Sir Isaac Newton (December 25, 1642 - March 20, 1726/27) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. .Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum.

Author Biography

Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA(Scot) FSSA MICE (December 11, 1781 - February 10, 1868) was a Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, writer, historian of science and university principal. Most noted for his contributions to the field of optics, he studied the double refraction by compression and discovered the photoelastic effect, which gave birth to the field of optical mineralogy. For his work, William Whewell dubbed him the "Father of modern experimental optics" and "the Johannes Kepler of Optics."