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Holy Hell Isaac Newton was one weird dude..

ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

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Sep 3, 2019
1,388
"Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago."- John Maynard Keynes

Been Reading a lot about Newton lately. It's crazy to think that he is arguably the greatest scientist in history and yet looked at his scientific work as lesser importance then his religious studies or occult studies

He was into weird stuff, we all know the story of how he stuck a needle in his eye for an experiment. Some of his occult studies are crazy though


He studied intensively on the philosopher's stone. His biblical studies focused on numerology, the dimensions of Solomon's Temple, his 2060 prophecy. He wrote extensively on chronology, Atlantis, etc.

http://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/ you can see all his alchemy, religious and mathematical/scientific work on this page. It's just incredible to read about this stuff. There's this conception that Newton was the king of reason and paradigm of rationality but he was nothing but the sort. In fact he didn't make a distinction between science and religion, to him it was all part of one grand project in trying to decipher reality
 
CrazyDude

CrazyDude

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Oct 25, 2017
5,737
Newton is proof that just because you are smart about some stuff, it doesn't mean that you are smart about everything
 
Stooge

Stooge

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Oct 29, 2017
11,239
Yeah, Newton was basically a wingnut conspiracy theorist who thought metals were alive .

He also was also somehow making solid scientific discoveries while doing mostly crazy shit
 
HStallion

HStallion

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Oct 25, 2017
62,262
Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything is just full of these kinds of anecdotes and stories of the brilliant people who changed the world through their discoveries and creations as well as just how fucking crazy many of them were.
 
Z-Beat

Z-Beat

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
31,852
CrazyDude said:
Newton is proof that just because you are smart about some stuff, it doesn't mean that you are smart about everything
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240
 
Keldroc

Keldroc

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Oct 27, 2017
11,987
CrazyDude said:
Newton is proof that just because you are smart about some stuff, it doesn't mean that you are smart about everything
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Also a pretty good example of how even if you believe loony shit, if you're committed to accepting the results of your research and experiments, you'll end up with correct conclusions in spite of yourself.
 
OP
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ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

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Sep 3, 2019
1,388
It's just im amazed that the physicists of the 20th century like still praised Newton despite Newton believing in a lot of irrational things
 
sphagnum

sphagnum

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Oct 25, 2017
16,058
There's nothing "weird" or "crazy" about this. He was in a time before modern science had fully sorted itself out. Most of the brilliant minds prior to the 18th century were all superstitious. Do ou think all the ancient Greek philosophers, medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic scholars, Indian mathematicians, the Babylonians and Egyptians etc. shouldn't be honored because they believed in gods and demons and magic and alchemy?

You're projecting modern value judgements back in time where they don't belong.
 
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ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

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Sep 3, 2019
1,388
NexusCell said:
Pretty sure when you contribute so much to the groundwork of physics, astronomy, and optics that most quirks tend to be overlooked.
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Dennis8K said:
His contributions to science and mathematics are gargantuan.

His other endeavors has no bearing on that fact.
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I know...I know

its just interesting that you have Einstein this super rationalist/atheist scientist giving praise to a religious/spirtual/occultist scientist
It's incredible Einstein was able to overlook that.
 
thewienke

thewienke

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Oct 25, 2017
15,965
CrazyDude said:
Newton is proof that just because you are smart about some stuff, it doesn't mean that you are smart about everything
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Maybe in other words, enough proof that you should ask yourself "is this person an expert in this subject?" before declaring that they're a good or even reliable source in whatever field.

The "famous" Astrophysicists tend to get roped into lots of other debates under the assumption that they're the smartest people in the world when maybe those other debates should be left to the experts in their respective field. I'm not sure if it's a fault of our society that we just don't have quite as many famous economists, sociologists, and philosophers for the media to grasp onto?
 
metalslimer

metalslimer

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Oct 25, 2017
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Its interesting thinking that he came up with calculus as it seems crazy to me that the entire concept had not been thought of before and the fact that so much of what I think about math science is derived from calculus
 
OP
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ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

Banned
Sep 3, 2019
1,388
thewienke said:
Maybe in other words, enough proof that you should ask yourself "is this person an expert in this subject?" before declaring that they're a good or even reliable source in whatever field.

The "famous" Astrophysicists tend to get roped into lots of other debates under the assumption that they're the smartest people in the world when maybe those other debates should be left to the experts in their respective field. I'm not sure if it's a fault of our society that we just don't have quite as many famous economists, sociologists, and philosophers for the media to grasp onto?
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knowledge is too specialized now a days.. that's why there were alot more polymaths in the old days. It's incredibly hard to polymath now a days since knowledge is too deep and specialized
 
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ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

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Sep 3, 2019
1,388
metalslimer said:
Its interesting thinking that he came up with calculus as it seems crazy to me that the entire concept had not been thought of before and the fact that so much of what I think about math science is derived from calculus
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well there were elements of calculus that were known since Archimedes and Ancient Greece through India, the Arabic World, medieval europe etc. but it wasn't really until Newton and Leibniz who established calculus as a defined mathematical discipline (which actually would not really become rigorous until the 18th century)
 

TwinBahamut

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Jun 8, 2018
1,360
ThousandEyes said:
It's just im amazed that the physicists of the 20th century like still praised Newton despite Newton believing in a lot of irrational things
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Newton's work on mathematics and physics, particularly in the way he combined them, is worthy of endless praise. I mean, he was literally the person who came up with the idea of expressing physical laws with mathematical equations. All of modern science began with that. Nothing else he did, from his belief in magic to his petty ego-driven academic politics, takes away from that.

Science doesn't care whether the scientist fits some modern ideal of what a "good scientist" is. Sound theories, good math, and strong evidence are the only things that should matter when discussing the quality of a scientist's work and accomplishments.
 
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ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes

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Sep 3, 2019
1,388
The Hooke thing. I know he recognized Hooke as having a basis of the idea of the inverse square law, but he didn't have any where near the mathematical ability of Newton to make something like the Principia

i know in the original draft of the Principia he recognized Hooke but then later deleted it in the first publication
 
ibyea

ibyea

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Oct 25, 2017
4,164
metalslimer said:
Its interesting thinking that he came up with calculus as it seems crazy to me that the entire concept had not been thought of before and the fact that so much of what I think about math science is derived from calculus
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He may be the first to systematize it, but I wouldn't say the concept has not been thought of before. Archimedes did calculus type of work way before. A lot of other people worked with infinitesimals before him.
 
A Path Finder

A Path Finder

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Oct 27, 2017
360
Newton was amazingly brilliant and absolutely one of the best scientists of all time. Einstein knew this. Newton was also a product of his time. Einstein understood this too. Nothing odd going on at all with Einstein praising Newton.
 

Deleted member 29682

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DiipuSurotu said:
Albert Einstein??
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I'm inclined to think Newton was more important. Or even Maxwell or Bohr. Certainly Maxwell is responsible for the foundations upon which Einstein made his discoveries.

If we're talking physicists I mean. I'm not well positioned to judge the accomplishments of other fields.
 
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Arta

Arta

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Oct 27, 2017
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HStallion said:
He came up with calculus.
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Because he reached a roadblock figuring out gravity. He came up with a new field of mathematics to help him figure out a new field of physics. He was a beast of a scientist.

I believe some other scientist was working separately on calculus, but Newton was an ass who refused to collaborate.
 
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