If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, more than ten weeks prematurely in the winter of
1642/3. His father died before he was born, but the family were not without money, and
Isaac and his mother pottered on alone until she remarried a rector when he was
three. Isaac, understandably, loathed his step-father. Less understandably, he later
recorded that he had threatened to burn both his mother and step-father alive in an
outburst of temper. His mother went on to have more children, but remained devoted to
her eldest son. After attending local schools, Isaac went off to board with an apothecary in
Grantham and attend King's School, under the tuition of Mr Henry Stokes. Isaac was in
the 'lowermost form' until an incident he would later recount to John Conduitt: one day on
the way to school, a boy gave him 'a kick in the belly which put him to great pain'. Isaac
challenged the boy to meet him in the churchyard after school, where they fought and
Isaac apparently won. After that, the spark of competition was lit and he was determined
to beat the boy in studies, which he soon achieved. He learned to draw, and filled the
walls of his room above the apothecary's shop with sketches of ships he had designed, as
well as animals and fantastic beasts. Mr Clarke the apothecary must have been fond of
Isaac, or recognized his potential, as none of this, including Isaac's wild outbursts of
temper stopped him teaching the boy about the 'Chymical' properties of the things on the
shelves. The Clarkes let Isaac create a workshop on their property and in return, he built
them an accurate sundial in their backyard, based upon pegs he drove into a brick wall, so
they could see it from the house. He also constructed a water-clock for inside the house,
which he adjusted in the mornings before he went to school. He made kites, models, toys
and 'knick-knacks' and spent much time experimenting with liquids, until his mother took
him home to have him trained up as a farmer. To say that Isaac had absolutely no interest
in the life of a country gentleman would be an understatement. He liked mill-wheels and
weirs, and windmills, but that was about it. Henry Stokes came to hear of his talented
pupil's dilemma, and contacted Isaac's mother to suggest the completion of his education.

At Trinity, young Isaac was finally among people who wanted to learn, to think. Although
shy and stubborn, he still managed to make friends with John Wickins, who became his
firm friend, room-mate and assistant for the next 20 years. Cambridge traditionally relied
upon Aristotle but Isaac quickly disregarded him, and the curriculum in general, in favour of
Descartes and Copernicus amongst others. He also continued to study theology and was
extremely interested in dissecting ancient texts on Christianity and Judaism (he left a
larger bulk of work on this than on science). Aged 22, Isaac 'discovered' binomial theory
and began work on what would become infinitesimal calculus. Cambridge closed shortly
afterwards due to the Plague and Newton went home to Woolsthorpe for the next two
years, where an apple fell on his head and he had some incidental thoughts on optics
which he tested on his own eyes and nearly blinded himself. Although many have
observed Newton was unremarkable as a Cambridge scholar, he returned there as a
Fellow in 1667, and in 1669 constructed the first functioning reflecting telescope, and was
elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, aged 26.

By this time, the other fellows were discussing his work and it was being circulated
amongst the great thinkers of England. Newton appears to have held off publishing his
more fundamental theorems, which went against him in later life, as others such as Leibniz
were working along the same lines and published earlier. It has been said that he feared
ridicule for his near-revolutionary thinking. By 1671, Isaac had been persuaded to
demonstrate the telescope for the Royal Society. It caused an uproar of approval, and he
was elected a Fellow soon afterwards, but Robert Hooke, Curator of Experiments, was
critical, and he and Newton became involved in a bitter row that would continue until
Hooke's death in 1703. Isaac vowed to publish nothing more, but continued to work in
secret on his own alchemical experiments, installing a furnace in his and Wickens's rooms,
along with elaborate apparatus. In 1675, Isaac came to London to petition the King for a
release from taking Holy Orders (it was necessary to be ordained within 7 years of being
made M.A. to remain as a Fellow). Charles IInd consented, and Newton was made
exempt. At this time, Isaac also began an intensive study of the textual history of the
Bible.

In 1683, Wickens had finally had enough, and wanted to marry. Isaac found another
amanuensis, but things wouldn't be the same. In 1687, Newton finally published the first
book of his Principia. Although few but the greatest European minds understood it, it
propelled Newton into popular thinking as a celebrity genius. His lectures, which has
previously been poorly attended, became full (although how good a speaker he was is in
doubt) and he became a figure of adoration for bright young things.
Around 1693, Isaac had a breakdown. Always eccentric, he stopped sleeping and turned
against his friends, saying they were trying to embroil him 'with woemen'. It is likely it was
little more than a suggestion that Isaac would benefit from a little feminine company. He
began a series of epic fallouts with the great thinkers of the day, mainly due to his erratic
sense of morality regarding other scientist's unpublished works. By 1696, he had
recovered and was appointed Warden of the Royal Mint, which necessitated a move to
London. He took his job very seriously, much to the annoyance to those already there,
who had carved out lucrative little niches for themselves. More enemies. Some time
before 1700, his half-sister's teenage daughter Catherine came to live with him.

In 1703 Hooke died and Isaac succeeded him as President of the Royal Society and will
hold the position until his death. In 1704 he published Opticks, his second masterwork, on
the properties of light, and is knighted the following year. By this time, Isaac was getting
older, and less prone to the huge tantrums that marked his earlier life. He had severed his
ties with alchemical experimentation roughly upon his move to London, but his excessive
use of mercury may well have exacerbated his temperament.

He continued to write, think and speak, and in 1710 he and Catherine moved from Jermyn
Street to 35 St Martin's Street in Soho. Although still shy and moody, he was seen out and
about at the coffeehouses. He revised his earlier works obsessively, and tried to sort out
the controversy surrounding his and Leibniz's calculus discoveries. The young Huguenot
J.T. Desaguliers became Isaac's assistant and Demonstrator at the Royal Society, but by
this stage, Isaac regarded demonstrations as necessary only for 'vulgar' minds. His later
years were marked by misfortune (the South Sea Bubble cost him tens of thousands of
pounds) and decline (due to kidney stones), although his mind remained as sharp as
ever. He presided over his last Royal Society meeting in at the end of February 1727, and
went home in agony. He had recorded that around 1724 he had passed two kidney stones
that appeared broken, but together would have been the size of a pea. The type of agony
this would have caused is almost unknown in the Western world in the 21stC. Passing a
kidney stone the size of a grain of rice rates about 8 or 9/10 on the pain scale, with 10
being full body trauma like a massive car accident. Anyone who has passed a gallstone,
which rates about a 7, will understand. Kidney and bladder stones cause other infections
inside the body, and Newton became prone to debilitating 'voiding' which left him much
weakened. Despite the attentions of famous 'stone doctor' Cheselden, the next bout of
stones would kill him at the end of March 1727. He died after refusing the last rites,
declaring that he did not need them.

Isaac Newton's titanic intellect left little room for the man he was; consumed by the need to
discover, he lost much of his humanity. He died without issue and some assert he was a
virgin, but I hope this isn't true. After his death his family were marked out only by their
intellectual mediocrity, highlighting again Newton's incredible individuality. Newton's own
words at the beginning of this post lead people to mark him as a modest man but his
actions speak of an obsessive, selfish and driven. He did not tolerate anyone who stood
in his way, yet there is a glamour to his over-riding curiosity and his astonishing mind. In
many ways, Isaac Newton never stopped being the small boy who made kites and drew on
his bedroom walls, no matter how exalted his later stage became:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem only to have been a
boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all
before me.