'''Sir Isaac Newton''', [[Royal Society|FRS]] ([[4 January]] [[16431646]] – [[31 March]] [[1727]]) <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Old Style and New Style dates|OS]]: [[25 December]] [[1642]] – [[20 March]] [[1727]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small><ref>During Newton's lifetime, two calendars were in use in Europe: the '[[Julian Calendar|Julian']] or 'Old Style' in Britain and parts of Eastern Europe, and the '[[Gregorian Calendar|Gregorian']] or 'New Style' elsewhere. At Newton's birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642 by the Julian calendar but on 4 January 1643 by the Gregorian. Unless otherwise noted, the remainder of the dates in this article follow the Julian calendar.</ref> was an [[England|English]] [[physics|physicist,]] [[mathematician]], [[astronomy|astronomer]], [[alchemy|alchemist]], and [[natural philosophy|natural philosopher]], regarded by many as the greatest figure in the [[history of science]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Newton beats Einstein in polls of scientists and the public |work=The Royal Society |url=http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=3880 |accessdate=2006-10-25}}</ref> His treatise ''[[Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica]]'', published in [[1687]], described [[law of universal gravitation|universal gravitation]] and the three [[Newton's laws of motion|laws of motion]], laying the groundwork for [[classical mechanics]]. By deriving [[Kepler's laws of planetary motion]] from this system, he was the first to show that the motion of objects on Earth and of [[celestial mechanics|celestial]] bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws. The unifying and [[determinism|deterministic]] power of his laws was integral to the [[scientific revolution]] and the advancement of [[heliocentrism]].
In [[mechanics]], Newton also notably enunciated the principles of [[Momentum|conservation of momentum]] and [[angular momentum]]. In [[optics]], he invented the [[reflecting telescope]] and discovered that the spectrum of [[color|colours]] observed when [[white]] [[light]] passes through a prism is inherent in the white light and not added by the prism (as [[Roger Bacon]] had claimed in the thirteenth century). Newton notably argued that [[wave-particle duality|light is composed of particles]]. He also formulated an empirical [[Newton's law of cooling|law of cooling]], studied the [[speed of sound]], and proposed a theory of the origin of [[star]]s. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with [[Gottfried Leibniz]] for the [[history of calculus|development]] of [[calculus]]. He also demonstrated the [[binomial theorem|generalised binomial theorem]], developed the so-called "[[Newton's method]]" for approximating the zeroes of a [[Function (mathematics)|function]], and contributed to the study of [[power series]].
