Picture of Isaac Newton Courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann

Isaac Newton was an English scientist and mathematician who lived between 1642-1727. He had one of the most brilliant minds the world has ever known. Legend has it that seeing an apple fall gave Newton the idea that the same force that keeps us bound to the Earth also controls the motion of planets and stars.

Newton's contributions to science include the universal law of gravitation, modern laws of optics, and the development of calculus, a field of mathematics. He is also famous for his book, Principia Mathematica, in which he presents three laws of motion, one of which relates an object's mass and acceleration to the force being applied on it.