A diagram to define the motion of water running out of a cylindrical vessel through a hole made at the bottom. From The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Isaac Newton. Newton (1642-1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian. His monograph Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton describes universal gravitation and the three laws of motion.