1A list of the most influential people of all time wouldn't be complete without Sir Isaac Newton.
2Newton's laws are tied to almost everything we see in everyday life.
3They help us understand how cars work,
4how baseballs move, how anything moves.
5Yet there was a secret side to the 17th century scientist which will become clear by the end of this story.
6By his mid-20s, Newton had already invented calculus.
7Not bad for the son of an illiterate farmer.
8He would never meet his father who died three months before his birth on Christmas day 1642
9in the small English village of Woolsthorpe Manor in the county of Lincolnshire.
10He was a premature baby and so small he was later told he could fit inside a quart mug.
11He barely survived.
12When Newton was three, his mom remarried and moved to a nearby village to live with a wealthy clergyman.
13Newton was left behind in the care of his grandparents.
14That abandonment scarred him.
15Years later, he wrote a list of his sins, recalling an outburst from childhood:
16"Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them."
17He was a curious child - more interested in mechanics than making friends.
18He carved this sundial as a nine-year-old.
19When he was 12, he enrolled at a local grammar school.
20His signature can still be seen by a windowsill of the King's School today.
21After the death of his stepdad,
22his mother tried to remove him from school so he could be a farmer - a prospect that he dreaded.
23Luckily, the schoolmaster convinced his mother to send him back to class
24where he gained the knowledge necessary to enter the University of Cambridge in 1661,
25paying his way by working as a valet.
26Although he studied the works of the ancient Greek philosophers,
27he questioned their theories writing in his notebook in Latin:
28"Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth."
29He vowed to find the truth through rigorous scientific experimentation.
30His time as an undergrad was unremarkable
31but the extraordinary circumstances that happened next would set the stage for his greatest achievements.
32Shortly after receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1665,
33the bubonic plague ravaged Europe and would take the lives of an estimated one out of every four people in London.
34The pandemic forced Newton to work from his childhood home for the next two years
35and would lead to his most amazing breakthroughs.
36He used a prism to discover that white light and sunlight is made up of the colors of the rainbow.
37The widely held belief at the time was Aristotle's theory that color was a mix of black and white.
38To prove his theory, Newton built a reflecting telescope that used mirrors rather than lenses - leading to a more accurate image.
39That's a whole lot safer than the time he stuck a sewing needle into his eye socket
40to figure out if altering his eye shape would change his perception of color.
41Outside the family home was also an apple tree.
42The famous apple tree.
43Legend has it that Newton was sitting beneath a tree when an apple bonked him on the head,
44prompting him to think about gravity - the force that brings things down.
45There's no evidence to suggest the fruit actually fell on his head
46but he did ask the question that helped unlock our understanding of the universe:
47Could the same force reach all the way to the moon?
48He reasoned that the same gravitational pull kept the moon orbiting around Earth rather than wandering off
49and he believed this could also explain the movement of our planets in the solar system.
50The mathematics at the time wasn't sophisticated enough to determine the motion of these objects
51so Newton invented his own form of math: calculus.
52There was a dispute over who actually invented calculus.
53When German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz published his paper on calculus in 1684,
54Newton claimed he'd done the same work 20 years earlier.
55The thing is, Newton was so secretive that he hadn't actually made his efforts public
56because he couldn't stand the scrutiny of his work.
57When Leibniz appealed to the Royal Society in London,
58Newton wielded his influence as the scientific academy's president to get it to side with him.
59Most historians agree that the two discovered calculus independently.
60In 1667, after the end of the plague,
61he returned to the University to continue his research as a fellow.
62He was a workaholic.
63Sometimes, he'd forget to eat.
64Just two years later while still in his mid-twenties,
65he obtained one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.
66The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics later held by none other than Stephen Hawking.
67Yet he was indifferent to his students.
68One time, when no one showed up for class, he is said to have lectured to an empty room.
69His true passion lay in research.
70In 1687, he published his masterpiece:
71the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy - often referred to simply as Principia -
72one of the most important works ever written.
73This was his own first edition copy.
74It was here that he laid out his law of universal gravitation as well as his three laws of motion.
75The first describes how an object acts when no force is acting upon it.
76For example, a rocket stays still until a force is applied to it.
77The second law tells us that the more mass an object has, the more force it'll take to move it.
78A larger rocket requires more fuel to make it accelerate.
79The final law states that for every action there is a reaction.
80The engine produces hot exhaust gases which flow through the rear of the rocket.
81In reaction, a thrusting force is produced - pushing the rocket skywards.
82Newton may be considered one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known
83yet he actually contributed more words to theology.
84Newton believed the Bible provided the code to the natural world
85and by carefully studying the Holy texts, he could predict the future.
86He believed the apocalypse would happen in the year 2060 with the caveat:
87"It may end later but I see no reason for its ending sooner."
88He foresaw a period marked by war and catastrophe
89followed by the second coming of Christ and the beginning of a new, divine era.
90His religious side was largely hidden from the public all the way until 1936,
91when Sotheby's auctioned off his theological manuscripts.
92They ended up in the hands of a Jewish scholar before being given to the state of Israel.
937,500 pages in Newton's own handwriting.
94He did hold unorthodox views of Christianity by rejecting the Trinity -
95the belief in the father, son, and the holy spirit.
96And also fought against the attempt by King James II to catholicize the universities
97which got him elected as a Member of Parliament where he served two brief terms.
98Apparently, the only thing he said on the record was to request that a window be closed.
99Newton also had another unknown side to him.
100He spent 25 years secretly studying alchemy -
101the search for a method to turn common metals into gold.
102This is a manuscript where Newton wrote down a recipe thought to be a step toward concocting the mythical Philosopher's Stone
103now popularized in the Harry Potter series.
104Alchemists believed it could even help humans achieve immortality.
105Unfortunately, Newton may have gotten mercury poisoning from all the time spent in the laboratory.
106Examinations of his hair after his death found high levels of the toxic compound
107which scholars believe could explain his mental breakdown in 1693
108when he lost grip on reality.
109He wrote letters accusing the few friends he had of conspiring against him.
110He suffered from insomnia and oppression.
111The personal crisis lasted a year and a half.
112Not too long after he ended his 30-year career at Cambridge.
113In 1696, he moved to London to help run the Royal Mint.
114Britain's finances were in ruins because of the rampant practice of clipping off pieces of coins.
115Counterfeiting was also an issue.
116Newton used a scientific precision to improve the accuracy of coin-making as Warden and then Master of the Mint.
117He also took it upon himself to prosecute culprits, some of whom ended up hanging from the gallows.
118His later years would be spent further cementing his reputation
119and sometimes that meant trying to erase his rivals from the history books.
120Another ugly dispute involved a brilliant scientist named Robert Hooke
121who contended he was the one who gave Newton the notion that led to his theory of gravity and wanted credit.
122In response, Newton is accused of using his powers as President of the Royal Society to get rid of the only known portrait of Hooke.
123None exists to this day.
124Newton succeeded in getting the legacy he wanted.
125In 1705, Queen Anne of England knighted him during a royal visit to the University of Cambridge,
126making him Sir Isaac Newton.
127A complicated man who remained reclusive yet desperately wanted to be remembered.
128Who threw himself into his work at the cost of all hobbies and never married.
129Who was a man of science and also, a man of faith.
130Newton died in his sleep on March 20, 1727 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
131the Latin inscription on his grave reads: Here lies that which was mortal of Isaac Newton.
132His immortal legacy continues to mold our modern world.
133The English poet Alexander Pope was so moved by Newton's accomplishments,
134he wrote the famous epitaph: Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night.
135God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.