Dali honors Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the English mathematician, who discovered the law of gravity when an apple fell on his head.
In this sculpture, based on the small image illustrated in the painting Phosphene of Laporte (1932), Dali pierced the figure with two holes: one which portrays the absence of Newton's vital organs, whilst the empty head suggests open mindedness. Dali implies that Newton has become a mere name in science, completely stripped of his personal identity and individuality.
Dali was obsessed with the concept of hard and soft. Here he plays with inverting the anatomy, showing the bones protruding from the body. As Dali recounts in his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali: "The hip bones, which absolutely must be very prominent- pointed, so that one knows that they are there."
In 1986, the King of Spain dedicated a large plaza in Madrid to Dali and the artist created a monument of this image for its center, that is almost five meters high. The sculpture still stands there today.