university until the late age of 18, entering Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1661. Despite his mother’s wealth, his status was
that of a “sizar,” one who was financially subsidized by the
college, but who in exchange was expected to work as a servant
for the more wealthy students. In 1663, Newton picked up
EUCLID’s Elementsfor the first time, and soon began to devour
mathematics books by WILLIAM OUGHTRED,RENÉ DESCARTES,
FRANÇOISE VIÈTE,JOHN WALLIS, and others. In 1665, after an
unspectacular four years in college, Newton graduated, and the
university suddenly closed because of the plague. Newton
returned to his family’s farm at the age of 22. Over the next year
and a half, away from academia, Newton’s mind was free to brew
up the scientific ideas for which he became famous. By the age
of 24, Newton had created calculus with his theory of fluxions,
and had discovered the laws of motion and the universal law of
gravitation. In 1667 Newton returned to the university (now
reopened) to work on his master’s degree, and reluctantly began
to share his ideas. Then in 1669, as Lucasian Professor, he began
his work in optics. Declaring that white light is actually made up
of a spectrum of colors, and concerned that this could cause
problems with refracting telescopes, he built a reflecting
telescope. In 1672 he donated it to the Royal Society, which
consequently elected him as a member and allowed him to
publish his first paper on the properties of light. Controversy
soon followed. Two mathematicians, Robert Hooke and
Christiaan Huygens, disagreed with Newton’s science, and
Hooke went so far as to accuse Newton of stealing his research.
The Jesuits also disagreed with his science, for different reasons,
and he soon received a series of violent letters. These attacks to
his character and his work were more than he could stand, and in
1678 Newton suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1684 Newton
began a serious dialogue with Edmond Halley about his ideas in
physics and astronomy, and Halley convinced him to publish. In
1687 Newton came out with Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica,or the Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy.Known as Principia,this work became Newton’s
masterpiece. The following year, politics and religion began to
interfere with the educational mandates of the university, and
King James II began to appoint unqualified Catholics to every
opening within the school, which Newton strongly and publicly
opposed as an attack on education. When William of OrangeNewton BIOGRAPHIES
Newton BIOGRAPHIES
Isaac Newton (Original
engraving by unknown artist,
Courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè
Visual Archives)