By the time the plague had dissipated and Cambridge University had recommenced its teaching, Newton had already put the major pieces in place for a full theory concerning the science of motion.

This included thoughts on the nature of gravity and its effect on objects in motion. The apocryphal story goes that Newton was inspired when he saw an apple fall from a tree. But, in reality, the process of discovery involved dropping objects, rolling them down slopes and recording his observations.

In October 1667, the year he returned to Cambridge, Newton was summoned by his mathematics professor, Isaac Barrow, who asked the 24-year-old to help him prepare his lectures. Before too long, Newton was himself giving lectures. By the end of 1669, Barrow vacated the highly-respected Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, which was awarded to Newton soon after.

Lucasian Professor wasn’t a mere empty title. Thanks to the position, Newton now had his own laboratory at Trinity. There he sequestered himself away and conducted countless experiments. Before his twenties were over, Newton had engineered a prototype for the first reflecting telescope. Prior to Newton, telescopes had been refracting. These tended to produce images that were small, dim and distorted. In contrast, Newton’s handmade telescope let much more light in and meant that planets such as Venus or Jupiter could be observed with greater ease.

Before too long, the Royal Society, the foremost scientific institution in Britain, got wind of Newton’s invention and he was invited to publish his work on light and color in 1672.

In this paper, Newton described the experiment he had conducted, in which he had directed sunlight through multiple prisms and thereby been able to isolate different colors.

Based on these results, Newton posited that light was made up of particles. It had previously been thought that the prisms themselves produced colors, but Newton was convinced that they were only separating white light, which was itself comprised of a mixture of colors.

The paper ruffled a fair few feathers at the Royal Society. In fact, one of its members, Robert Hooke, was especially aggrieved and became a lifelong critic of Newton’s work.