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Hagiography aside, Newton, the Man was also mean-spirited and would go to great lengths to ensure his "opponents" would suffer. I remember reading that as Presi
by vmurthy 7y ago
Hagiography aside, Newton, the Man was also mean-spirited and would go to great lengths to ensure his "opponents" would suffer. I remember reading that as President of the Royal Society, he politicized the Leibniz Calculus issue so much that even our politicians can pick up a lesson or two :-) [1]
Why am I telling this? Well, I'd like people to realize that our heroes also have flaws and we don't fall to blind hero-worship. There are, after all, lessons to be learnt on how not to be as well :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Newton_calculus_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Newton_calculu...
- arethuza 7y agoThat might be why when he worked at the Mint he tool the task of finding and prosecuting "coiners" so seriously - even working undercover himself to gather information and running the prosecutions himself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Later_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Later_life World's greatest scientist turned undercover crime fighting superhero!
- alimw 7y agoI don't think that page on Wikipedia can be the source of your information—it says nothing to support the claim of mean-spiritedness.
- vmurthy 7y agoYou're right.Here's a better source. I have highlighted the relevant passage on my Kindle from the book "A Brief History of Time" and sharing as an image because I can't quite get to post directly as text. https://imgur.com/3hJ9z6O https://imgur.com/3hJ9z6O
- vixen99 7y agoIs there strong evidence that people don't understand this already? There are plenty of lists such as this one pointing out similar people who were immensely talented in some respect. https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-geniuses-shockingly-horrible-people.php https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-geniuses-shockingly-horrible-...
- winchling 7y agoYes. Can anyone name a nice scientific genius? It's not a coincidence that these rare individuals aren't agreeable, i.e. not unduly influenced by the concerns/ideas of people around them.
- cr1895 7y agoRichard Feynman?
- philzook 7y agoHoo boy. I dunno. Of course I have never come close to meeting the man, but the stories make him seem incredibly cocky and willing to verbally slam people just for fun.
- nik61 7y agoA notorious philanderer, it is said, though I guess you may have to be nice to be one of those.
- sytelus 7y agoLeonard Susskind who actually worked with Feynman recently said Feynman had ego of the size of mountain.
- CDSlice 7y agoMichael Faraday? From the little I've read about him he seemed to be a pretty nice guy.
- liberte82 7y agoEinstein!
- jhbadger 7y agoHe also was pretty nasty to Robert Hooke (of Hooke's Law and microscopy fame). Yes, he was probably a better scientist than Hooke, but Hooke wasn't nothing either.
- mellosouls 7y agoThe famous "shoulders of giants" quote has been seen by some as a mean dig at the hunchbacked Hooke.
- justin66 7y agoIt's not a new observation. Stephen Hawking's biographical section on Newton in A Brief History of Time starts out "Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man."