Acclaim for James Gleick’s ISAAC NEWTON “An elegantly written, insightful work that brings Newton to life and does him justice.… Gleick proves to be not only a sound explicator of Newton’s science but also a capable literary stylist, whose understated empathy with his subject lets us almost see through Newton’s eyes.” —Los Angeles Times “The biography of choice for the interested layman.… [Gleick] makes this multifaceted life remarkably accessible.” —The New York Times Book Review “For the casual reader with a serious interest in Newton’s life and work, I recommend Gleick’s biography as an excellent place to start. It has three important virtues. It is accurate, it is readable, and it is short. Gleick has gone back to the original notebooks and brought [Newton] to life.” —Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books “The best short life of science’s most perplexing figure.” —New Scientist “Written with enormous enthusiasm and verve and in a style that is often closer to poetry than prose. [Gleick] explains the fundamentals with clarity and grace. His ease with the science is the key to the book’s delight.” —The Economist “[Gleick is] one of the best science writers of our time.… He has exhumed from mountains of historical documents and letters a compelling portrait of a man who held the cards of his genius and near madness close to his chest. Gleick’s book [is] hard to put down.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Marvelously rich, elegant and poetic.… [Gleick’s] great talent is the ability to unravel complex ideas without talking down. Books on Newton abound, but Gleick’s fresh, intimate and beautifully composed account succeeds where many fail, in eloquently dramatizing the strange power of his subject’s vision.” —The Times (London) “Gleick … has transformed mainstream academic research into an exciting story. Gleick has done a marvelous job of recreating intellectual life in Britain around the end of the seventeenth century. He excels at translating esoteric discussions into clear, simple explanations that make sense to modern people.” —Science “Brilliant.… The great scientist is brought into sharp focus and made more accessible. Highly recommended.” —The Tucson Citizen “James Gleick … makes the most of his extraordinary material, providing us with a deftly crafted vision of the great mathematician as a creator, and victim, of his age.… [Isaac Newton] is a perfect antidote to the many vast, bloated scientific biographies that currently flood the market—and also acts as a superb starting point for anyone interested in the life of one of the world’s few undisputed geniuses.” —The Observer “Gleick … brings to bear on Newton’s life and thought the same clarity of understanding and expression that brought order to chaos in his first volume [Chaos: Making a New Science].” —The Daily Herald “Moving … [Gleick’s] biography is perhaps the most accessible to date. He is an elegant writer, brisk without being shallow, excellent on the essence of the work, and revealing in his account of Newton’s dealings with the times.” —Financial Times James Gleick ISAAC NEWTON James Gleick is an author, reporter, and essayist. His writing on science and technology—including Chaos, Genius, Faster, and What Just Happened —has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in New York. ALSO BY JAMES GLEICK Chaos: Making a New Science Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Information Frontier Isaac Newton at forty-six, portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1689 (illustration credit Frontispiece) FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2004 Copyright © 2003 by James Gleick All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2003. Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows: Gleick, James. Isaac Newton / James Gleick p. cm. 1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727. 2. Physicists—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title. QC16.N7 .G55 2003 530’.092—dc21 [B] 2002192696 Vintage eISBN: 978-0-30742643-7 www.vintagebooks.com Author’s Web site address: www.around.com v3.1_r1 To Toby, Caleb, Asher, and Will