Professor Newton's research areas are field theory, scattering theories, nuclear and high energy physics, elementary particles, quantum mechanics, and mathematical physics.
Professor Newton received a Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1953 and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton for the next two years. From 1955, he has been with the Department of Physics, chairman from 1973-1980, and Director, IU Institute for Advanced Study, 1982-86. He has held visiting appointments at various universities and laboratories including Ohio State, University of Rome, International School of Physics, University of Montpellier, France, and University of Geneva. In 1989 he was the recipient of a Departmental Teaching Award presented by physics graduate students.
Newton has served on various committees in many professional organizations and as associate Editor of the American Journal of Physics, and Inverse Problems. He was the Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Physics from 1992-2005. His most recent publications are Thinking About Physics, What Makes Nature Tick? (Harvard University Press, 1993) and The Truth of Science(Harvard University Press, 1997); Quantum Physics: A Text for Graduate Students, (Springer Verlag, 2002); Galileo's Pendulum: From the Rhythm of Time to the Making of Matter (Harvard University Press, 2004); and From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of Physics (Harvard University Press, 2007).
He passed away on April 14, 2018.