Newton, Isaac

Cultural  

1. An English scientist and mathematician of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Newton made major contributions to the understanding of motion, gravity, and light (see optics). He is said to have discovered the principle of gravity when he saw an apple fall to the ground at the same time that the moon was visible in the sky. He also invented calculus. (See Newton's laws of motion.)

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Example Sentences

This comparison made sense if light were made of tiny particles, as Isaac Newton believed.

From Science Daily • Mar. 10, 2026

The Nuton name plays on Isaac Newton, the alchemist, as well as the hunt for “a new ton” of copper, which had become elusive via deal or discovery, Burley said.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 2, 2025

Demonstrate that their conspiracy theory is, say, disproved by the law of gravity, and they will conclude … that Sir Isaac Newton was “in on it” too.

From MarketWatch • Nov. 10, 2025

That’s to say, where rivers are recognised as alive, enlivening presences in story, art and law, rather than –– as Isaac Newton put it –– ‘brute inanimate matter’.

From Salon • May 28, 2025

Sickly, feeling abandoned by his parents, quarrelsome, unsociable, a virgin to the day he died, Isaac Newton was perhaps the greatest scientific genius who ever lived.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan