Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643; however, December 25, 1642 is his recorded date of birth as the Gregorian calendar was not yet adopted. He was named after his father, a peasant who died three days before he was born. He lived with his mother, Hannah Ayscough who later on remarried, which caused him to be taken care of by his grandmother. He had a relationship but there were no records that he got married as he was so engrossed with his studies. When his stepfather passed away, he was required by his mom to go on farming which he disliked. As fortune would have it, Henry Strokes, who was a master at King?s School (his old school) persuaded his mother to let him study again. Because he was motivated, he had good grades that made him on top of his class.

Sir Isaac?s first contribution was mathematical fluxions, which later on was improved and became known as Integral and Differential Calculus. His inventions gave way to various accomplishments and served as patterns in solving other problems and creating new formulae. Another famous contribution was the Law of Gravity. The genius saw an apple falling that made him think if the same also applies to the Moon.

He was also the proponent of the three Laws of Motion which state that (first) an object that remains at rest stay at rest and an object is in motion will not change its velocity unless an unbalanced force upon it or simply the Law of Inertia; (second) acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass; thus, the more mass the object has, the more force has to be applied. Here, the relationship among force, mass and acceleration is considered; and (third) for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Sir Isaac Newton died in his sleep. His body was recorded to have had Mercury in it, which could have been the reason why he seemed to be a very strange man. His works will forever live as everything that people do can be well explained by his laws.

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Pythagoras

Pythagoras was a mathematician, but he was also equally into philosophy and religion. At one time, he did political work too, but he was not happy with it. He founded a school of philosophy, which taught, among other things: numbers, symbols and their mystical significance; and the idea that reality is mathematical in essence. His students and the school were very idealistic and disciplined; they were mostly vegetarians and they had no personal possessions. They later came to be known as the Pythagorean Society. To this day, there are groups and organizations that call themselves Pythagorean.

Also bearing Pythagoras' name is a famous mathematical theorem used in solving triangle equations. This theorem, which is still being taught in high school and college today, holds that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Other geometric theorems or discoveries attributed to Pythagoras or to Pythagoreans involve:

– geometrical algebra
– irrational numbers
– plane and solid figures
– theorems that further describe angles in a triangle, and the sides and angles of polygons
– theorems on how to compute areas
– orbits of the Moon, Venus as both the evening star and the morning star, and other astronomical findings.

Pythagoras was also deeply interested in the study of music. He was, in fact, an accomplished lyre musician. He found correspondences between music and mathematics, as he discovered, for example, certain ratios of the lengths of strings on musical instruments that produced the best harmonies. As such, Pythagoras made valuable contributions in the development of the mathematical theory of music.

He saw numbers and mathematics as an underlying essence of music and all things in the universe. Some of his ideas are today considered unorthodox, such as the idea that numbers have personalities. But many more of his ideas have now become very familiar; the concepts of odd and even numbers, and of perfect numbers, were all first developed by Pythagoras.

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