Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)
Born the year Galileo died
at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, into a poor farming family.
Terrible farmer, sent to Cambridge University in 1661 to become a preacher. Instead, he studied mathematics.
Forced to leave Cambridge from 1665 to 1667 because of the great plague. Newton called this period the “Height of his Creative Power”.
Greatest works were accomplished while he was 24 - 26 years old!
One of the most influential people who ever lived
Newton’s Paradigm - now called “classical physics” - dominated Western thought for more than two centuries