Newton was the Einstein of his day, a genius whose scientific
discoveries brought a greater understanding of our universe and led
directly to the space age. Every child knows how Newton watched
apples falling from trees and so discovered gravity. What few
people know is what Newton the man was really like. We can only say
that even by the standards of his own time he was an oddball - the
sort of character with whom few people felt comfortable. In this
biography, James Gleick, an American science writer and Pulitzer
Prize finalist, attempts to get into Newton's psyche. Newton tried
hard not to leave any clues about himself but conclusions can be
drawn from what is known of his lifestyle and what others of the
time said about him. The result is an engrossing study of a man
with as many hang-ups as flashes of brilliance. Even as a
ten-year-old in 1653, Newton showed a grasp of complex issues far
beyond his years. But beneath that maturity lurked a sensitive soul
that longed for love and didn't get it. His mother apparently cared
little for him, separating him from his siblings and sending him
off to a distant school. That rejection was to shape Newton's
outlook on life. He grew up a furtive, secretive individual who
made amazing discoveries but often kept them to himself for years.
As an adult he lived reclusively, seldom leaving his rooms and
shunning the company of the few people who wanted to be his
friends. He dabbled in occultism, spent his evenings surrounded by
the paraphernalia of alchemy, and hated putting his thoughts to
paper. Despite all this he made astounding breakthroughs in various
branches of science - a fact that drew world acclaim but left him
feeling more vulnerable than ever. Gleick has performed a
remarkable job in showing Newton as the misunderstood man he was -
a genius with psychological flaws but a good heart. (Kirkus UK)
From one of the best writers on science, a remarkable portrait of
Isaac Newton. The man who changed our understanding of the
universe, of science, and of faith. Isaac Newton was the chief
architect of the modern world. He answered the ancient
philosophical riddles of light and motion; he effectively
discovered gravity; he salvaged the terms 'time', 'space', 'motion'
and 'place' from the haze of everyday language, standardized them
and married them, each to the other, constructing an edifice that
made knowledge a thing of substance: quantative and exact.
Creation, Newton demonstrated, unfolds from simple rules, patterns
iterated over unlimited distances. What Newton learned remains the
essence of what we know. Newton's laws are our laws. When we speak
of momentum, of forces and masses, we are seeing the world as
Newtonians. When we seek mathematical laws for economic cycles and
human behaviour, we stand on Newton's shoulders. Our very deeming
the universe as solvable is his legacy. This was the achievement of
a reclusive professor, recondite theologian and fervent alchemist.
A man who feared the light of exposure, shrank from controversy and
seldom published his work. In his daily life he emulated the
complex secrecy in which he saw the riddles of the universe
encoded. His vision of nature was of its time; he never purged
occult, hidden, mystical qualities. But he pushed open a door that
led to a new universe.
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