Isaac Newton

English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton was the most dominating figure of the scientific revolution of the 17th century. His contributions to science are so important that “Newtonianism,” became the leading paradigm of all sciences till the advent of modern physics. His great work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica is the single most important work in the transformation of early modern natural philosophy into modern physical science.

In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the phenomena of colours into the science of light and laid the foundation for modern physical optics. Newton held that light consists of material corpuscles in motion. Newton’s most important contribution in optics is about colours. He realized that light is not simple and homogeneous—it is instead complex and heterogeneous and the phenomena of colours arise from the analysis of the heterogeneous mixture into its simple components. Because he believed that chromatic aberration could never be eliminated from lenses, Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope.

In mechanics, Newton proposed the three laws of motion, the basic principles of classical mechanics, and formulated the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the discoverer of the infinitesimal calculus. Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), 1687, was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science.

This work is not only Newton’s masterpiece but also the fundamental work for the whole of modern science. He became a dominant figure in Britain almost immediately following publication of his Principia, with the consequence that “Newtonianism” had become firmly rooted there within the first decade of the eighteenth century. As the promise of the theory of gravity became increasingly substantiated, Newton became an equally dominant figure on the continent, and “Newtonianism,” became the dominant theme there too