Although there can be little room for argument about Newton's importance in the development of modern science, his achievements were not purely the product of his abilities. The intellectual climate of his times was a necessary ingredient and was, in part, the product of earlier thinkers - Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler being the most relevant to Newton's work. In this sense he was, indeed, standing on the shoulders of giants.
Once we admit that Newton's theories were ideas whose time had come, it follows that Newton himself was not essential to the formulation of those theories. If, for instance, he had remained in Cambridge during the plague years of 1665 to 1667 instead of returning to the relative safety of his home in Lincolnshire (a period which was, coincidentally, the most creative of his life) and if he had died as result, the underlying principles of motion and gravity would have been discovered by someone else, and probably not very much later than they were by Newton. Rem
2006-08-13
22:28:54
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keerthan
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Physics