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Royal Society Finds Lost Newton Papers
Quirk writes "The Royal Society has a story on a Lost Newton manuscript rediscovered. From the article: 'The notes are written about alchemy, which some scientists in Newton's time believed to hold the secret for transforming base metals, such as lead, into the more precious metals of gold or silver...The notes reflect a part of Newton's life which he kept hidden from public scrutiny during his lifetime, in part because the making of gold or silver was a felony and had been since a law was passed by Henry IV in 1404.'"
This prompts me to state something that I've wanted to say for quite a while. There's a large /. fraternity who will jump on anyone who proposes anything outside the current scientific orthodoxy. And yet here we are reminded that one of our foremost scientific forebears dabbled in a lot of stuff that, today, we see as rather esoteric (to be charitable). I think the reason he is seen as a giant of science is because he was not straightjacketed by orthodoxy. To quote Shakespeare:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Why was it crazy?
The atomic theory of matter wasn't even remotely experimentally provable. The periodic table was unknown and the idea of nuclei completely absent.
Chemistry then was very empirical and without significant systematic reasoning. Here Newton was very right that there was in fact something substantially scientific which could be discovered.
Unfortunately, experimental knowledge and technical ability wasn't available at the time to succeed in his quest, and it didn't happen for a hundred fifty to 200 more years.
There was no scientific reason known at the time why lead (or anything else) couldn't be turned into gold with chemical reactions.
Just imagine if Newton could have done spectroscopy or IR scattering experiments.
A good idea, except that they had no idea what radium was back then. And silver that killed you wasn't very good for business, as these poor fellowsfigured out. :-)
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I find your reasoning quite narrow-minded. Essentially, what you are suggesting is that scientists should be aware of their ignorance and try to stay within a certain scope of possibilities.
I have news for you. If this was an accepted method in the scientific community, we'd still be banging rocks against each other to make fire.
Carrying out experiments in the direction of what seems obvioiusly unattainable often yields unexpected results, and that's how progress is made.
I find it interesting that you should mention the ability to fly. Think about all those poor schmucks who rolled their own wings and attempted to fly off of high altitude cliffs. They failed, but humans always strived to fly one way or another. Leonardo Da Vinci drew up prototypes of various flying mechanisms, which it can be argued, somewhat influenced modern flight technologies. Choppers, parachutes, etc. Was he over-reaching? Sure. But in many such instances, you have to think ahead by a mile to make any progress, even if what you're imagining is completely out of the realm of modern possibilities.
.....You could do a lot worse than that as far as Christian fundamentalist obsessions go. Metaphorically speaking, as the figurehead of an international syndicate that has been banking off the perversion of Christ's teachings for two millennia, preying on the (near-)universal human need to understand our meaningful* place in the 'grand scheme of things' (which may or may not exist)..... yeah, that'll do for a Satanic archetype any day of the week. Especially Sunday. * in my opinion, as individuals we struggle to reconcile our subliminal awareness of the collective consciousness with the egoistic nature of our minds and sensory perceptions..... to me this is the impetus for the search for 'meaningfulness'.....
Perhaps it is merely that you imply there is a difference between genius and crazy. The intelligent but sane are also known as mediocre.
Also, don't forget about all the wars that Europe has had. Don't forget that what is considered notable today wasn't often though of as such at times in the past. Consider that, even today, certain documents and artifacts are even illegal to have copies of in some countries, and that most 'antiquities', when discovered in private posession, will be seized by the government. I am sure there is much privately held, and its value comprehended, that will not see by the public for many years. Just imagine what the secret vaults of the vatican must hold. Think of what might be stashed in safe-deposit boxes in Zurich. Consider what artifacts remain hidden in Israeli government offices because they contradict the established view of their history and religion.
There are private histories.
There are different types of challenges to scientific orthodoxy. Though we are not omniscient, our understanding of the world advances ever closer to perfection. Some challengers to scientific orthodoxy are far more wrong than others.
Asimov used the example of the shape of the earth, as understood over the centuries, to illustrate this:
So Einstein's special relativity approximates to Newton's laws of motion when v is much less than c. The quantum model of the atom approximates to Bohr's model of the atom in every high school chemistry lab. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies to every mass, but is unmeasurably small except on the scale of electrons and photons and quarks.
All the great challenges to scientific orthodoxy, for all their brilliance and insight, give results comparable to accepted orthodox wisdom except at the extremes of measurement. If someone makes a claim that does not fit this pattern, he can safely be dismissed as a crank or charlatan.
Newton was a genius when it came to mathematics and physics, and a deluded fool when it came to chemistry. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I'm not sure that could be determined at this point, but I do hear that he stuttered and had epilepsy, so it could be. I'm sure it's possible to be intelligent and be mostly normal/conventional/neurotypical in most other respects at the same time. But to achieve the things guys like Newton have achieved, the level of perseveration has to be such that they at least need to be OCD. I hear Thomas Edison didn't read until he was 12 -- had some learning disability. Graham Bell, I believe was dyslexic. Einstein is controversial, but this is fairly well documented in the "Einstein Syndrome:" He was a late talker, and couldn't really speak fluently until the age of 9. Had violent temper tantrums. Repeated every sentence he uttered. Was considered retarted by his elementary school teachers. (I'm pretty sure Einstein today would be diagnosed HFA and put on Ritalin.) Consider also Howard Hughes -- just go see "The Aviator." Someone here mentioned recently that James Gosling "amazingly" doesn't seem to have good social skills. I think I could go on for ever with this.
There are also cases of autistic individuals considered retarted who later in life are determined to have very high IQs (even though a lot of times they still cannot communicate verbally.) There was a documentary in CNN recently about a woman such as this.
I for one don't consider true high-functioning autism a disease or a disorder. It's just neurological diversity, for which there's very little tolerance, and is plagued by ridiculous stereotypes.
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