Isaac Newton

 

Isaac Newton, in full Sir Isaac Newton, of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, died March 20, 1727, in London. He was an English physicist and mathematician who was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the phenomena of colors into the science of light and laid the foundation for modern physical optics. In mechanics, his three laws of motion, the basic principles of modern physics, resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the original discoverer of the infinitesimal calculus. Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science.