isaac Newtonquotes

1643 – 1727

Portrait of Newton in 1689 by Godfrey KnellerSir Isaac Newton’s mother wanted him to become a farmer, but the English boy was miserable at it, so thanks to the urging of an uncle, Newton was allowed to go back to school, and the world is indebted to him for it. As one of the greatest minds of the Scientific Revolution, Newton’s principles of gravity were unparalleled, and his book Principia became one of the most important scientific books on physics ever written.

It was during his own private research, back home on the farm after college, that Newton developed infinitesimal calculus, his theories on light and color and much of his research on gravity. Fear of the Black Plague at Cambridge, his alma mater, drove him home and kept him healthy while his fiery genius set to work inventing, developing, testing, and theorizing. Newton was foremost a mathematician and physicist, but interestingly enough spent a number of years fascinated and focused on alchemy, or the transformation of matter, which is now considered a pseudoscience.

Isaac Newton rose to international and unchallenged fame in his lifetime, but even more so afterward. Though Albert Einstein later refuted some of Newton’s theories, Newton undoubtedly laid a framework for other scientists to push the limits of thought to discover just how vast the universe really is. He has been called an “extraordinary genius.” He was not only influenced by Plato and Aristotle, but also held in the same esteem and likened to their own great minds.

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