Sir IsaacNewton “Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night God said ‘Let Newton be!’ And all was light.” - Alexander Pope

His Formative Years Born on December 25, 1642 (January 4, 1643) in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England Raised by his grandparents Pulled out of school at 14 to run the family farm Wasn’t good at farming, so they sent him back to school

Schooling Entered Trinity College at Cambridge University at age 18 and began studying to become a minister Graduated at age 23 Returned to the farm because of the Black Death He got bored and ended up working on the binomial theorem, light, telescopes, calculus, and theology

Calculus Started developing Calculus as early as 1666 but never really got around to publishing much In about 1668, Wilhelm Leibniz began developing very similar ideas and published them before Newton’s published his work Arguing ensued (Leibniz used dy/dx notation; Newton used ẏ)

IsaacNewton He was an English physicist, mat hematician, astronomer,  natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian and one of the most influential men in human history In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague.

Optics Discovered that light is made up of a spectrum of colors Made the first telescope that used a curved mirror instead of lenses Believed that light was made up of “corpuscles” rather than waves (Hooke and Huygens disagreed) Didn’t publish any of this until the after the death of Hooke in 1703

Apples and Stuff Formulated Newton’s Laws Proved that the force of gravity is inversely proportional to distance squared After conquering gravity, motion and optics, decided to work on changing lead into gold

Religious Views Wrote a book about the fall of Christianity in the 4th Century A.D. “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being ... This Being governs all things ... as Lord of all. . . Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.” His religious ideas got him in trouble because he taught at a church-run university

Newton's telescope A replica of Isaac Newton's telescope of 1672. This was a new design of telescope - the Newtonian reflector. At 6 inches in diameter, it was also one of the largest telescope of its day. Newton's work on optics and splitting white light, led him to believe that all refracting telescopes would suffer from chromatic aberration. His new design of reflecting telescope minimised this problem. However, due to problems with accurately grinding the mirror, Newton's telescope actually caused more image distortions than other contemporary telescope and more than a century passed before reflecting telescope became popular. Newton presented the original telescope to the Royal Society in 1672 and was admitted as a fellow of the society in the same year. This replica is in the the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.

Newton showed that white light is composed of light of all colors Newton showed that white light is composed of light of all colors. He used a glass prism to illustrate this.

Newton's own copy of his Principia Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition Newton's Principia

Newton’s three Universal Laws of Motion were a giant first in the history of science. Nothing like them had been seen before. Before Newton, men observed nature and tried to describe nature in geometric (mathematical) terms. After Newton, we seek the fundamental laws. Then a particular problem is solved by using mathematics with the fundamental laws.

Newton Derives Kepler’s Law of Areas Line from the sun to the planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times

Newton Isaac Newton in old age in 1712, portrait by Sir James Thornhill

Newton enjoyed great fame in his final years He was recognized throughout Europe as the most outstanding mathematician – scientist of his time (or maybe all time)

Newton statue on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey

"Threatening my [step-]father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." --From a list of his sins made by Isaac Newton at age 19. "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth." --Head of Newton's Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae (Certain Philosophical Questions), ca. 1664.

Newtonian Trivia Became Master of the Royal Mint in 1699 First scientist to be knighted for his work (1708) Elected President of the Royal Society every year from 1703 to 1727 Member of Parliament (1689-1690) Died in 1727