'To describe about a given focus any trajectory...', 1687.

Proposition 20, Problem 12, from the first edition of Newton's 'Principia Mathematica' (1687): 'To describe about a given focus any trajectory, given in species [ie of given eccentricity], that will pas through given points and will touch straight lines given in position.' The discoveries of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton (1642-1727) were prolific and hugely influential on science and thought. His work included the three laws of motion, the theory of gravitation, the law of cooling, the binomial theorem and the calculus.