Who Was Alive

Isaac Newton

English mathematician and physicist

Born 25 December 1642 (Julian calendar) · died 20 March 1727 (Julian calendar), aged 84

Who was alive at the same time as Isaac Newton?

  1. Thomas Hobbes
  2. René Descartes
  3. Diego Velázquez
  4. Rembrandt
  5. Molière
  6. Blaise Pascal
  7. John Locke
  8. Benedictus de Spinoza
  9. Louis XIV of France
  10. Isaac Newton
  11. Matsuo Bashō
  12. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  13. Jonathan Swift
  14. Peter the Great
  15. Antonio Vivaldi
  16. George Frideric Handel
  17. Johann Sebastian Bach
  18. Voltaire
  19. Benjamin Franklin
  20. Leonhard Euler
  21. Carl Linnaeus
  22. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  23. Adam Smith
  24. Immanuel Kant
Drag across the timeline to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Isaac Newton was born, René Descartes was 46, Molière was 20, John Locke was 10, Rembrandt was 36 and Blaise Pascal was 19.

When Isaac Newton died, Johann Sebastian Bach was 42, Voltaire was 32, Immanuel Kant was 2, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was 14 and Adam Smith was 3.

Born during Isaac Newton’s lifetime: Johann Sebastian Bach, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Linnaeus and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Not quite contemporaries: George Washington was born 5 years after Isaac Newton died, Galileo Galilei died about a year before Isaac Newton was born, John Adams was born 8 years after Isaac Newton died and Johannes Kepler died 13 years before Isaac Newton was born.

Compare

All 72 contemporaries we track

  1. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  2. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  3. René Descartes 1596 – 1650
  4. Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804
  5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778
  6. Molière 1622 – 1673
  7. Adam Smith 1723 – 1790
  8. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790
  9. Carl Linnaeus 1707 – 1778
  10. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  11. Rembrandt 1606 – 1669
  12. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  13. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  14. Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662
  15. Leonhard Euler 1707 – 1783
  16. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  17. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  18. Benedictus de Spinoza 1632 – 1677
  19. Diego Velázquez 1599 – 1660
  20. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  21. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  22. Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679
  23. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  24. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  25. David Hume 1711 – 1776
  26. John Milton 1608 – 1674
  27. Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784
  28. Jean de La Fontaine 1621 – 1695
  29. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  30. Samuel Johnson 1709 – 1784
  31. Oliver Cromwell 1599 – 1658
  32. Frederick II of Prussia 1712 – 1786
  33. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  34. Christiaan Huygens 1629 – 1695
  35. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  36. Johannes Vermeer 1632 – 1675
  37. Pierre de Fermat 1607 – 1665
  38. Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
  39. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 1717 – 1783
  40. Charles I of England 1600 – 1649
  41. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  42. Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 – 1765
  43. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  44. Pierre Corneille 1606 – 1684
  45. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  46. Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600 – 1681
  47. Louis XV of France 1710 – 1774
  48. Maria Theresa of Austria 1717 – 1780
  49. Giacomo Casanova 1725 – 1798
  50. Abel Tasman 1603 – 1659
  51. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  52. Shah Jahan 1592 – 1666
  53. Charles II of England 1630 – 1685
  54. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  55. John Amos Comenius 1592 – 1670
  56. François de La Rochefoucauld 1613 – 1680
  57. Anders Celsius 1701 – 1744
  58. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  59. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  60. Louis XIII of France 1601 – 1643
  61. Carlo Goldoni 1707 – 1793
  62. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  63. William Harvey 1578 – 1657
  64. Hugo Grotius 1583 – 1645
  65. Evangelista Torricelli 1608 – 1647
  66. Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665
  67. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  68. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707 – 1788
  69. Urban VIII 1568 – 1644
  70. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  71. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745
  72. Pius VI 1717 – 1799