Newton: Brief Lives by Peter Ackroyd

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is said to have made his greatest contributions to science in 1665-66 while at his parents’ home in Lincolnshire escaping the Great Plague (which had closed the universities). It was at this fruitful time that he formulated calculus, hit upon the idea of gravity and performed experiments which showed that white light was made up of different coloured rays.

Newton wrote Principia, one of the most important books in the history of science, in which he proved the “laws of motion.” He was also interested in the movements of the planets and designed his own telescope, and was as passionate about astrology as he was about astronomy. Newton dabbled in alchemy, and used the Bible to work out that the date of the earth’s creation was 3,500 B.C.

Newton is a wonderful subject for a writer with Peter Ackroyd’s imagination and flair: the alchemist, the magician, the thinker light years ahead of his time. Einstein wrote of Newton: “In one person, he combined the experimenter, the theorist, the mechanic and, not least, the artist in exposition.”