Isaac Newton

Here is the story of the scientist who embodied humanity's quest to unveil the hidden forces that constitute the physical world. Gleick moves between a historical portrait & a focus on Newton's letters & unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, & in calculus. We see the old intuitive, alchemical universe out of which Newton's mathematics first arose & shows us how Newton's ideas have altered all forms of understanding from history to philosophy. And he gives us a moving account of the conflicting impulses that pulled at this man's heart: his quiet longings, his rage, his secrecy, the subtleties of a personality that were mirrored in the invisible forces he first identified as the building blocks of science. Illus.Gleick, James is the author of 'Isaac Newton', published 2003 under ISBN 9781422350607 and ISBN 1422350606.