If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire, more than ten weeks prematurely in the winter of 1642/3. His father died before he was born, but the family were not without money, and Isaac and his mother pottered on alone until she remarried a rector when he was three. Isaac, understandably, loathed his step-father. Less understandably, he later recorded that he had threatened to burn both his mother and step-father alive in an outburst of temper. His mother went on to have more children, but remained devoted to her eldest son.

After attending local schools, Isaac went off to board with an apothecary in Grantham and attend King's School, under the tuition of Mr Henry Stokes. Isaac was in the 'lowermost form' until an incident he would later recount to John Conduitt: one day on the way to school, a boy gave him 'a kick in the belly which put him to great pain'. Isaac challenged the boy to meet him in the churchyard after school, where they fought and Isaac apparently won. After that, the spark of competition was lit and he was determined to beat the boy in studies, which he soon achieved. He learned to draw, and filled the walls of his room above the apothecary's shop with sketches of ships he had designed, as well as animals and fantastic beasts. Mr Clarke the apothecary must have been fond of Isaac, or recognized his potential, as none of this, including Isaac's wild outbursts of temper stopped him teaching the boy about the 'Chymical' properties of the things on the shelves. The Clarkes let Isaac create a workshop on their property and in return, he built them an accurate sundial in their backyard, based upon pegs he drove into a brick wall, so they could see it from the house. He also constructed a water-clock for inside the house, which he adjusted in the mornings before he went to school. He made kites, models, toys and 'knick-knacks' and spent much time experimenting with liquids, until his mother took him home to have him trained up as a farmer. To say that Isaac had absolutely no interest in the life of a country gentleman would be an understatement. He liked mill-wheels and weirs, and windmills, but that was about it. Henry Stokes came to hear of his talented pupil's dilemma, and contacted Isaac's mother to suggest the completion of his education.

At Trinity, young Isaac was finally among people who wanted to learn, to think. Although shy and stubborn, he still managed to make friends with John Wickins, who became his firm friend, room-mate and assistant for the next 20 years. Cambridge traditionally relied upon Aristotle but Isaac quickly disregarded him, and the curriculum in general, in favour of Descartes and Copernicus amongst others. He also continued to study theology and was extremely interested in dissecting ancient texts on Christianity and Judaism (he left a larger bulk of work on this than on science). Aged 22, Isaac 'discovered' binomial theory and began work on what would become infinitesimal calculus. Cambridge closed shortly afterwards due to the Plague and Newton went home to Woolsthorpe for the next two years, where an apple fell on his head and he had some incidental thoughts on optics which he tested on his own eyes and nearly blinded himself. Although many have observed Newton was unremarkable as a Cambridge scholar, he returned there as a Fellow in 1667, and in 1669 constructed the first functioning reflecting telescope, and was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, aged 26.

By this time, the other fellows were discussing his work and it was being circulated amongst the great thinkers of England. Newton appears to have held off publishing his more fundamental theorems, which went against him in later life, as others such as Leibniz were working along the same lines and published earlier. It has been said that he feared ridicule for his near-revolutionary thinking. By 1671, Isaac had been persuaded to demonstrate the telescope for the Royal Society. It caused an uproar of approval, and he was elected a Fellow soon afterwards, but Robert Hooke, Curator of Experiments, was critical, and he and Newton became involved in a bitter row that would continue until Hooke's death in 1703. Isaac vowed to publish nothing more, but continued to work in secret on his own alchemical experiments, installing a furnace in his and Wickens's rooms, along with elaborate apparatus. In 1675, Isaac came to London to petition the King for a release from taking Holy Orders (it was necessary to be ordained within 7 years of being made M.A. to remain as a Fellow). Charles IInd consented, and Newton was made exempt. At this time, Isaac also began an intensive study of the textual history of the Bible.

In 1683, Wickens had finally had enough, and wanted to marry. Isaac found another amanuensis, but things wouldn't be the same. In 1687, Newton finally published the first book of his Principia. Although few but the greatest European minds understood it, it propelled Newton into popular thinking as a celebrity genius. His lectures, which has previously been poorly attended, became full (although how good a speaker he was is in doubt) and he became a figure of adoration for bright young things.

Around 1693, Isaac had a breakdown. Always eccentric, he stopped sleeping and turned against his friends, saying they were trying to embroil him 'with woemen'. It is likely it was little more than a suggestion that Isaac would benefit from a little feminine company. He began a series of epic fallouts with the great thinkers of the day, mainly due to his erratic sense of morality regarding other scientist's unpublished works. By 1696, he had recovered and was appointed Warden of the Royal Mint, which necessitated a move to London. He took his job very seriously, much to the annoyance to those already there, who had carved out lucrative little niches for themselves. More enemies. Some time before 1700, his half-sister's teenage daughter Catherine came to live with him.

In 1703 Hooke died and Isaac succeeded him as President of the Royal Society and will hold the position until his death. In 1704 he published Opticks, his second masterwork, on the properties of light, and is knighted the following year. By this time, Isaac was getting older, and less prone to the huge tantrums that marked his earlier life. He had severed his ties with alchemical experimentation roughly upon his move to London, but his excessive use of mercury may well have exacerbated his temperament.

He continued to write, think and speak, and in 1710 he and Catherine moved from Jermyn Street to 35 St Martin's Street in Soho. Although still shy and moody, he was seen out and about at the coffeehouses. He revised his earlier works obsessively, and tried to sort out the controversy surrounding his and Leibniz's calculus discoveries. The young Huguenot J.T. Desaguliers became Isaac's assistant and Demonstrator at the Royal Society, but by this stage, Isaac regarded demonstrations as necessary only for 'vulgar' minds. His later years were marked by misfortune (the South Sea Bubble cost him tens of thousands of pounds) and decline (due to kidney stones), although his mind remained as sharp as ever. He presided over his last Royal Society meeting in at the end of February 1727, and went home in agony. He had recorded that around 1724 he had passed two kidney stones that appeared broken, but together would have been the size of a pea. The type of agony this would have caused is almost unknown in the Western world in the 21stC. Passing a kidney stone the size of a grain of rice rates about 8 or 9/10 on the pain scale, with 10 being full body trauma like a massive car accident. Anyone who has passed a gallstone, which rates about a 7, will understand. Kidney and bladder stones cause other infections inside the body, and Newton became prone to debilitating 'voiding' which left him much weakened. Despite the attentions of famous 'stone doctor' Cheselden, the next bout of stones would kill him at the end of March 1727. He died after refusing the last rites, declaring that he did not need them.

Isaac Newton's titanic intellect left little room for the man he was; consumed by the need to discover, he lost much of his humanity. He died without issue and some assert he was a virgin, but I hope this isn't true. After his death his family were marked out only by their intellectual mediocrity, highlighting again Newton's incredible individuality. Newton's own words at the beginning of this post lead people to mark him as a modest man but his actions speak of an obsessive, selfish and driven. He did not tolerate anyone who stood in his way, yet there is a glamour to his over-riding curiosity and his astonishing mind. In many ways, Isaac Newton never stopped being the small boy who made kites and drew on his bedroom walls, no matter how exalted his later stage became:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem only to have been a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all before me.