Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was an English mathematician, physicist, and theologian. Considered one of the greatest scientists and mathematicians of all time, he is also recognized for his contributions to the scientific method that transformed natural philosophy into the physical sciences we know of today.
Newton developed the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and others into a new insight of the mathematical nature of the world, culminating in the Scientific Revolution. Newton’s foremost contributions include his three laws of motion, the law of universal gravitation, the binomial theorem, the development of differential calculus, and the establishment of physical optics. He also created the first working reflecting telescope.
Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) gave a mathematical description of the laws of mechanics and gravitation and applied these to planetary and lunar motion. His Opticks (1704) records his optical experiments and theories, including his particle theory of light and the discovery that white light is composed of many constituent colors.
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A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
—Isaac Newton
Topics: Imagination
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
—Isaac Newton
Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
—Isaac Newton
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
—Isaac Newton
Topics: Discovery
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
—Isaac Newton
Topics: Knowledge, Vision
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
—Isaac Newton
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
—Isaac Newton
Topics: Truth, Discovery
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