People/Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He is seen as a key figure in the "Scientific Revolution".
In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity. He theorized that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles.
Newton's other story
Kepler’s jealousy of Brahe was just slightly worse in comparison to Newton’s avarice that led him to confiscate the work of his contemporaries and credit it to himself. Astronomer John Flamsteed was the owner of voluminous notes charting the moon’s movement and the positions of the stars, notes Newton desperately needed to bring the moon within his gravitational theory for the publishing of his famous Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. A bitter feud resulted between the two men wherein Newton, using his influence with government officials, forced Flamsteed’s hand. Not only did Newton surreptitiously wrest Flamsteed of his painstaking work, he did the same to Stephen Gray and Robert Hooke. In 1674 Hooke published the Inverse Square Law for the force of gravity in his book "An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth by Observation". Newton then tried to claim it as his own, feigning that he had thought about it many years earlier but only decided to publish it in his own book thirteen years later.
Newton won the day against Hooke by using his influence at the Royal Society, just as he did in heading off the new discoveries of Robert Boyle, all in an effort to advance his own career.
In addition to the ill-treatment of his scientific colleagues, Newton was rumored to have had a homosexual relationship with one John Wickins, a friend with whom he had lived for twenty years; and a later liaison with Nicholas Fatio De Duillier, a man twenty years his junior and with whom he exchanged intimate letters, many of which were later censored by Newton or a confidant. Newton was also deep into alchemy (illegal at the time) and the Kabbalah, the occult musings of medieval Talmudic authors.
Newton spent most of his time interpreting biblical prophecy, writing over a million words on the subject. One of his more intriguing predictions is the date of 2060 AD as the end of the world, but that date surfaces only because Newton decided that the Roman Catholic Church was the Antichrist. Isaac held that the tenth horn of the fourth beast of the Apocalypse represented the Roman Catholic Church.
Newton believed that the Second Coming of Christ would follow plagues and war and would precede a 1,000-year reign of Christ and the saints on earth, otherwise known today as “chiliasm” or “premillennialism” He spent close to 50 years delving into biblical prophecy, writing over 4,500 pages and a million words in an effort to determine the end of the world. Many of these papers had lain undisturbed in the hours of the Earl of Portsmouth for 250 years, which were eventually sold by Sotheby’s in the late 1930s. Newton proposed various dates for the end, but one of the last, which he apparently wrote on a separate piece of paper, was 2060. This collection of papers was purchased by Abraham Yahuda, and was stored in the Hebrew National Library. It was among these documents that the date 2060 was found.
Alchemy and Occult studies
Isaac Newton, an English physicist and mathematician produced works exploring chronology, and biblical interpretation (especially of the Apocalypse), and alchemy. Some of this could be considered occult. Newton's scientific work may have been of lesser personal importance to him, as he placed emphasis on rediscovering the wisdom of the ancients.
Much of what are known as Isaac Newton's occult studies can largely be attributed to his study of alchemy. From a young age, Newton was deeply interested in all forms of natural sciences and materials science, an interest which would ultimately lead to some of his better-known contributions to science. His earliest encounters with certain alchemical theories and practices were during his childhood, when a twelve year old Isaac Newton was boarding in the attic of an apothecaries shop.
During Newton's lifetime, the study of chemistry was still in its infancy, so many of his experimental studies used esoteric language and vague terminology more typically associated with alchemy and occultism. It was not until several decades after Newton's death that experiments of stoichiometry under the pioneering works of Antoine Lavoisier were conducted, and analytical chemistry, with its associated nomenclature, came to resemble modern chemistry as we know it today. However, Newton's contemporary and fellow Royal Society member, Robert Boyle, had already discovered the basic concepts of modern chemistry and began establishing modern norms of experimental practice and communication in chemistry, information which Newton did not use.
Much of Newton's writing on alchemy may have been lost in a fire in his laboratory, so the true extent of his work in this area may have been larger than is currently known. Newton also suffered a nervous breakdown during his period of alchemical work. His other writings suggest that one of the main goals of his alchemy may have been the discovery of the philosopher's stone (a material believed to turn base metals into gold), and perhaps to a lesser extent, the discovery of the highly coveted Elixir of Life. Newton reportedly believed that a Diana's Tree, an alchemical demonstration producing a dendritic "growth" of silver from solution, was evidence that metals "possessed a sort of life."
He wrote more than a million words on alchemy over his lifetime, conducting decades' worth of alchemical experiments. But he did it all in secret. For centuries after his death in 1727, few people knew the extent of Newton’s alchemical work. Finally, in 1936, most of Newton’s alchemical papers came up for auction. The famous economist John Maynard Keynes bought them and later declared that Newton "was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians."
1666, The year of wonders
Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means "marvelous year", "wonderful year", "miraculous year", "year of wonder" or "amazing year". This term has been used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are remembered, notably Isaac Newton's discoveries in 1666.
Isaac Newton, aged 23, was said to have made "revolutionary inventions and discoveries" in calculus, motion, optics and gravitation. It was in this year that Newton was alleged to have observed an apple falling from a tree, and in which he, in any case, hit upon the law of universal gravitation (Newton's apple). He was afforded the time to work on his theories due to the closure of Cambridge University by an outbreak of plague, which was known as the "The Great Plague of London", lasting from 1665 to 1666; which was a "major" epidemic of the bubonic plague in England.
The Great Fire of London, which took place on September 2, 1666, was another one of the major events that affected England during the "year of miracles". Besides all the 6's in 1666, it must be nice that, despite so much death and destruction, to still have the year labeled "marvelous" because of good old clever Isaac.
Calculus
Due to the threat of punishment and the potential scrutiny he feared from his peers within the scientific community, Newton may have deliberately left his work on alchemical subjects unpublished. Newton was well known as being highly sensitive to criticism, such as the numerous instances when he was criticized by Robert Hooke, and his admitted reluctance to publish any substantial information regarding calculus before 1693.
Newton refrained from publication of material that he felt was incomplete, as evident from a 38-year gap from Newton's conception of calculus in 1666 and its final full publication in 1704, which would ultimately lead to the infamous Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy.
In the history of calculus, the calculus controversy was an argument between the mathematicians Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over who had first invented calculus. The question was a major intellectual controversy, which began simmering in 1699 and broke out in full force in 1711. Leibniz had published his work first, but Newton's supporters accused Leibniz of plagiarizing Newton's unpublished ideas. Leibniz died in disfavour in 1716 after his patron, the Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover, became King George I of Great Britain in 1714. The modern consensus is that the two men developed their ideas independently.
Newton said he had begun working on a form of calculus (which he called "the method of fluxions and fluents") in 1666, at the age of 23, but did not publish it except as a minor annotation in the back of one of his publications decades later (a relevant Newton manuscript of October 1666 is now published among his mathematical papers).
Newton and The Rosicrucians
Perhaps the movement which most influenced Isaac Newton was Rosicrucianism. Though the Rosicrucian movement had caused a great deal of excitement within Europe’s scholarly community during the early seventeenth century, by the time Newton had reached maturity the movement had become less sensationalized. However, the Rosicrucian movement still would have a profound influence upon Newton, particularly in regard to his alchemical work and philosophical thought.
The Rosicrucian belief in being specially chosen for the ability to communicate with angels or spirits is echoed in Newton’s prophetic beliefs. Additionally, the Rosicrucians proclaimed to have the ability to live forever through the use of the elixir vitae and the ability to produce limitless amounts of time and gold from the use of The Philosopher’s Stone, which they claimed to have in their possession. Like Newton, the Rosicrucians were deeply religious, avowedly Christian, anti-Catholic, and highly politicised. Isaac Newton would have a deep interest in not just their alchemical pursuits, but also their belief in esoteric truths of the ancient past and the belief in enlightened individuals with the ability to gain insight into nature, the physical universe, and the spiritual realm.
At the time of his death, Isaac Newton had 169 books on the topic of alchemy in his personal library, and was believed to have considerably more books on this topic during his Cambridge years, though he may have sold them before moving to London in 1696. For its time, his was considered one of the finest alchemical libraries in the world. In his library, Newton left behind a heavily annotated personal copy of The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity R.C., by Thomas Vaughan which represents an English translation of The Rosicrucian Manifestos. Newton also possessed copies of Themis Aurea and Symbola Aurea Mensae Duodecium by the learned alchemist Michael Maier, both of which are significant early books about the Rosicrucian movement. These books were also extensively annotated by Newton.
Newton’s ownership of these materials by no means denotes membership within any early Rosicrucian order. Furthermore, considering that his personal alchemical investigations were focused upon discovering materials which the Rosicrucians professed to already be in possession of long before he was born, would seem to some to exclude Newton from their membership. However, in religious terms, the fact that a saint might have ‘found God’ would not preclude others from the search — quite the opposite. The Ancient & Mystical Order Rosae Crucis has always claimed Newton as a frater. During his own life, Newton was openly ‘accused’ of being a Rosicrucian, as were many members of The Royal Society. Though it is not known for sure if Isaac Newton was in fact a Rosicrucian, and he never publicly identified himself as one, from his writings it does appear that he may have shared many of their sentiments and beliefs.
Excerpts from Chapter 3 of the book, Isaac Newton’s Freemasonry: The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism by Alain Bauer
Loup Verlet writes of the conditions of the “miraculous” discovery of Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Put in a stack in 1696 when he was leaving the directorship of the mint in London, they escaped the burning of his personal documents arranged just after his death. They were discovered two centuries later and put up at auction in 1936. John Maynard Keynes won the manuscripts and revealed that Newton was not only the “first physicist” but also the “last magician.” The haul included several alchemical works, the bulk of them now at Cambridge, some at the University of Jerusalem, and others in private collections. According to Verlet, Newton’s known work comprises 1.4 million words relating to theology, 550,000 on alchemy, 150,000 on monetary affairs, and one million on scientific problems.
Verlet considers Newton, from a scientific point of view, to have been a coincidence. If he had not lived, the development of the sciences would surely have been delayed, and the work begun by Galileo and Descartes would have been slowed down. But by hiding his secrets away, Newton the magus also hid the alchemical, Hermetic, and esoteric dimensions which elucidated his research. From this point of view, victorious Science made its complex matrix disappear.
Quotes
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
You have to make the rules, not follow them
I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.
No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.
What goes up must come down.
There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.
I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.
Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, "By thinking about it all the time.
A cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water about 33 feet high.
Do not Bodies act upon Light at a distance, and by their action bend its Rays; and is not this action (caeteris paribus) [all else being equal] strongest at the least distance?
Do not Bodies and Light act mutually upon one another; that is to say, Bodies upon Light in emitting, reflecting, refracting and inflecting it, and Light upon Bodies for heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion wherein heat consists?
You sometimes speak of gravity as essential and inherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that notion to me, for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know, and therefore would take more time to consider of it.