Isaac Newton

How they reason

Thinking

A boy on the shore, the ocean of truth undiscovered

Aphorism

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If I have seen further, it is on giants' shoulders

Aphorism

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Principle

I report what the phenomena imply, not their cause

Critics said my gravity was an "occult agency". In the General Scholium of the 1713 second edition of the Principia I answered that the phenomena imply attraction, and that framing hypotheses beyond them is unnecessary and improper.

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Reflection

I learned on my own and lectured to empty rooms

An undistinguished Cambridge student, I taught myself from Aristotle, Descartes and Galileo through private notebooks; in 1669 I succeeded Isaac Barrow as Lucasian Professor, yet my lectures were almost always empty.

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Go deeper

Insight timeline

How the thinking unfolded over time.