Sir Isaac Newton

Besides his work on universal gravitation (gravity), Newton developed the three laws of motion which form the basic principles of modern physics. His discovery of calculus led the way to more powerful methods of solving mathematical problems. His work in optics included the study of white light and the discovery of the color spectrum. It was his experiments with light that first made him famous.

Sir Isaac Newton

When Newton is 16, his mother brings him home from King's School to learn to be a farmer. Newton wants to study instead, and he is eventually sent back to prepare for college. He enrolls at Trinity College at Cambridge in 1661.

Isaac Newton is born on Christmas Day in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, about 100 miles north of London. He is very weak at birth and isn't expected to live.