Newton

   , NEWTONIAN

   Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was born at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, and was educated at Grantham School nearby. He showed a propensity to invent but was considered a poor student. However, at Trinity College, Cambridge University, he showed exceptional ability in mathematics. According to one story, an instructor announced that he would lecture on Johannes Kepler's Optics. Newton got a copy of the book, and the nex day the instructor was amazed to learn that Newton had mastered the subject.

   Within two years after obtaining his degree, Newton discovered mathematical principles and began work on his theory of gravitation, the laws of which he was the first to state. The astronomical system that in the late seventeenth century displaced Copernicanism, and also the theory of gravitation, are known as the Newtonian Philosophy. Newton established the former and discovered the latter. He was responsible for many inventions and discoveries, including a reflecting telescope, integral and differential calculus, the binomial theorem, the method of tangents, and other important mathematical principles. During this period, Newton also began his investigations on the subject of gravitation. Newtonian is a concept referring to Newton's work in mathematics and on gravitation (in physics a newton is a standard unit of force). Newton was elected a fellow of the Royal So ety in 1672 and in 1703 became its president. He spent some time in arliament and was appointed warden of the Mint, later becoming master of the Mint. He was a bachelor and was considered a gentle and compassionate person. Although Einstein rejected Newton's explanation of gravitation, but not the facts of its operation, scientists believe that Einstein's work would have been impossible without Newton's discoveries. Newton's modest personality is well-demonstrated by the following from David Brewster's Memoirs of the Life Writing and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."