, prop. n. A famous English mathematician and natural philosopher, born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, Dec. 25, 1642 (O. S.): died at Kensington, March 20, 1727. His father, Isaac Newton, was a small freehold farmer. He matriculated at Cambridge (Trinity College) July 8, 1661; was elected to a scholarship April 28, 1664; and graduated in Jan., 1665. At the university he was especially attracted by the study of Descartes's geometry. The method of fluxions is supposed to have first occurred to him in 1665. He was made a fellow of Trinity in 1667, and Lucasian professor at Cambridge in Oct., 1669. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in Jan., 1672. Newton's attention was probably drawn to the subject of gravitation as early as 1665. The story of the fall of the apple was first told by Voltaire, who had it from Mrs. Conduitt, Newton's niece. Kepler had established the laws of the planetary orbits, and from these laws Newton proved that the attraction of the sun upon the planets varies inversely as the squares of their distances. Measuring the actual deflection of the moon's orbit from its tangent, he found it to be identical with the deflection which would be created by the attraction of the earth, diminishing in the ratio of the inverse square of the distance. The hypothesis that the same force acted in each case was thus confirmed. The success of Newton's work really depended on the determination of the length of a degree on the earth's surface by Picard in 1671. The universal law of gravitation was Completely elaborated by 1685. The first book of the "principia" or "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" Was presented to the Royal Society, April 28, 1686, and the entire work was published in 1687. In 1689 he sat in Parliament for the University of Cambridge, and at this time was associated with John Locke; in 1701 he was reelected. When his friend Charles Montagu (afterward earl of Halifax) was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, Newton was made warden of the mint, and in 1699 master of the mint. The reformation of English coinage was largely his work. The method of fluxions, which he had discovered, was employed in the calculations for the "Principia," but did not appear until 1693, when it was published by Wallis. It also appeared in 1704 in the first edition of the "Optics." On Feb. 21, 1699, he was elected foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Society, and held the office till his death.
Newton was buried in Westminster Abbey on 28 March, eight days after his death. His grave is close to a monument in the Abbey erected in his honor. The Latin inscription reads: Hic depositum est, quod mortale fuit Isaaci Newtoni. This may be translated as “Here lies that which was mortal of Isaac Newton”. Before the funeral his body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber and his coffin was followed to its grave by most of the Fellows of the Royal Society. The Lord Chancellor, two dukes and three earls were pall bearers.
Newton is most commonly known for his conception of the law of universal gravitation, but his other discoveries and inventions in mathematics (e.g. the binomial theorem, differential and integral calculus), optics, mechanics, and astronomy place him at the very forefront of all scientists. His study and understanding of light, the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668), and his revelation in his Principia of the mathematical ordering of the universe are all represented on his monument in Westminster Abbey. Century Dictionary 1906, http://westminster-abbey.org [ PJC ]