I recently read Gleick’s biography of Newton and highly recommend it. It’s pretty short, quotes part of this article by Keynes with a lot more context, and paints a portrait both fascinating and disturbing: to come from nothing, to start with nothing, not even having the concepts of velocity or force; to invent them, and calculus, and to develop such a deep understanding of nature to successfully compute the shape of the earth as an oblate spheroid, all from first principles, in the 1600s; to conceal nearly all of these discoveries; and then pursue things that “should all seem a crass and empty ambition once you have written a Principia.”
Which only seems like a weird conflict from modern eyes, obviously. The ideas that, paraphrased, "the world is made of math" and "spirituality and science are one" are at the heart of western mathematical mysticism, from the 6th century BC Pythagoreans onward.
BTW, if you want your mind blown, check out Penelope Gouk's "Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth Century England". It deals with the magical ideas that were present at the formation of the Royal Society.
Note that we consider magic today to be "that which doesn't exist". Natural magic then was "that which works through unknown forces".
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I recently read Gleick’s biography of Newton and highly recommend it. It’s pretty short, quotes part of this article by Keynes with a lot more context, and paints a portrait both fascinating and disturbing: to come from nothing, to start with nothing, not even having the concepts of velocity or force; to invent them, and calculus, and to develop such a deep understanding of nature to successfully compute the shape of the earth as an oblate spheroid, all from first principles, in the 1600s; to conceal nearly all of these discoveries; and then pursue things that “should all seem a crass and empty ambition once you have written a Principia.”
I also like Michael White's "Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer", which stresses the weird conflict in his character between mysticism and science.
Which only seems like a weird conflict from modern eyes, obviously. The ideas that, paraphrased, "the world is made of math" and "spirituality and science are one" are at the heart of western mathematical mysticism, from the 6th century BC Pythagoreans onward.
BTW, if you want your mind blown, check out Penelope Gouk's "Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth Century England". It deals with the magical ideas that were present at the formation of the Royal Society.
Note that we consider magic today to be "that which doesn't exist". Natural magic then was "that which works through unknown forces".
Thanks, I’ll take a look!