In answering that question, Newton theorised that everything in existence is attracted to everything else, and this attraction, the force of gravity, ties the universe together.
In this period of intellectual contemplation, Newton’s holistic approach enabled him to address the question ‘How does the universe work?’ Newton himself told the story that when he watched an apple fall from the tree outside his chamber window, he questioned why it falls straight to the ground. In later life, Newton stressed that these enforced absences were the most intellectually fruitful of his whole life: Whilst most of us are unlikely to come up with theories that change science and the world as we know it, it is inspiring what can be achieved, even in periods of isolation and change. What is different is how he set his mind to work in this period. Many town-dwellers, like Newton, retreated to the relative safety of the countryside. London lost roughly 15% of its population, and the villagers of Eyam, Derbyshire, became famous for their heroic quarantine to halt the spread of the disease. It spread rapidly throughout the country. The bubonic ‘Great Plague’ of 1665–6 was the worst outbreak of plague in England since the black death of 1348.
The similarity between the situation Isaac Newton found himself in Cambridge in 1665 and society today is striking.īetween the summer of 1665 and the spring of 1667, Isaac Newton made two extended visits to Woolsthorpe in order to escape the plague affecting Cambridge. Explore the period of intellectual endeavour, with extracts taken from Woolsthorpe’s guidebook by Patricia Fara.Īs coronavirus spread across the globe, most of us experienced a new normal, from countries in lockdown to people practising social distancing.
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