Introducing Isaac Newton Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived He studied many different subjects including physics math and astronomy His ideas changed how people thought about the universe Newton’s most famous discovery was gravity But he also figured out how things move from the smallest object to the largest planet He discovered that white light contains the colors of the rainbow He even invented his own telescope The Renaissance was an exciting time for scientists as they tried to find out how the universe and everything in it worked Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus 1473 1543 shocked everyone by saying that the Sun not Earth was at the center of our universe Italian physicist Galileo Galilei 1564 1642 then showed that Copernicus was right But until Isaac Newton came along no one knew that everything in the universe followed the same rules What was the Renaissance The Renaissance was a time in history when learning once again became as important as it had been in ancient Greece and ancient Rome It happened between the 14th and the 17th centuries in Europe
This painting by Godfrey Kneller shows Isaac Newton in 1689 at about the age of 46
A long time ago people thought that Earth and not the Sun was at the center of our universe Now we know that only the Sun is at the center of our solar system
Young Isaac Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day in 1642 near Grantham in Lincolnshire England He was born prematurely and was such a tiny baby that he was not expected to live Against the odds Isaac survived Sadly his father who was a farmer also named Isaac died three months before Isaac was born Isaac’s mother Hannah was now a widow with a new baby When Isaac was a very young boy his mother remarried Hannah’s new husband was a church minister named Barnabas Smith When Hannah went to live with Smith she did not take Isaac with her Instead she left him behind at the family home where his grandmother raised him Even though his mother returned home when her husband died years later Isaac never forgave her for leaving him
