Isaac Newton was a
genius who transformed our world. He was also a crazy alchemist who lost millions in bad investments. One part genius, one part madness.
Who, then, was the
real Isaac Newton? Check out these fast facts to find out!
1
While impressed by his book "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", the UK's science academy couldn't publish Isaac Newton's book due to being nearly bankrupt from spending all of its money printing the "History of Fish". Thankfully, scientist Edmond Halley's funded the printing. -u/Hbunny3177
2
Isaac Newton Was Deeply Religious. He Is Generally Considered An Anti-Trinitarian Monotheist By Historians, And Was Considered To Be A Heretic Due To His Belief That Worshipping Jesus As God Was Unholy. He Also Made Numerous Studies Of The Bible, Which Supported The Doctrine Of Immanence. -u/TheCosmicSmile
3
Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day, 1642 according to the Julian calendar. But when the British changed to the Gregorian calendar his birthday retroactively changed to January 4, 1643. -u/dirtballmagnet
4
Isaac Newton was a member of Parliament, and during his time in the Parliament, he spoke only once - to ask an usher to close a window because it was chilly. -u/maccchicken
5
When Isaac Newton was removed from school due to his interest in personal pursuits rather than studies, his mother tried to make him a farmer. Newton's hatred for farming and some persuasion from a schoolmaster led him to finish school aged 18 and enter Cambridge University a year later. -u/TheTriviaPage
6
The reason the rainbow has indigo/violet and not just purple is because Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with the number 7 for occult reasons, he had to have 7 colors. -u/rc_12
7
Henry Lucas in 1663 founded a professorship of mathematics at Cambridge University. The "Lucasian Professor of Mathematics" has become hugely prestigious, with holders including Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, Paul Dirac, and Stephen Hawking. -u/TelescopiumHerscheli
8
Isaac Newton studied the occult and predicted the end of the world as we know it to happen around the year 2060. He believed humanity would then progress into an era of divinely inspired peace. -u/ness_davis
9
Isaac Newton got swept up in the investing madness of the South Seas Bubble and lost out to the tune of ~£20,000,000 (in today's money). -u/Quantumofbear
10
Isaac Newton poked his eye with a sewing needle to learn more about light by seeing how altering the shape of his eye would change his perception - he recorded seeing colored circles and other visual phenomena. -u/yogurtpimple
11
The familiar story that Isaac Newton was inspired to research the nature of gravity by an apple hitting his head is almost certainly apocryphal. All Newton himself ever said was that the idea came to him as he sat "in a contemplative mood" and "was occasioned by the fall of an apple". -u/Movie_Advance_101
12
In 1665, the University of Cambridge temporarily closed due to the Bubonic plague. Isaac Newton had to work from home, where he used that time to develop calculus and the theory of gravity. -u/Jaredrap
13
Isaac Newton wrote a list of his sins at 19, including: “Threat[e]ning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them.", striking many, beating Arthur Storer, punching his sister, reading the History of the Christian Champions on Sunday, and eating an apple at Church. -u/JustAManFromThePast
14
Isaac Newton studied alchemy. -u/FractalCycle
15
Isaac Newton stopped the illegal act of clipping coins by introducing edges of the coins with letters or grainings. -u/ClowxReed
16
Sir Isaac Newton's dog set his laboratory on fire, ruining his 20 years of research. When he saw what the dog had done, Newton is said to have exclaimed, "O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done." -u/drunkardmumbaikar
17
Robert Hooke, despite pioneering the experimental method and discovering many elements of gravitational theory first, was almost entirely erased from history by Sir Isaac Newton because they did not like each other and Newton lived 25 years longer, allowing him to edit history to his favor. -deleted user
18
After he reinvented our understanding of mathematics, Isaac Newton would spend the last 30 years of his life as the Master of the Royal Mint, prosecuting and executing counterfeiters. -u/SIRasdf23
19
Isaac Newton was so obsessed with turning base metal to gold that samples of his hair showed mercury levels up to 40 times higher than average. This is considered to be the reason he went mad in his later years. -u/blessbless85
20
Sir Isaac Newton, while Master of the Royal Mint, personally went undercover in bars and taverns to root out rampant counterfeiting, which was high treason (punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered). He successfully prosecuted 28 counterfeiters in 18 months. -u/PedanticPendant
21
In 1668, Isaac Newton created a small but powerful telescope that didn’t suffer from chromatic aberration. Astronomers had struggled for years with the fringes of color that surrounded bright objects seen through a glass lens. Newton’s solution was taking the lens out of the telescope. -u/vannybros
22
Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica is regarded by many as the greatest scientific contribution of all time. Despite its reputation, relatively few readers, including professional scientists and mathematicians, have actually read the Principia. -u/princey12
23
In Marvel's main universe Sir Isaac Newton was once Sorcerer Supreme, the same title later held by Doctor Strange. -u/NeoMordiki
24
Isaac Newton created the color wheel before the invention of photography. -u/Diriector_Doc
25
The ashes of Stephen Hawking were buried between the graves of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, in a section of Westminster Abbey known as the "Scientists Corner." As a final tribute, during the burial, the European Space Agency beamed recordings of Hawking's voice to the nearest black hole. -u/PepeTheFRQG
