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> It has honestly surprised me that a bunch of people I thought were smart... Nobody is universally brilliant. Newton spent as much time on alchemy as he did

• garbagetime 5y ago
  >Newton spent as much time on alchemy as he did physics I don't think that was an act of unbrilliance. It just didn't happen to work out.
  • louloulou 5y ago
    I mean splitting and fusing atomic nuclei is something that happens all the time. Hard to claim he was wrong, just a few orders of magnitude off on the energy required to do it.
  • eternalban 5y ago
    > It just didn't happen to work out. Nobody is privy to the full content of Newton's mind and his mental processes. One could also argue that his metaphysical preoccupations positively influenced his scientific accomplishments. Heck, at a meta level, is not Newtonian Physics intellectual 'Gold' end result of processing the 'Lead' in his head? That's alchemy.
• ur-whale 5y ago
  He also tried his hand at investing, without much success: https://www.businessinsider.com/isaac-newton-lost-a-fortune-on-englands-hottest-stock-2016-1?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/isaac-newton-lost-a-fortune-...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Ekaros 5y ago
  Was it really alchemy or proto-chemistry? After all Newton lived in time when chemistry was only starting to be defined. And it took quite a while to come up with proper ideas.
• hprotagonist 5y ago
  Newton also lost huge sums of money investing poorly. Which is quite literally the same thing as now.