College Years

Newton attended the King's school until he was around seventeen years old. Newton was encouraged by his uncle, Reverend William Ayscough, to seek admittance to Cambridge’s Trinity College. After being admitted into Trinity in 1661 (due to his uncle’s recommendation) Newton took part in a type of work study program at the university where he waited tables and took care of wealthier students’ rooms to pay for his schooling.

At the time, Trinity College mostly focused on the teachings of Aristotle. Newton himself also studied the works of Descartes and some astronomers, namely Galileo, Thomas Street, Copernicus and Kepler. During Newton's time is an undergraduate, he was still yet to become distinguished as a scholar. In fact Lucasian professor, Isaac Barrow questioned Newton on his knowledge of the works of Euclid and found his understanding to be lacking at best. 

Little is known about his undergraduate years at Cambridge. There is also little information regarding their curriculum at Trinity College. What is assumed is that it was mostly centered around Aristotle. Newton found himself captivated with mathematics and more so, advanced sciences. Most of his free time was devoted to reading about the theories of modern philosophers of the time period. Some believe this is why Isaac Newton's reputation as a student was still rather lackluster. He was more enthusiastic about other more advanced topics rather than that which was studied through the university's curriculum.

While attending Trinity College in his Undergraduate years, Newton kept a set of notes regarding some of his favorite scientific and mathematical topics. These notes were entitled, "Quaestiones quaedam philosophicae,” which means, “Certain philosophical questions.”  This is one of the most famous scientific notebooks of all time. It is currently in the Cambridge University Library. The note book has been assumed to have been written sometime between July 8, 1661 (when Newton arrived at the university) and before Decmeber 9, 1664.

 The notes dealt with several topics. The first topic was perpetual motion and was before Newton fully understood the idea of gravity. It was here where he began to theorize that gravity must act on the interiors of heavenly bodies. Newton’s thoughts regarding colors were also included in his notes. During this time, it was believed that colored light was the product of some mixture of light and darkness. Newton was one of the first to theorize that white light is a mixture of different colors of light. He proved this later using prisms. Although in this section, Newton also criticized Robert Hook’s theory of color which was based on the idea that light and color are in the form of waves. Newton argued that if light was a wave it would bend around objects much how sound waves do. His notes also touched on the idea of atoms and the motion of heavenly bodies.

After completing his undergraduate career, Newton won the title of scholar, but not much else. Isaac had still not become distinguished as a scholar nor did he graduate with any honors. The only thing he received after his four years at Trinity College was four more years of financial support for future education.