Newton, Isaac (1642–1727)
English physicist and mathematician who laid the foundations of physics as a modern discipline. During 1665–66, he discovered the binomial theorem, differential and integral calculus, and that white light is composed of many colours. He developed the three standard laws of motion (Newton's laws of motion) and the universal law of gravitation, set out in Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687), usually referred to as the Principia. He was knighted for his work in 1705.