It seems unlikely that we will ever lose our fascination for the man whom David Berlinski calls “the largest figure in the history of Western science” and the author of “the greatest of scientific theories”. Indeed, there have been many biographies of Isaac Newton over the last two decades. What is important for Berlinski, however, are not the details of Newton’s life – fascinating though these may be – but the understanding of his “gift”. By this he means Newton’s revelation of the “book of Nature” and his unlocking of the “system of the world”. The biographical details only become important to Berlinski when the singularities of Newton’s personality contribute in some way to the equal singularity of his work in physics.

Of course, the key moments of Newton’s life are all here. Berlinski describes the “marvellous year” of 1665-1666, in which Newton laid the foundation for his work in mathematics, mechanics and optics. He notes Newton’s discovery that the Earth’s gravitation extends to the Moon, and describes his invention of the reflecting telescope and the subsequent controversy over his optics. He covers the correspondence with Hooke, which resulted in Newton exchanging a balance of forces for a single attractive force, and the dramatic growth of the Principia following the visit of Halley to Cambridge in 1684.

Berlinski is not always correct in his statements. He says that Newton made no mathematical discoveries after the invention of calculus. He occasionally accepts the truth of a dubious anecdote, like the one about the dog Diamond accidentally causing the fire that consumed Newton’s optical papers. He also makes one or two unsupported statements, such as Newton having Hooke’s portrait destroyed. However, his graphic descriptions of events have an authentic feel, and give the impression that the author understands the period as well as the science. Where necessary, he fills in detail imaginatively and with credibility.

He is also very convincing on the character analysis. His Newton was secret and suspicious, hypersensitive, an indifferent speaker, incapable of intellectual generosity, but possessed of many intellectual and organizational gifts, and lacking only in the capacity and desire to analyse himself. A few incidents help to soften the image of unrelieved austerity. Newton, for example, is shown to have displayed a kind of “alien tenderness” in dealing with his niece, Catherine, during her affair with his close friend, the statesman and politician Lord Halifax. However, the real point of the book is elsewhere.

The key point in Berlinski’s analysis is the sheer strangeness of Newton’s ideas, even in the prior context of the discoveries of such predecessors as Kepler and Galileo. A ruthless simplifier and abstract thinker, Newton had the remarkable ability of striking at the fundamentals. His laws of physics have a transcendent quality that cannot be fully explained in terms of the world’s matter. By extending gravity to the Moon, he destroyed the prospects of a mechanical philosophy of nature, such as Descartes had dreamed of.

There was, however, a great price in intellectual coherence in Newton’s decision to create accessible solutions, while leaving problems that could not be solved for the future. Counterintuitive and intellectually daring, his invocation of forces that acted at a distance served to fill space with mystery.

Berlinski provides fascinating discussions of Newton’s “five” laws of motion, which include his “law” of absolute space and time. The fact that Newton was able to develop an appropriate mathematics in calculus (as also did his contemporary Leibniz) showed that there was an element of fortune in his timing. This is emphasized by the parallel story of his unsuccessful pursuit of alchemy. The alchemists were on the right track, but, through bad luck, they guessed wrong and failed to find equivalent chemical laws.

Despite the importance of mathematics in his work, Newton was not in his heart a pure mathematician. He was essentially a physicist and was already thinking beyond calculus in the act of creating it. After he had created his great masterwork, the Principia, he saw no point in developing further deductive results in what we now call Newtonian mechanics.

Newton’s abstract vision needed no pictures, as were required by a mechanistic philosopher such as Hooke. Yet Berlinski asserts, in a different sense, that Newton was a “painter”, with each diagram in the Principia having a secret to be revealed. This was not always easily done. For example, an anecdote tells how an initially confident Richard Feynman got into a hopeless tangle while trying to explain a diagram to a group of freshman students. Indeed, the only creator whom the author can find to compare to Newton and the Principia is another painter – Michelangelo – at work on the Sistine Chapel. Not even Einstein is of equal standing.

Berlinski himself variously uses words, symbols and pictures. He takes on the difficult task of explaining mathematical ideas to readers, who he clearly hopes will include some who are without mathematical training. Co-ordinate geometry, Cartesian axes, calculus, vectors and differential equations are explained in terms of their meaning and significance, though there is also a technical appendix. Mathematically trained people will find a wealth of metaphors here to use in their own explanations.

Berlinski does not try – like some authors of popular books on physics – to make science sound mysterious. But he does demonstrate convincingly that Newtonian mechanics is a great deal more than a set of routine procedures. For Berlinski, there is no mystery about the way in which we use Newton’s theory. The mystery is in what it is.

The urgency of such books is in the desire to find a fully unified theory of physics, and to comprehend what we have already achieved on the road to it. All the great theories are singular, like Newton’s. Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics are the only comparable ones. Whatever form the ultimate unified theory may take, its origin will be in the scientific style created by Newton.

Berlinski’s book is thought-provoking and stimulating, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. His prose is shot through with brilliant images. It is nowhere more remarkable than in the vivid metaphors he conjures up to explain fundamental aspects of mathematics.