Isaac Newton 1642-1727

English Mathematician and Physicist

Newton, who was born in the same year that Galileo died, is one of the most reknown scientist of modern times, rivaled only by Einstein. While Newton was attending Cambridge, the University was forced to close in 1664 because of the great plague. Newton returned to his home in the country and in the next year and a half made three major scientific contributions: the invention of the calculus, his studies of optics, and his principle of universal gravitation -- the principle that all objects in the universe attracts each other by a force proportional to their mass. It was this principle that allowed Newton to predict the orbits of planets.

The first of this work that Newton presented to the public was the work on optics. This work was criticised by the English physicist Robert Hooke and the Dutch scientist, Christian Huygens. Upset by the criticism, Newton decided that he would keep his other discoveries to himself.

In the meantime, Robert Hooke, boasted to the architect, Christopher Wren, and the astronomer, Edward Halley, that he had found the laws governing the movement of the planets. Wren saw that Hooke was wrong and offered a prize to anyone who could solve the problem. Halley posed the problem to Newton who immediately replied, "An ellipse, for I have calculated it." This led Halley to encourage Newton to publish his results. Three years later, Newton published the Principia, his most famous work.