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Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, in 1642. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, until the 1665-1666 plague forced him to return to Woolsthorpe. Newton re-entered Trinity College in 1667, and in 1669 became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

Alchemy absorbed Newton until 1671-1672, when he presented a reflecting telescope and a new theory on the composition of white light to the Royal Society. From 1679, he extended his studies of dynamics. In particular, Robert Hooke (1635-1702/3) attracted Newton's interest in the dynamic aspects of planetary motion. In 1684, Edmond Halley (1656-1742) gave Newton a new impulse to study central forces acting on comets and planets. In 1687 Newton published his masterwork, the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, containing his exposition of the three principles of dynamics and a universal gravitation law.

Later, Newton participated actively in public life, becoming an elected member of the English parliament and Master of the Mint. He was also an affiliate of all the major European scientific academies, president of the Royal Society in 1703, and was made a Baronet in 1705. He died on March 20, 1727.

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