Sir Isaac Newton – the Greatest Scientist the world has ever seen!
You know what his favorite fruit was. Right?
Is this because I refused the sacrament?
Newton’s Shortest Biography on the Web:
- 1643: He was born on January 4th (I share my birthday with him. Can you see me basking in this faint sliver of reflected glory? Good. Elementally speaking, within you is a caricaturist struggling to break free – let it out.)
- Somewhere around 1655, he was bullied by a boy at school, challenged the bully, won the fight, and transformed from a dullard into a genius. (So shouldn’t the bully get some credit too?)
- Circa 1660: The apple fell in a garden somewhere in Lincolnshire(?) and Newton (probably) saw it fall.
- 1671: He completed the book “Method of Fluxions”
- 1687: He published Principia Mathematica.
- 1705: Knighted by Queen Anne and became Sir Isaac Newton.
- 1721: He died a bachelor. His death could’ve been caused by Mercury-poisoning. (Woof!)
Newton’s Principal Works:
- Universal Gravitation
- The Three Laws of Motion
- The First Reflecting Telescope
- Differential & Integral Calculus (Read about the Newton-Leibniz controversy in the “Myths Broken by Isaac Newton” section.)
- Newton’s Method for finding the roots of a function.
Myths Broken by Isaac Newton:
Here are some myths that he’s broken.
Graffiti is bad and only goons deface public buildings.
Wrong. The great scientists of the world do it too. Guess defacement of buildings and inventions both result from the same attitude – to challenge the existing – be it norms or knowledge.
What Newton did to a window sill in his school (King’s School) can be seen here.
Great minds don’t do well in School.
Newton did. Mostly to spite another guy in his class when he was at school.
Together we can do great things.
Hah. Check out the greats – including Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci. The greats were always in controversy. Often with those that they once were quite chummy indeed. Read about the bitter war between Newton and Leibniz (yes – of the Differential Calculus fame) here. With intelligence following a normal distribution, obviously, greatness isn’t a community thing!
Note: This controversy also inspired the book “The Baroque Cycle” by Neal Stephenson.
Newton and His Humility:
His epitaph was written by the noted English poet Alexander Pope. It reads:
Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said “Let Newton be” and all was light.
(I am sure that Newton’s scientific mind must’ve appreciated the simplicity of the verse – I am surprised that it isn’t twisted beyond shape with thou, thee, and thy! My apologies to William Shakespeare.)
Newton did know how to manage the media by speaking humbly (a trait much in demand even today.) Here’s what he had to say about his own achievements:
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
An Important Tip for all Future Celebrities:
It’s important – very important, for all celebrities to sound humble. Even if you are a great – you need the support of the un-greats, because when god was distributing wrath he wasn’t partial at all. I leave the rest to your interpretation. My recommendation – follow Newton’s footsteps.
Newton’s Religious Beliefs:
As most people who have more to do than others, Newton didn’t spend his personal time on religion – however, he also realized how he could be declared a “heretic” if he didn’t put up with the appearances – and so he did. Thus, he wrote about religion (Da Vinci too painted for the Church) – In those times, you had to keep the church in good humor if you wanted to achieve anything worthwhile.
Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton,
“Isaac Newton was a heretic. But … he never made a public declaration of his private faith — which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs.”
– Source: Wikipedia.
(The scholars, of course, aren’t inventors and so they can spend their time unravelling Newton’s personal beliefs – and The Caricaturist, of course, again isn’t doing anything of earth-shaking importance, and she can write and wonder about the greats – thanks to the scholars. It’s all like an onion, you see.)
I believe that what you do when death comes prancing, is what defines your religious beliefs – everything else is just self-concept. Despite the appearance that Newton put up, he refused to take the holy orders and the sacrament. True beliefs surface at death – because then there’s no need to put up appearances for this world. Whatever you do, you do to make your future better. When you shake hands with death, you either see a future that your “specific” religious scriptures have outlined for you – or you see nothing – and it all depends on your true belief. Newton’s true belief, in all probability was that there was nothing beyond!
This of course, is a caricature blog and not a place to discuss life, death, and beliefs; so I leave you with your thoughts and with the caricature of the man who reportedly saw more than the giants that he so humbly spoke of, as he stood on their shoulders. With his intelligence he would’ve known what his statement meant – exactly.
By the way, a 4 inch sliver from the original apple tree (did he indeed remember the tree from which the apple fell? is it documented somewhere?) is now going into space (aboard the space-ship Atlantis.) Read the story here.
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