Newton’s Plagiarism Claims and the Unusual Path to the Principia

A new volume by science historians Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold offers a deep dive into the evolution of Isaac Newton’s most celebrated work, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, while addressing the plagiarism accusations that have shadowed his legacy.

Published in 1687, the Principia laid out Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation. The story begins during the Great Plague of 1665–1666, when the young Newton retreated to Woolsthorpe Manor near Grantham, UK. Working largely in isolation, he made three major breakthroughs: founding calculus for motion and geometry, deducing the universal nature of gravity after watching an apple fall, and discovering that white light is composed of rainbow colors through prism experiments.

These achievements defy the “ten-year rule” of creativity, a concept psychologist John Hayes proposed in 1989, which suggests that experts need a decade of study before making a breakthrough. Unlike contemporaries such as Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein, Newton had minimal formal training in mathematics or science. According to Buchwald and Feingold, who spent decades analyzing Newton’s manuscripts, he enrolled in humanities at Cambridge’s Trinity College in 1661 with the intention of becoming an Anglican minister. It was only in his final undergraduate year, 1664–1665, that he began to engage seriously with science.

The authors contrast Newton’s solitary path with other exceptions to the ten-year rule, such as Werner Heisenberg and Paul Dirac, who had mentors or prior engineering degrees. Newton’s primary academic influence was Isaac Barrow, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, whom Newton succeeded in 1669.

Regarding the plagiarism accusations, the book highlights how Newton’s ideas developed from earlier, less complete studies. In 1726, Newton recounted to William Stukeley how observing a falling apple led him to realize that gravity extends throughout the universe. This anecdote, published posthumously in 1752, underscores the solitary nature of his insights. The new analysis aims to clarify the complex trajectory from these early isolated observations to the rigorous mathematical framework presented in the Principia.