Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician. He is famous for his work on the laws of motion, optics, gravity, and calculus. In 1687, Newton published a book called the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in which he presents his theory of universal gravitation and three laws of motion.
Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope in 1668, he also developed a theory of light based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the colours of the rainbow. Newton also shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus.
Newton's ideas on light, motion, and gravity dominated physics for the next three centuries, until modified by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
