Scientist of the Week #2: Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 -1727) is most famous for understanding gravity, writing his fanous laws of motion and inventing a whole new branch of mathematics called calculus. Newton also split white light into its component colours using a prism. He was also very interested in religion and it is said that he wrote more about religion than he did about science! Newton is acknowledged as a genius. His genius was not in thinking that gravity caused the apple to fall. Apples had been falling that way for years! His genius was to watch the apple fall then look up to the moon and realise that the same force (gravity) was involved. The unit for force is named after Newton. In fact much of the physics syllabus is connected to Newton in some way.