This theory would be followed by many others which would shake the very foundation of societal belief. One of the most influential of these has been Newton's theories of gravity. his theory which would revolutionize the way that the world thought. It would tear at the fabric of their very being for it challenged everything that they had ever believed. Although such findings were radical, however, they only swayed the consciousness of the people as a whole so far. .
Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day in 1642 in Lincolnshire at Woolsthorpe England . His early life was atypical in that his father had died shortly before his birth and, when she remarried, his mother left him to be raised by his grandmother at the young age of three . His early academic career was pale, in fact, by comparison to his personal life. He failed to excel in his studies until he resolved to do so after a fight with another student . His personal life was once again disrupted when his mother returned to Woolsthorpe during his teens and pulled him out of school so that he could oversee the family farm . .
Through the good graces of an uncle who recognized that Newton's real talent lie in academics he was finally allowed to return to school for preparation for college . At the age of twenty-three he graduated from Trinity College in Cambridge . Although he received a fellowship at the college after graduation, his professional life was once again put on hold. This time the delay the result of the Great Plague which caused the university to close. .
Newton spent the next eighteen months at the family farm . He was far from idyll during this time, however. It was here, in fact, that he formulated his preliminary theories on gravity . At the age of twenty-six Newton took was given the prestigious Lucasian professorship in mathematics at Cambridge by his previous teacher Isaac Barrow who had resigned the chair in order that Newton might fill it .