Sir Isaac Newton ( 1643-1724), English physicist. Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire and was educated at Grantham and at Trinity College Cambridge. In 1665 he discovered the binomial theorem of mathematics. In the same year he returned to Woolsthorpe while the University was closed due to fears of the plague. In the next two years Newton created his three laws of motion, his theories of gravitation and optics and his mathematics of the calculus. In 1687 he published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in which most of classical mechanics is outlined. In 1704 he published his book Opticks, in which he described the dispersion of white light by a prism and his reflecting telescope among other things. This painting by Robert Hannah shows Newton in the orchard at Woolsthorpe, where legend has it he was inspired by a falling apple to explain gravitation.