The forgotten maths genius who laid the foundations for Isaac Newton

A new play explores the short life of Jeremiah Horrocks, whose astonishing discoveries changed the way we see the universe'

On a cloudy afternoon in England in 1639, 20-year-old Jeremiah Horrocks became the first person to accurately predict the transit of Venus and measure the distance from the Earth to the sun.

His work proved, for the first time, that Earth is not at the centre of the universe, but revolves around the sun, refuting contemporary religious beliefs and laying the foundations for Isaac Newton's groundbreaking work on gravity.