Newton

Newtons achievements: Law of Gravity, the three laws of motion and created Calculus and optics. These were discovered in two years he had off from university, however when he returned to university he didn't talk about them for twenty years. His book 'Principia' was a mathmatical demonstration of the copernican hypothesis proposed by Kepler, who defined the idea. Newton convinced people that the world was ordered and knowable and that we can understand it. Cartesian threw critcism and didn't like the idea of 'magic' and the thought of gravity sounded 'Magic' for catesian Newton didn't explain but Newton believed the universe was created by God and he created it in a perfect way. Newton was just discovering the laws. He could demonstrate them and show they worked. He also believed that the universe demonstrated freedom.

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Newton/Principia/Bk1Sect1/