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Clockwork Universe Timeline 1. -1642- Lifetime of Galileo Galilei. Galileo was an early pioneer of science whose work has influenced every generation of scientists since. In 1610, Kepler was the first person to use the telescope as a method for research in astronomy. The Inquisition placed him under house arrest until his death in 1642 because of his views on heliocentricism. 2. -1630- Lifetime of Johannes Kepler. Kepler was a predecessor of Newton who had great influence on his life and work. A contemporary of Galileo, Kepler was a genius and a mystic whose faith in God and faith in mathematics had fused into an inseperable unit, (145). 3. -1727- Lifetime of Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton is regarded as one of the most important and influential scientists and his work led to many discoveries. He invented calculus as well as his theory of gravity and was a member of the Royal Society and a knight. 4. -1716- Lifetime of Gottfried Leibniz. Leibniz was Newtons biggest competitor as they had both independently invented calculus. Leibniz is known for being an important mathematician. 5. - The Royal Society founded. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, the formal name of this grab-bag collection of geniuses, misfits, and eccentrics, was by most accounts the first official scientific organization in the world, (5). They all lived precariously between two worlds, the medieval one they had grown up in and a new one they had only glimpsed. These were brilliant, ambitious, confused, conflicted men. They believed in angels and alchemy and the devil, and they believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws, (6).

Wilson 2 6. - Black Plague struck Cambridge University. The plague coming to Cambridge is important because, a young student named Isaac Newton gathered up his books and retreated to his mothers farm to think in solitude, (28) and alone on his mothers farm, 23 year old Isaac Newton set himself to unraveling the mystery of motion, (43). 7. - Great Fire of London. The Great Fire of London marked a climax of so-called Gods wrath on London as the plague had struck only a year earlier in 1665. The fire of London is important because, Englands trembling citizens , it would eventually become clear had the story exactly backward. The 1660s did not mark the end of time but the beginning of the modern age, (34). 8. - Isaac Newton becomes a member of the Royal Society. In 1675, Newton became a member of the Society though he had presented work before. On a winter afternoon in 1672 Isaac Newton made his first formal presentation to the Society. (Reclusive as always, Newton stayed away while someone else read aloud a paper he had sent.) Newton explained how he had found, using prisms, the true nature of light," (51). Work Cited Dolnick, Edward. THE CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Print.