
England
Nationality
English (later British)
Fields
o Physics
o Natural philosophy
o Mathematics
o Astronomy
o Alchemy
o Christian theology
o Economics
Institutions University of Cambridge
Royal Society
Royal Mint
Alma mater
Trinity College, Cambridge
Academic
advisors
Isaac Barrow
[2]
Benjamin Pulleyn
[3][4]
Notable students Roger Cotes
William Whiston
Known for Newtonian mechanics
Universal gravitation
Calculus
o Optics
o Binomial series
o Principia
o Newton's method
Influences Johannes Kepler
Henry More
[5]
Polish Brethren
[6]
Robert Boyle
[7]
Influenced Nicolas Fatio de Duillier
John Keill
Voltaire
Signature
Life of
Isaac Newton
Early life
Middle years
Later life
Writing Principia
Religious views
Occult studies
V
T
E
Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (/njutn/;
[8]
25 December 1642 20 March 1727
[1]
) was an
English physicist and mathematician(described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is
widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in
the scientific revolution. His book Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical
mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to opticsand shares credit with Gottfried
Leibniz for the invention of calculus.
Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated
scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler's laws of
planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to
account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other
phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the
cosmos. This work also demonstrated that themotion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies
could be described by the same principles. His prediction that the Earth should be shaped as
an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by the measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and
others, which helped convince most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian
mechanics over the earlier system of Descartes.
Newton also built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on
the observation that a prismdecomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum.
He formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of
a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the
study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and
developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function.
Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member
of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England,
perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Beyond his work on the
mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical
chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after
his death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. He also served the British
government as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint.
Contents
[hide]
1 Life
o 1.1 Early life
o 1.2 Middle years
1.2.1 Mathematics
1.2.2 Optics
1.2.3 Mechanics and gravitation
o 1.3 Classification of cubics
o 1.4 Later life
o 1.5 After death
1.5.1 Fame
1.5.2 Commemorations
o 1.6 In popular culture
2 Personal life
3 Religious views
o 3.1 Effect on religious thought
o 3.2 End of the world
o 3.3 Alchemy
4 Enlightenment philosophers
5 Royal Mint
6 Laws of motion
7 Apple incident
8 Works
o 8.1 Primary sources
9 See also
10 References
11 Bibliography
12 Further reading
13 External links
Life
