Isaac Newton

1642-1727. Scientist and philosopher.

Came from humble origins, went to Cambridge and staid there as don. Famous as the leading scientist of his age, writing on optics, mathematics, the laws of gravity. President of the Royal Society. Alexander Pope expressed the admiration of society for Newton thus:

"Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night;
God said Let Newton be! and all was Light." (Quoted in Sambrook 2)

Many people popularised Newton’s ideas in the 18th century. There were public lectures on science in coffee houses. Joseph Addison wrote about Newton in his famous weekly journal The Spectator. There was even a Newton for Ladies.

Mathematics

One of Newton's most important achievements was the establishment of the differential calculation. Concerning this issue, people are still quarrelling whether this method was first invented by Newton or the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) (actually, they created it independently of each other). However, in his Philosophia naturalis principa mathematica from 1687, Newton deduced his revolutionary findings on the laws of mechanics via average geometrics instead of differential calculation for fear that this new and still unknown method of calculation might hinder his readers even more from accepting his results.

The Mint

In 1696, Charles Montague, Lord Halifax, attained that Newton became Warden of the Mint. Circumstances prevented this employment to be no more than a sinecure (in other words: Newton really did do some important work while holding the post): due to the growing problem of conterfeiting, Parliament decided to coin the English currency completely anew. Eventually, Newton introduced that coins should be coinaged also at the brim, which would make counterfeiting almost impossible. Different biographers are astonished that a chaotic person like Newton (who was used to keep irregular hours and slept only overpowered by fatigue) showed such an organizing ability in his office as a Warden. In 1700, after very successive trials against several forgers, Newton was appointed Master of the Mint. He held this office until his death in 1727.

Sources

• Berlinski, David. Der Apfel der Erkenntnis. Sir Isaac Newton und die Entschlüsselung des Universums. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2002.
• Sambrook, James. The Eighteenth Century. The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1700-1789. London: Longman, 1986.
• Westfall, Richard. Never at a rest. A biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
• Oxford Companion to English Literature.