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Sir Isaac Newton is universally regarded as one of the giants of physics
and mathematics. He is well known for discovering the laws of motion
and gravity and for inventing calculus, but he also proved the Binomial
Theorem and the laws of optics, and developed methods for solving polynomial
equations to any desired accuracy. He was born on Christmas Day, a few
months after the death of his father. After an unhappy childhood, he
entered Cambridge University, where he learned mathematics by studying
the writings of Euclid and Descartes. During the plague years of 1665
and 1666, when the university was closed, Newton thought and wrote about
ideas that, once published, instantly revolutionized the sciences. Imbued
with a pathological fear of criticism, he published these writings only
after many years of encouragement from Edmund Halley (who discovered
the now-famous comet) and other colleagues. Newton's works brought him
enormous fame and prestige. Even poets were moved to praise; Alexander
Pope wrote:
"Nature and Nature's laws
Lay hid in Night.
God said, 'Let Newton be'
And all was Light."
Newton was far more modest about his accomplishments. He said, "I seem
to have been only like a boy playing on the seashoreŠwhile the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Newton was knighted
by Queen Anne in 1705 and was buried with great honor in Westminster
Abbey.
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