Newton's Opticks. Title page of the book Opticks by the English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), published in 1704. This work was based on Newton's own experimental investigations into the behaviour of light. In Opticks he discussed topics such as the refraction of light by prisms and the rings of coloured light formed between a lens and a mirror in contact with each other (later termed Newton's rings). Newton is also famous for proposing binomial theorem and for developing differential and integral calculus. As a physicist he devised the laws of motion and formulated the general theory of gravitation.