Newton
Isaac Newton was born in England in 1642, about a year after Galileo died. Newton became the greatest scientist of his time. He discovered the law of gravitation and showed that it explains the motions of the planets and comets and the behavior of objects on the earth. According to this law, every object in the universe attracts every other object. The strength of the attraction between any two objects depends on their masses and the distance between them. Newton also discovered that visible light can be broken down into a spectrum. This laid the basis for the development of spectral analysis.
Excerpt adapted from the "Astronomy" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999