Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician. One of his most important accomplishments was his creation of formulas for laws for motion and gravity. Because of this, he played a big part in the Enlightenment. Isaac Newton was the most important figure of the Enlightenment because he influenced ideas, inspired thinkers, and made discoveries that changed the world from then, until now. Isaac Newton's ideas passed into the minds of the people of the Enlightenment, allowing them to create ideas for themselves. Newton formulated the Laws of Universal Gravity, which states that "two objects exert a force towards each other, causing them to attract." With the formulation of the law of universal gravity, thinkers of the Enlightenment …show more content…
For example, when Newton founded physics and thinkers started to see the world as more rational, he had inspired the thinkers of natural philosophy to study nature in a more direct way, believing the thinkers should avoid supernaturalism. Newton also insisted that thinkers use empirical experience, which used direct observations, to check speculation of nature and other factors of the world. This use of empirical experience became a very important part of the Enlightenment. Lastly, Newton played a large part in creating calculus, with the help of Gottfried Leibniz. Their creation of calculus, inspired thinkers and mathematicians to use and, make sense of, the change and motion of the world around …show more content…
One of those was physics. He is, today, considered to have first founded physics and was the first one to explain it in more detail. With his study of physics, he created the three laws of motion. In his book, Principia Mathematica, which was one of the most influential of its time, Newton explained his three laws of gravitational motion. This helped lead to prove that the universe was heliocentric, or sun centered. This proof of a heliocentric universe helped to disprove many religions and theories about the movement of the planets. Newton strongly believed in philosophers using the empirical inductive method and the rational deductive method. The empirical method used experiment and direct observation to construct theories, while the method of rational deduction relied on general principle to get to certain ideas. He merged the two together, which had never been done before, to create a basis for scientific methodology. This was especially important at the time of the Enlightenment, because it gave scientists a better way to discover and create ideas in a more routine