After receiving hisīachelor's degree in 1665, Newton stayed on for his He preferred reading to working, though, and it became apparent Woolsthorpe, and she pulled him out of school to help run the familyįarm. Newton was interested in Clark's chemical library and laboratoryĪnd built mechanical devices to amuse Clark's daughter, includingĪ windmill run by a live mouse, floating lanterns, and sun dials.Īfter Newton's stepfather died, his mother returned to King's School in Grantham, England, where he lived in the home ofĪ pharmacist (one who prepares and distributes medication) named Clark. After a basicĮducation in local schools, at the age of twelve he was sent to the
When he was three years old, his mother remarried and movedĪway, leaving Isaac in the care of his grandmother. He promoted a public image that placed him in the tradition of Galileo and Huygens, figures more narrowly focused on physico-mathematics than he was.Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, at Woolsthorpe, a village He kept most of his ‘esoteric’ beliefs, such as his rejection of the Trinity, hidden. Newton was partly responsible for this historiographical blindspot. His work on biblical chronology, interpretation of ancient prophecies and alchemy took up much of his intellectual efforts, but this work was largely ignored in the century after his death by an Enlightenment ideology occupied with painting its own past. Newton also engaged in activities that belong to neither modern science nor modern philosophy. His overall success in natural philosophy, which in his hands was applied mathematics, was largely due to his unparalleled skill as a mathematician. His work in pure mathematics was ground-breaking: he invented the calculus (independently of Leibniz) and advanced both algebra and analytic geometry. Newton discovered that white light was composed of rays from the entire visible spectrum and ingeniously measured a microscopic property of light that he called ‘fits’, a forerunner to our ‘wavelength’. To defend this programme from criticism, Newton and his successors portrayed their work as essentially autonomous from the philosophical demands of their contemporaries, thus creating modern science.Įven without the Principia, Newton’s place in history would have been guaranteed by his work in optics and mathematics. The Principia defined a programme for physical research that persists to this day, but its early reception, particularly among Cartesians and Leibnizians, was difficult. Nevertheless, Newton’s work helped precipitate the separation of physics from philosophy.
In his time, Newton was not perceived as a scientific outsider, but as an active and knowledgeable participant in philosophical debates. Leibniz, and showed sensitivity to the work of John Locke, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi and Henry More, to name just a few. He engaged with the work of Rene Descartes and G.W. Newton was an able and subtle philosopher, working at a time when science was not yet recognized as an activity distinct from philosophy. His significance for philosophers, however, extends beyond the philosophical implications of his scientific discoveries. His master-work on gravitation, the Principia, is often hailed as the crowning achievement of the scientific revolution. He invented the calculus, discovered universal gravitation and made significant advances in theoretical and experimental optics. Isaac Newton is best known as a mathematician and physicist.
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