Newton was an English physicist and mathematician born in 1643 who made seminal contributions to the fields of mechanics, optics, and mathematics. He formulated Newton's laws of motion, invented calculus, and discovered that white light consists of the visible spectrum of colors. Some of his major works include Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, and Opticks, where he established the corpuscular theory of light. Newton helped revolutionize scientific thought and establish the foundations of modern physics.