Artist and designer Aaron West took inspiration from Newton's revolutionary work for the reverse image which depicts elements of 'Proposition 11' in Book One. In celebration of the 375th anniversary of Newton's birth and the 330th anniversary of the publication of Principia Mathematica, The Royal Mint released a series of coins, including this silver proof Fifty Pence.
The story of Newton gaining a flash of inspiration while sitting under a tree watching an apple fall is famous today, but it was the physicists realisation that the force that made the apple fall downwards was the same force responsible for planetary orbit that is most important. Newton had spent over twenty years composing it, and his work presented a mathematical description of the universe which was revolutionary.
Sir Isaac Newton's 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy' has been called the most influential book on physics ever.
