---
title: "Isaac Newton"
chunk: 2/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:07:12.165802+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== The King's School ===
From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School in Grantham, which taught Latin and Ancient Greek and probably imparted a significant foundation of mathematics. He was removed from school by his mother and returned to Woolsthorpe by October 1659. His mother, widowed for the second time, attempted to make him a farmer, an occupation he hated. Henry Stokes, master at The King's School, and Reverend William Ayscough (Newton's uncle) persuaded his mother to send him back to school. Motivated by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, whom Newton beat in a fight and humiliated, he became the top-ranked student, distinguishing himself mainly by building sundials and models of windmills.

=== University of Cambridge ===
In June 1661, Newton was admitted to Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. His uncle the Reverend William Ayscough, who had studied at Cambridge, recommended him to the university. At Cambridge, Newton started as a subsizar, paying his way by performing valet duties until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, which covered his university costs for four more years until the completion of his MA. At the time, Cambridge's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, whom Newton read along with then more modern philosophers, including René Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo Galilei and Thomas Street. He set down in his notebook a series of "Quaestiones" about mechanical philosophy as he found it. In 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became calculus. Soon after Newton obtained his BA degree at Cambridge in August 1665, the university temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague.
Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, his private studies and the years following his bachelor's degree have been described as "the richest and most productive ever experienced by a scientist". The next two years alone saw the development of theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation, at his home in Woolsthorpe. The physicist Louis Trenchard More writes that "There are no other examples of achievement in the history of science to compare with that of Newton during those two golden years."
Newton has been described as an "exceptionally organized" person when it came to note-taking, further dog-earing pages he saw as important. Furthermore, Newton's "indexes look like present-day indexes: They are alphabetical, by topic." His books showed his interests to be wide-ranging, with Newton himself described as a "Janusian thinker, someone who could mix and combine seemingly disparate fields to stimulate creative breakthroughs." William Stukeley wrote that Newton "was not only very expert with his mechanical tools, but he was equally so with his pen", and further illustrated how Newton's lodging room wall at Grantham was covered in drawings of "birds, beasts, men, ships & mathematical schemes. & very well designed". He also noted his "uncommon skill & industry in mechanical works".
In April 1667, Newton returned to the University of Cambridge, and in October he was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to take holy orders and be ordained as Anglican priests, although this was not enforced in the Restoration years, and an assertion of conformity to the Church of England was sufficient. He made the commitment that "I will either set Theology as the object of my studies and will take holy orders when the time prescribed by these statutes [7 years] arrives, or I will resign from the college." Up until this point he had not thought much about religion and had twice signed his agreement to the Thirty-nine Articles, the basis of Church of England doctrine. By 1675 the issue could not be avoided, and his unconventional views stood in the way.
His academic work impressed the Lucasian Professor Isaac Barrow, who was anxious to develop his own religious and administrative potential (he became master of Trinity College two years later); in 1669, Newton succeeded him, only one year after receiving his MA. Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and King Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument; thus, a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted. He was appointed at the age of 26.
As accomplished as Newton was as a theoretician, he was less effective as a teacher; his classes were almost always empty. Humphrey Newton, his sizar (assistant), noted that Newton would arrive on time and, if the room was empty, he would reduce his lecture time in half from 30 to 15 minutes, talk to the walls, then retreat to his experiments, thus fulfilling his contractual obligations. For his part Newton enjoyed neither teaching nor students. Over his career he was only assigned three students to tutor and none were noteworthy.
Newton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1672.

=== Revision of Geographia Generalis ===

The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge position included the responsibility of instructing geography. In 1672, and again in 1681, Newton published a revised, corrected, and amended edition of the Geographia Generalis, a geography textbook first published in 1650 by the then-deceased Bernhardus Varenius. In the Geographia Generalis, Varenius attempted to create a theoretical foundation linking scientific principles to classical concepts in geography, and considered geography to be a mix between science and pure mathematics applied to quantifying features of the Earth. While it is unclear if Newton ever lectured in geography, the 1733 Dugdale and Shaw English translation of the book stated Newton published the book to be read by students while he lectured on the subject. The Geographia Generalis is viewed by some as the dividing line between ancient and modern traditions in the history of geography, and Newton's involvement in the subsequent editions is thought to be a large part of the reason for this enduring legacy.

== Scientific studies ==