Born in Woolsthorpe, England, he was one of the greatest geniuses of all time.
His achievements, many of which were accomplished during a two-year period beginning when
he was twenty-two years old, include the binomial theorem for negative and fractional exponents,
the Differential and Integral Calculus (independently of Leibniz of Germany), the law of universal
gravitation and the discovery that sunlight may be resolved into the colours of the rainbow when
passed through a prism.In 1687, after eighteen months of total concentration, he published the Principia, one of the supreme achievements of the human mind. In this mammoth book he gave the first mathematical treatment of wave motion, deduced Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his law of gravitation, explained the path of comets (Edmund Halley, of Halley's comet, encouraged him to write the Principia), calculated the masses of the earth and sun, and founded the theory of tides.
Often, the discoveries of this genius became known only through casual conversation, in contrast with Leibniz, the co-founder of the Calculus.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), born in Germany, founded the Berlin Academy of
Sciences and one of the first scientific journals to disseminate the knowledge of the day.
He himself had an active correspondence with the Bernoullis. Although Newton and Leibniz did correspond,
it was Leibniz who freely discussed his methods. This attitude helped to pass the leadership in applications
of the Calculus to the European continent for the next 200 years.