Isaac Newton

English physicist and mathematician (1642–1727), author of the Principia, and founder of classical mechanics and universal gravitation.

Newton's synthesis of motion and gravity defined the mechanical worldview of the Enlightenment — a universe of masses acted on by forces, at rest until disturbed. For three centuries his framework was the model of what science could be.

Relationship to Fuller

Relationship: forebear. Newton was R. Buckminster Fuller's favorite foil. Fuller framed the shift from classical to modern physics as a change of temperament — "Newton was a sleeper, Einstein was awake" — using Newton's first law (a body persists in its state of rest) to stand for a static, inertial cosmology, against which he set his own account of a dynamic universe held together by tension and continuous transformation. Newton is thus the predecessor Fuller measured his own comprehensive, motion-first worldview against.

See Also

• Albert Einstein (Albert Einstein) — the "awake" modern physicist Fuller paired against Newton
• Josiah Willard Gibbs (Josiah Willard Gibbs) — the thermodynamicist in Fuller's scientific lineage
• Nikola Tesla (Nikola Tesla) — fellow predecessor-scientist Fuller admired

Sources

• Buckminster Fuller: Intellectual Outlaw (source reference) — situates Fuller's Newton-vs-Einstein framing