In this extract from the new book Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science, science writer Philip Ball explains how Isaac Newton transformed our understanding of light.

Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus and ... He found that as two bodies move farther away ... the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has ...

Newton’s illuminating treatise analyzes the fundamental nature of light and is considered one of the Scientific Revolution’s three major works on optics. The long-lost copy was discovered by ...

Isaac Newton’s Lost Alchemy Recipe Rediscovered. The legendary physicist tried for years to turn lead into gold—and may have used a newly recovered manuscript in his quest.