![]() In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.Īs Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.Īs a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. ![]() Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. The following information came from Microsoft Encarta. Special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for their contribution to our site. Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences
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