Isaac Newton

About Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton, ranked \#3 by MIT's Pantheon project, stands as one of history's most influential figures due to his foundational contributions to physics and mathematics. His 1687 work, *Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica*, laid out the principles of classical mechanics, including his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. This work fundamentally reshaped scientific understanding of the physical world during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. [cite: ]

Despite this immense historical importance, Newton’s digital footprint in 2025 shows a moderate level of modern attention. He accrued 3.7 million annualized Wikipedia views, giving him an attention gap factor of +2x, indicating he is over-attended to relative to his historical importance when compared to the overall pool of figures. This suggests that while he is not forgotten, his modern online visibility is still significantly less than that of contemporary or much less important figures, such as Pope Francis (18.0M views) or Bob Dylan (12.7M views).

Interestingly, while Newton maintains high overall attention, the 2025 momentum data suggests a cooling trend; his views dropped by 28% between the first and third quarters, despite a positive year-over-year increase of 14.3%. This highlights a potential long-term shift in contemporary interest away from the giant of 17th-century science.