At his birth on Christmas day, 1642, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, Newton was so tiny and frail that he was not expected to live. Yet despite his boyhood frailty, he lived to the age of 85. As a delicate child, he was a loner, interested more in reading, solving mathematical problems, and mechanical tinkering than in taking part in the usual boyish activities. Until the time Newton entered Cambridge University in 1661, there was little inkling as to …showed first 75 words of 482 total…

…showed last 75 words of 482 total…genius who ever lived, and the most fortunate; for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." However, Newton said of himself: "If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants." In poet Alexander Pope's Epitaph for Newton are these lines: Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light. Bibliography Encyclopedia