Abstract This paper presents a brief biography of Isaac Newton. The paper begins with his family history from his early days in England to his student days at Cambridge. The paper then explores Newton and his various fields of interest: Optics; Astronomy; and the Laws of Mechanical Motion. The writer believes that Newton laid the foundation and standardized the scientific approach, which revolutionized the whole mode of human life.
From the Paper "Of all these laws Newton's most famous is the law of universal gravitation, which explained that every object in the universe exerts an attractive force (gravitation force) on every other object. Thus Newton's laws of mechanical motion in effect created a new perception in our understanding of the universe and the interrelation between the different heavenly bodies. Ernst Mach an eminent scientist had this to say about Newton's law of mechanics, ?All that has been accomplished in mathematics since his day has been a deductive, formal, and mathematical development of mechanics on the basis of Newton's laws.? [Michael .H. Hart, 44]. All these laws were published in his famed work "principia" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy?) in 1687."
