Isaac Newton, Finicky Forebear

[Toad]

My garish, cluttery (and slightly irreverent) salute, complete with apocryphal apple, to Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the greatest physicist who ever lived but also a fascinatingly complex and notoriously difficult man to get along with. He was utterly brilliant, intuitive and indefatigable, but he could be ill-tempered, petty, and aloof as well. He was overly sensitive to criticism of his work and thus prone to making lifelong enemies out of professional rivals. It's been suggested that he may have had Asperger's Syndrome, and because he never married that he was asexual or possibly a repressed homosexual.


"He was a wrapt, consecrated solitary, pursuing his studies by intense introspection with a mental endurance perhaps never equalled" -- John Maynard Keynes

"Newton - being well known as one of the most aggravating personalities in science as well as one of the biggest brains..." -- Rational Wiki

"Newton was a finicky, neurotic, off-scale brilliant character who seemed able to hold a problem in his mind, neither sleeping nor eating, 'thinking on it continually,' he said, until he'd solved it." -- Ann Finkbeiner

"Newton was famously difficult to get along with, saving much of his abrasiveness for Robert Hooke, who may have been the source of the 'standing on the shoulders of giants' quote, in reference to Hooke's apparent short and hunchback appearance." -- Rational Wiki

"He sought order and believed in order but never averted his eyes from the chaos. He of all people was no Newtonian." -- James Gleick


Newton was also well known for experimenting and writing extensively on alchemy, which seems entirely contrary for a man of science steeped in reason and rationality. But my personal theory is that alchemy was in some respects the superhero/sci-fi culture of the time. It wasn't real science but it was fun, diverting and intellectually stimulating nonetheless and provided the allure of magic/fantasy and the unattainable.

[devilbk]

I do like that you included the Fig Newtons, a joke so nice they used it twice.

[SpaceAnJL]

Newton has sometimes been called 'the Last Magician'. Chemistry as we know it was an infant science, alchemy was not a fringe pursuit. His refusal to take Holy Orders and his borderline heretical beliefs were far more controversial at the time.

(So much about this bloke is terribly familiar, isn't it? Even down to reports of his complaints in meetings about sitting in the right seat due to draughts...)