I INTRODUCTION
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of
the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe,
near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered
Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College
in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at
the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge
years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he
singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague
in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to
three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.
