Newton's 'Year of Wonders' in quarantine

For more than a year, the world has been in quarantine, practising social distancing, so we can collectively recover from the global pandemic of Covid-19. Forced inside our homes, there doesn't seem to be a lot that can be done within four walls. While it may seem like an experience that is unique to our era, this isn't the first pandemic the world has encountered, and we certainly aren't the first to be living under forced isolation. In fact, the most renowned mathematician and physicist of history, Isaac Newton also spent quite some time in quarantine. In 1965, the plague outbreak in London sent him back home to his family farm in Woolsthorpe Manor where he spent a whole year in quarantine. During this, Newton made remarkable discoveries in various fields like calculus, motion, optics and gravitation.