Binomial Theorem is born!!

We have the plague to thank for the binomial theorem! In 1665, plague was raging in England, and Isaac Newton, a new (and undistinguished) graduate of the University of Cambridge, was forced to spend most of the next two years in the relative safety of his family's country manor in Woolsthorpe. It turned out that solitude and free time was just the stimulous Newton's creative brain needed. In that 18-month period of retreat, he came up with his proof and extension of the binomial theorem, invented calculus (which he called his "method of fluxions"), discovered the law of universal gravitation, and proved that white light is composed of all colors. All of this before the age of 25!