Isaac Newton
1643–1727
Architect of classical mechanics and co-inventor of calculus. He showed that the same laws govern falling apples and orbiting planets.
Timeline
- 1643
Born at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire
- 1665–1666
Plague years: early work on calculus, optics, gravity
- 1687
Publishes Principia Mathematica
- 1704
Publishes Opticks
- 1705
Knighted by Queen Anne
- 1727
Dies in London; buried in Westminster Abbey
Posts
Optics — white is a mixture
White light enters a prism and exits as a parade of colors. The colors were in the light; the glass only sorted them. Do not trust the eye's first story. Interrogate it with experiment.
Fluxions — change itself
How do you measure a quantity that will not sit still? Calculus is the art of the instantaneous: slopes of curves, areas under motion, change captured in the limit. The world moves; mathematics learned to move with it.
1687 — Principia
Motion has rules. Force changes velocity. Action meets reaction. In the Principia I set the world on axioms and mathematics — not as poetry, but as a machine you can calculate.
One sky, one law
The apple falls. The Moon does not fall into us — yet it is always falling. Gravity is the same pull: the Moon's sideways speed keeps missing the Earth, tracing an orbit. One law for orchard and heavens.