---
title: "Isaac Newton"
chunk: 14/17
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"
---

Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25th December 1642, and died on 20th March 1726.
Science writer John G. Simmons ranked Newton first in The Scientific 100, based on a qualitative assessment in which he ordered the scientists according to overall influence, and described him as "the most influential figure in the history of Western science". Physicist Peter Rowlands described him as "the central figure in the history of science", who "more than anyone else is the source of our great confidence in the power of science." New Scientist called Newton "the supreme genius and most enigmatic character in the history of science". The philosopher and historian David Hume also declared that Newton was "the greatest and rarest genius that ever arose for the ornament and instruction of the species". In his home of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and President of the United States, kept portraits of John Locke, Sir Francis Bacon, and Newton, whom he described as "the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception", and who he credited with laying "the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences". The writer and philosopher Voltaire wrote of Newton that "If all the geniuses of the universe were assembled, Newton should lead the band". The neurologist and psychoanalyst Ernest Jones wrote of Newton as "the greatest genius of all times". The mathematician Guillaume de l'Hôpital had a mythical reverence for Newton, which he expressed with a profound question and statement: "Does Mr. Newton eat, or drink, or sleep like other men? I represent him to myself as a celestial genius, entirely disengaged from matter."
Newton has further been called "the towering figure of the Scientific Revolution" and that "In a period rich with outstanding thinkers, Newton was simply the most outstanding." The polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe labelled the year in which Galileo Galilei died and Newton was born, 1642, as the "Christmas of the modern age". In the polymath Vilfredo Pareto's estimation, Newton was the greatest human being who ever lived. On the bicentennial of Newton's death in 1927, the astronomer James Jeans stated that he "was certainly the greatest man of science, and perhaps the greatest intellect, the human race has seen". The physicist Peter Rowlands also notes that Newton was "possibly possessed of the most powerful intellect in the whole of human history". Newton conceived four revolutions—in optics, mathematics, mechanics, and gravity—but also foresaw a fifth in electricity, though he lacked the time and energy in old age to fully accomplish it. Newton's work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science.

The historian of science James Gleick noted that Newton "discovered more of the essential core of human knowledge than anyone before or after", and wrote further:He was chief architect of the modern world. He answered the ancient philosophical riddles of light and motion, and he effectively discovered gravity. He showed how to predict the courses of heavenly bodies and so established our place in the cosmos. He made knowledge a thing of substance: quantitative and exact. He established principles, and they are called his laws.
The physicist Ludwig Boltzmann called Newton's Principia "the first and greatest work ever written about theoretical physics". Physicist Stephen Hawking similarly called Principia "probably the most important single work ever published in the physical sciences". The mathematician and physicist Joseph-Louis Lagrange called Principia "the greatest production of the human mind", and noted that "he felt dazed at such an illustration of what man's intellect might be capable". 