Isaac Newton 1687 1704
The Star Voyagers 3
Isaac Newton is the true inventor of modern physics. Like no one else, he had the gift to sense the mechanical law in nature's recurring phenomenons. With his gravity laws he succeeded to attribute e.g. the movement of cosmic bodies and the fall of an apple to the same force. He took the phenomenon 'time' to be absolut, the cosmos to be like a big machine and its processes as basically predictable. Already in his lifetime he was immensly famous, a fame defended jealously and sometimes even maliciously against competitors. He also did not take well to opposition. Thus, his theory of light as a particle flow, however wrong, remained valid for more than another hundred years. Amazingly enough, after his death one discovered that he had also busied himself seriously with alchemy and magic.