Perhaps due to this mechanical skill and the fact that he was a better student than farmer, it was decided to sent him to Cambridge University when he was nineteen. Before leaving Woolsthorpe, he became enganged to a local girl. However, even though he remembered her affectionately all his life, he withdrew from her and never married.
At Cambridge Newton became interested in mathematics. He read Euclides's Elements, Descartes's La geometrie, and Viete's work on algebra. He received his bachelor's degree in 1664, after an undistinguished four year of study. Later that same year, the university was closed for two years due to the Great Plague (a bubonic plague) and Newton returned to the family farm in Woolsthorpe to avoid exposure of plague. In those two years, he invented calculus (which he called 'the method of fluxions'), proved experimentally that white light is composed of all colors, and discovered the law of universal gravitation, in which he provided a single explanation of both falling bodies on earth and the motion of planets and comets. In his later years, Newton talked about discovering the law of universal gravitation while sitting under an apple tree at the farm. He said that he was wondering what force could hold the moon in its path when the fall of an apple made him think that it might be the same gravitational force, diminished by distance, that acted on the apple. Unfortunately, he choose not to publish any of his work from this period for many years.
He returned to Cambridge when the danger from the plague was over and studied optics and mathematics under Isaac Barrow, holder of Cambridge's Lucas chair in mathematics. Newton communicated some of his discoveries to Barrow, including part of his method of fluxions, and helped him prepared his book Optical Lectures for publication. After several years, Barrow retired and recommended Newton as his successor to the Lucas chair. Newton sent a paper on optics to the Royal Society (a professional scientific organization), where some found his ideas interesting and others attacked them vehemently. Newton disliked the ensuing argument so much that he vowed never to publish again.
Newton became quite neurotic, paralyzed by fear of exposing his discoveries and beliefs to the world. A colleague said that he was 'of most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper that i ever knew.' In early life, Newton abandoned the orthodox Christian belief in Trinity. He considered this to be a dreadful secret and tried to conceal it his whole life. He published his theories only under extreme pressure from friends. Once Edmond Halley, a famous astronomer and mathematician (for hom Halley's comets named), visited Newton at Cambridge and asked him what law of force would cause the planet to move in elliptical orbits. Newton immediately told him, to which Halley responded, "Yes, but how do you know that? Have you prove it?" Newton answered, "Why, I've known it for years. If you'll give me a few days, I'll certainly find you a proof of it." This exchange rearoused his interest in physics and astronomy, and he start writing up his discoveries, including his law of universal gravitation. The result was his first masterpiece, the three-volume Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy), published in 1678. This revolutionary work, published at Halley's expense, made an enormous impression throughout Europe. It totally altered the nature of scientific thought. Newton had used calculus extensively in the development of his work, but he wrote it without using any calculus because he wished to keep his calculus a secret.
Newton write three major papers on his calculus between 1669 and 1676. He did not publish the works but merely circulated them among his friends. In 1693, Newton learned that calculus become well known on the continent and that is was being attributed to Leibniz. At the insistence of his friends, Newton slowly began publish his three papers, which appeared between 1711 and 1736.
By 1712, the question of who really invented calculus and whether either mathematician had plagiarized the other had become matters of consuming public interest, and Newton, Leibniz, and their brackers began to attack each other. Leibniz and his followers went on to perfect and expand Leibniz's calculus. England disregarded this and all other work from the continent out of loyalty to Newton and as a result failed to progress mathematically for 100 years.
In his later years, Newton retired from mathematics and physics and turned his attention to alchemy, chemistry, theology, and history. He became Cambridge's representative in Parliament and then Master of Mint. Occasionally, though, Newton return to mathematics, Johann Bernoulli (a follower of Leibniz) once posed a challenging problem to all the mathematicians of Europe. Newton heard of the problem about six months after it had been posed, during which time no one had solved it, Newton solved the problem after dinner that same day and sent the solution to Bernoulli anonymously. Despite to anonymity, Bernoulli knew its source, saying "I recognize the lion by his claw."
Newton was well known for his ability to focus his concentration. Such ability was undoubtedly necessary, considering the fact that he totally reshaped the face of mathematics and physics. Stories of the effects of this concentration include the story of a chicken dinner to which Newton was invited by friend. Newton forgot about dinner and did not show up. Eventually, his host ate the chicken leaving the bones on a covered platter. Newton recalled the engagement later in the evening, arrived at the friend's house, lifted the cover to discover a consumed carcass, and exclaimed, "Dear me, I had forgotten that we had already dined."
Newton was knighted for his work at the mint and for his end of life, he appraised his effort, saying, "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." He was buried with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
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