Before Newton

A comprehensive reevaluation of Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) one of the more prominent and intriguing of all seventeenth-century men of science. Barrow is remembered today--if at all--only as Sir Isaac Newton''s mentor and patron but he in fact made important contributions to the disciplines of optics and geometry. Moreover he was a prolific and influential preacher as well as a renowned classical scholar. By seeking to understand Barrow''s mathematical work primarily within the confines of the pre-Newtonian scientific framework the book offers a substantial rethinking of his scientific acumen. In addition to providing a biographical study of Barrow it explores the intimate connections among his scientific philological and religious worldviews in an attempt to convey the complexity of the seventeenth-century culture that gave rise to Isaac Barrow a breed of polymath that would become increasingly rare with the advent of modern science.