Newton's Life and Work at a Glance Updated 10 December 2004. The following tabular summary of Newton's life and work does not pretend to be a comprehensive biography. It simply offers a quick and easy reference guide to the principal milestones in Newton's personal and professional development, and correlates them with contemporary events and publications that influenced him. For those wanting more detailed and nuanced accounts of Newton's life and the various aspects of his thought, there is a wealth of material available online and in print. It would be impossible to provide an exhaustive list of such resources, but most of the best examples are listed on our Links page (for online material) and our Bibliography (for books and articles in print). Note on dates: During Newton's lifetime, two calendars were in use in Europe: the 'Julian' or 'Old Style' in Britain and parts of Eastern Europe, and the more accurate 'Gregorian' or 'New Style' elsewhere. The difference between them lay in their attitude to leap years. At Newton's birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642 by the Julian calendar but on 4 January 1643 by the Gregorian. On either 19 February/1 March 1700 or 29 February/11 March 1700 (depending on which calendar is used to measure the gap), this discrepancy rose to eleven days, because there was no 29 February 1700 in the Gregorian calendar. Since some reference sources use one calendar, some the other, and some a mixture of both, this can cause considerable confusion. In the interests of clarifying apparent discrepancies with other sources, both options are given here wherever a particular date is specified. | |
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