Issac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton
Portrait of Newton by Godfrey Kneller
Born	25 December 1642 [NS: (1643-01-04)4 January 1643] Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England
Died	20 March 1726/7 (aged 84) [OS: (1726-03-20)20 March 1726  NS: (1727-03-31)31 March 1727] Kensington, Middlesex, England
Resting place	Westminster Abbey
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for	Newtonian mechanics Universal gravitation Calculus Newton's laws of motion Optics Binomial series Principia Newton's method
Awards	FRS (1672) Knight Bachelor (1705)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics Natural philosophy Alchemy Theology Mathematics Astronomy Economics
Institutions	University of Cambridge Royal Society Royal Mint
Academic advisors	Isaac Barrow Benjamin Pulleyn
Notable students	Roger Cotes William Whiston
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Sir Isaac Newton PRS (/ˈnjuːtən/; 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian and physicist (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Newton also made pathbreaking contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar System and demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's theoretical prediction that the Earth is shaped as an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, thus convincing most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over the earlier system of Descartes.