Sir Isaac Newton:Gravity of Genius

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Summary: Required viewing in all history of science courses
Review: It is not possible to conduct a course in the history of mathematics or science without an in-depth study of the life and work of Isaac Newton. Generally considered to be the greatest scientist of all time, his work in mathematics alone would have placed him in the upper tier of scientific figures. His life largely consisted of two distinct parts, the years where he was withdrawn and unwilling to publish followed by those where he was an icon and readily destroyed his rivals.
Given the short amount of time, the coverage in the tape is impressive. While not spending an inordinate amount of time on his personality, the producers of the tape impart a sound sense of what he was like. Arguably the smartest person who has ever lived, he was socially inept and it is rumored that he only laughed once in his life. Despite that genius and his early years of intellectual reclusion, he also proved to be a superb organizer. Many biographers of Newton tend to ignore his work at the royal mint, where he took an inefficient process for producing coins and turned it into a producer of coinage that all had confidence in. That part of his life is covered in this tape, showing Newton to be one of the first modern CEOs. The role that stable coinage played in the industrial revolution is not to be underestimated and Newton is the person most responsible for creating it in Britain.
Like so many great historical figures, there was an inflection point in Newton's life. Being small and sickly, he was bullied in his early years at school. All that changed when he physically stood up to the bully and after that event, threw himself into his schoolwork, rapidly outdistancing all his classmates and even the teachers. His talent was so overwhelming that his professor resigned so that Newton could be given his position.
This tape should be in every academic library and part of the curriculum in all courses in the history of math or science. It presents all sides of Newton, from the reclusive genius who could barely speak to people to the popular, ruthless icon who did not hesitate to destroy his rivals.

Published in Mathematics and Computer Education, reprinted with permission.

Rating:
Summary: A probing look into the greatest scientific mind of all time
Review: Most children idolize famous athletes, movie stars, and the like. I was different - my two idols were Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. I still believe Newton to be the greatest genius to ever live. Certainly, I was impressed by Newton's accomplishments (the theory of gravity, calculus, the laws of motion, etc.), but I was perhaps more deeply impressed by his unsurpassed commitment to his work. When I read that he would oftentimes forget to eat while he worked days on end, I became convinced that this was the type of man I wanted to become. My own path to scientific accomplishment took a different turn when I got to college, but I still have nothing but the greatest respect for and interest in this great man of science.

This is an excellent look at Newton's life, one that does not shy away from the genius' negative qualities. Newton was a complex man who struggled in terms of his relationships with human beings, living a rather reclusive life devoted solely to his work. The story of his early years helps explain his adult character. His father died before he was born, and he rarely saw his mother between the ages of 3 and 8. In school, he did not socialize with his classmates, devoting himself to his work instead. His brilliance was obvious to his instructors, though, and his mother was eventually convinced that Newton should continue his studies rather than return to run the family farm.

Amazingly, many of Newton's greatest discoveries originated in an 18-month period he spent at home while Cambridge was closed down because of the plague. In private study, he discovered the refraction of light, began to recognize the principles of gravity, and basically invented the refracting telescope. He was most reticent to publish any of his work, however, and the ridicule that greeted his first scientific paper on optics convinced him to never publish again. He continued his work, of course, and some of the great discoveries in scientific history were only to be discovered later in Newton's life, years after he had actually made them. He did want the credit for his discoveries, however, a fact which led to some less than admirable actions on his part later in life. He developed a bitter, life-long feud with Robert Hooke, for example, fought stridently against the claims of Leibnitz in order to secure the credit for his discovery of calculus, and later behaved rather unethically in regard to an astronomer who dared stand in the way of his wishes. True fame would not come until 1687, when Newton published the Principia. It was Edmund Halley who came to Newton inquiring as to the great mystery of planetary rotation. Newton, to his surprise, had already provided an answer to the question, and in the Principia Newton was to describe the laws of gravity, put forth his famous three laws of thermodynamics, explain the celestial rotation of heavenly bodies, and basically postulate and demonstrate a mathematical structure to the universe itself. Never has a single publication changed the course of science and indeed human culture in the way the Principia did; its influence is still heavily with us today and helped push man into outer space successfully.

I was most surprised to learn the incredible scope of Newton's work. Everyone knows about his invention of calculus and other scientific achievements, but Newton was also an intense theologian and alchemist. He strove to discover the true nature of God in nature, for he believed the world to be a rational creation of a rational God, built upon universal laws that man could discern through focused analysis and then explain via mathematics. He also had a few strange ideas, such as his belief that Protagoras acquired his mathematical knowledge from a meeting with Moses the Prophet.

The reclusive Newton enjoyed the incredible fame he attained after publication of the Principia and went on to occupy a political post as Warden of the Mint; in this capacity, he recoined the monetary system of the realm to great acclaim. His final years were not necessarily happy ones, though. Bitter rivalries with those he felt had wronged him revealed a rather nasty side of the genius' character, and Newton actually suffered a nervous breakdown in 1693 when his only true intellectual friend left England for the Continent. He recovered his mental health quickly and, despite the negative conflicts he had with select peers, he went to his grave as Sir Isaac Newton, the most famous scientist of his era and, to many, the great scientific mind the world has ever seen.