Kernel
Newton is the singular figure of the scientific revolution. Calculus (independently with Leibniz). The Principia Mathematica (1687) deriving Kepler's laws from a single inverse-square gravitational principle. Optics. The reflecting telescope. Forty years of alchemy and chronology that he took at least as seriously as the physics. President of the Royal Society from 1703; Master of the Mint from 1699; the only scientific figure in this archive who was also responsible for the monetary policy of an emerging empire.
Contribution
Universal gravitation; the laws of motion; the calculus that makes them tractable; the reflecting telescope; the white-light spectral decomposition; the mathematics underlying classical mechanics for the next two centuries.
Lineage
Trinity College Cambridge; influenced by Galileo and Descartes; corresponded antagonistically with Leibniz and Hooke. His students and successors (Halley, Brook Taylor, Maclaurin, the French rationalists who translated him via Émilie du Châtelet) shape the entire 18th century. Modern physics begins by accepting Newton, ends by replacing him.
Civilization-scale significance
The civilizational figure of mathematized natural law. The compound of Newton's authority, Bank of England finance, and Royal Navy reach is, structurally, the operating system that powered the British 18th century.