WEBVTT - Newton: The Chuck Norris of Science 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.640 My name to Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Uglars. Julie. 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.080 Has the end of the world occurred yet? The apocalypse? 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.520 The Twilight of the Gods? Let me get my calendar out. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.760 Hold on, Oh, here's my Mayan calendar and it says 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.680 that it will actually occur on December. Okay, so we 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.559 have a little more time to freak out about it 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.320 and for people to publish books about it, and and hey, 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.360 do podcast about it? Right exactly, all right? So here's 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.080 the thing people have always been doing this is we've 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.200 discussed We did a whole episode on on why we're 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.000 in love with the idea of the end of the 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.279 world and how how we just can't get enough of it. 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.120 We love an apocalypse so so for ages we've had 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.400 quacks stepping out and saying I looked at a text, 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.720 or I I stared at the sun, or I or 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:03.440 I I ate some sort of plant I shouldn't have, 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.679 and now I have inside information on what is going 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.959 to happen to our planet in the next year, And 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.200 would you consider buying this pamphlet right exactly, or in 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.160 the case that we have coming up with a mind 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.920 calendar running out, do you want to book a package 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.280 to say bellies for the end of the world. I'm 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.520 not getting there are end of the world packages U 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.640 in Central America. There are. But but here's the thing. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.080 This is nothing new. It's been going on for ages, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.800 and it was definitely going on during the lifetime of 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.560 one Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern science, the 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.040 Englishman who lived from sixteen forty three to seventy seven, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.120 whose tomb actually makes a statement in Latin, of course, 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.760 about how he was basically the best man that ever lived. Yeah, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.160 please read that statement because I love it. Yeah, Yeah, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.560 here's the here's the right up translated mortals rejoice that 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.000 there has existed such and so great an ornament of 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.720 the human race, which which that you gotta admit, even 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.560 for someone like Sir Isaac Newton, who is pretty big 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.160 medicine when it comes to science, that's kind of absurd, 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.679 like like who who is who is deserving of that? 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.520 Maybe Sir Isaac Newton. That's the thing, because because it's 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.239 easy to dismiss him as the gravity and apples guy, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.320 but when you really start looking at his life, a 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.280 he he accomplished so much, and he was so focused 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.480 and in a little crazy one more than a little crazy. 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.359 I mean, just the mind of this guy is pretty amazing. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.880 And so so he's living, you know, he's doing his thing. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.400 He's uh, he's just throwing his his considerable intellected at 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.120 various problems that come along as well as the end 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.120 of the world, right right, right, yeah, because he's he's 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:44.800 going out in the street and this is a dude 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:46.760 that is uh, you know, he's laying out the laws 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.240 of motion, he's figuring out universal gravity. He's he's laying 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.040 down some of the physical laws that that in our understanding, 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:54.519 of these physical laws that will allow us to go 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.280 to the moon. Uh, I mean, we're He spoke of 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.200 standing on the shoulders of giants, but he's one of 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.920 the giants that the modern stock could stand upon. And 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.800 so he hears these these louts talking about the end 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.079 of the world and they're talking about how they read 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.360 it in the Bible, and he's like, WHOA hold on 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.800 a second, I know a thing or two about theology. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.920 I've read the Bible. I've I've i've looked through and 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.920 glimpse the the hidden truths in it. Let me take 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:20.160 a look at this and I'll get back to you. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.520 So he goes home, he analyzes the Book of Daniel. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.959 Daniel Old Testament had these visions of four beasts and 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.840 all and it's and it's great, uh, you know, apocalyptic 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.519 gravy for for people who are into into that sort 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.040 of thing. Yeahah. And so so he looks at it 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.240 and he's like, all right, Uh, I looked at it. 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.680 I looked at the data. I I sort of weaved 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.600 around in the Bible codes. And you don't have anything 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.320 to worry about. The end of the world is not 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:51.080 happening until at least twenty six maybe after, but not until. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.440 So everyone shut up, right, just keep keep walking. Nothing 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.920 nothing to see here. And that is something we thought 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.640 so amazing. Think about this guy is not just the 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:04.920 common things that we know about him, that he has 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.800 um contributed to society and to mathematics and physics and 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.120 so I want and so forth, but um that this 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.160 guy was obsessive on on all points and he could 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:19.040 sort of bend the time space continuum seemingly to his will. Uh. 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.920 You know whether or not he was, you know, meditating 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.320 on gravity or perhaps even creating cat flap doors. Yeah, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.160 that one's we're not sure on that one, but there's 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.440 there is there. There is the theory that he invented 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.320 the cat flap because he didn't want his cats constantly 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.560 asking to be let into because you know how it is, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.200 you're in your lab figuring out how the universe works, 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:40.960 and the cat wants the scratching on the door. You 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:42.800 let the cat in, and you're like all right, yeah, 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:44.280 and you're like, all right, you're in. Let me get 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.760 back to work. Then the cat wants out. This is 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.760 important when you're thinking about gravity, right, can not be interrupted? Um? 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.360 And so yeah, he's he's he's working on that, and 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.279 he is making the public feel safer and and re 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:01.839 forecasting the apocalypse for right. So yeah, here here we 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.479 have the Chuck Norris of science. Yeah. Yeah, it's like 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.000 the Chuck Norris thing because it's like when I was 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.600 reading about it and I was researching it for work, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.320 you know, his various accomplishments. I kept finding these amazing 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.919 things because I mean, my understanding Newton was a little 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.160 deeper than than the gravity and Apple's guy. But but 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.320 I didn't know about some of these details of the 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.839 man's life, or just or I didn't have a good 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.160 grasp for how his brain worked. But when you when 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:28.720 you really look at what he did, he does come 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.280 off like this Chuck Norris character, you know, and you're 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.799 reminded of these lists the you know, the the Internet 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:35.839 lists of the things Chuck Norris has done, like the 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.840 idea that Chuck Norris has counted to infinity twice, or 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.800 that the Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer, but since he's 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.080 never cried, um that you know, we're not able to 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.160 cure cancer, that kind of thing. Um. And you look 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.200 at Newton's life and some of this stuff is is 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:52.599 that outlandish? It is, in fact, before we get to 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.159 some of the other um, maybe not as widely known 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.440 information and more Chuck Norris information lists talk really quickly 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.240 about what we what we think of when we think 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.760 of Newton. Okay, um, Well, for starters, there is the 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.520 law of universal gravitation. This like basically strikes at the 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.480 heart of how gravity works and how the universe is 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.400 held together by gravity. Now, one thing we we often 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.160 don't remember is that one of the ways that Newton 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.440 expressed this uh in his in his writings, was to 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.680 create a thought experiment in which you had a mountain 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.440 that was higher than the clouds, higher than the atmosphere, 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.280 and had a giant cannon on top of an orbital cannon. 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.440 They could fire a cannonball at just the right velocity 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:36.880 that it would go into orbit around the planet. Like 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.560 that's the way that the man thought. That's what he 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.360 was daydreaming about, right right. Most famously, he he laid 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.760 down the three laws of motion, and these were this 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.680 was six seven and uh and and these will sound 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.400 familiar to everybody. And object will remain at rest or 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.160 or moving in a straight line unless acted upon by 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.440 an external force. When forces applied to an object, it 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.720 will accelerate. So we get force equals mass times acceleration. 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.040 And here's a big one. For every action there is 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.520 an equal and opposite reaction and uh. Which seems all 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.720 very obvious now, but obviously back in the day this 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.160 was scholars used to wrestle with this um. For instance, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.440 the Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that smoke moved upwards because 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.880 the smoke was mostly air, and therefore was consciously deciding 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:21.400 to go into the sky to hang out with the 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.280 rest of its air bodies. Um, you know which I 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:25.880 kind of love. Yeah. Yeah. And then he had other 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.040 people in reneed de carts who still identified God as 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.520 the prime mover behind everything. Newton came down and you know, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.560 he laid he laid down the loss and these are 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.800 these are the fundamental laws that we we we based 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.320 on modern understanding on. Uh. In addition to that, he 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.160 looked at rainbows and figured out how rainbows worked. Um 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.400 that that the prism or the rain drop was not 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.160 changing or color. It wasn't coloring, but at the time 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.600 they thought that it was like the sun's rays were 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.840 dying the light, right. And from there actually leads to 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.280 his development of the reflecting telescope. Before that, everyone used 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.360 the refracting telescope, which wasn't as powerful it it could. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.240 It could add various tints of color that weren't weren't 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.200 disruptive to when you're trying to look at um and uh, 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.800 and they were, they were larger. So he comes along, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.320 he in it. He invents the reflecting telescope because his 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.920 mirrors and uh, and this becomes the standard. Yeah, this 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.600 is really cool. This was in your article. Um, your 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:25.240 article's name again. Uh ten Top ten Isaac Newton inventions. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.640 A large mirror would capture the image than a small mirror, 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.040 a smaller mirror would bounce it into the viewer's eyes, 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:33.559 which I think it's really cool. Uh. Not only does 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.920 this method produce a clear image, it also allows for 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.199 a much smaller telescope. So I just think it's cool 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.839 that he had that perspective back then to say, how 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.800 can I improve upon this? You know, let's not refract, 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.720 let's reflect. And he actually grinded the mirrors himself and 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.280 assembled a prototype and then presented it to the Royal 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.160 Society in sixteen seventy. So let's talk about some of 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.440 the the other stuff that is just so amazing that 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.600 this guy is sitting around and accomplishing so much um 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.000 in such a small amount time. Really, all right, well 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.599 here's one, all right. So, and again you've got to 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.600 think about Newton's mind. Is it just this obsessive thing, 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.560 this engine that in any kind of data comes its 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.000 way and he has to solve it. He's going to 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.000 figure it out. And he's a bit of a madman too. 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:17.800 And we'll talk a little bit about this how how 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.800 it might have affected his perspective. Yeah, he never married. 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.360 He he didn't have much in the way of friends. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.360 Like this was a man who would have lat himself 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:30.120 onto a riddle or a puzzle. Like I keep coming 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:31.800 back that I've mentioned this before, the old idea that 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.120 the vampire you leave a knot out for a really 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.280 complex knot, and it would set there trying to untie 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.760 it until the sun came up. Like that's that's Newton's brain, um, 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.560 and and so like for instance, sixteen sixty five, plague 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.120 has has hit Debonnet plague has hit England, and it's 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.440 a it's a huge problem. And so Newton uh sees it. 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.520 He's o Rick Cambridge and he decides to figure this 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:56.720 out because it's actually shut down the university, right, and 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:58.320 that's where he needs to be to think such shut 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.000 down the university for eighteen months, so he's he's got 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:02.800 some time on his hands, right right, right, So he's like, 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.040 all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna fix this. Here's the thing. 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.760 Math wasn't sufficient at that time for him to study this. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.120 He needed a school of of mathematics that would allow 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.760 him to calculate problems that involve changing variables, so he 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.640 invented one. He invented calculus. Like, okay, he needed calculus. 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.760 It didn't exist. He made it. Math was insufficient for 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:23.880 his needs, so he just created his own, his new 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.240 school of it. So normous, right, Um, again, we're talking 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.200 about calculations concerning the angle of cannonballs and a ship's 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.400 rate of acceleration. And that's just so that it could 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.000 fuel his daydreaming, right right, right, yeah, and and and 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.320 allow him to understand what was happening in the world. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.800 He was like, like, I'm having trouble understanding how this 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.920 is spreading, how this is working. Um, Math, you're not 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:47.760 helping me. I'm going to have to do all the 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.120 work for you. And so he created calculus. It's the 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.760 father of calculus. It should also be noted that German 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.520 mathematician got Free Leadness independently developed calculus around the same time. Yeah. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.000 Actually sort of. What has compounded this this question about 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.560 question mark about who created calculus is the fact that 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.760 Newton was really private, um, and some would even say secret, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.960 and he didn't publish a lot. He might have written 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.359 down quite a few things and presented them in various 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.680 academic institutions, but he wasn't someone who was sort of, 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.240 you know, gunning to get published and get and become 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.200 known for something. And in fact, some of the things 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.679 that he obsessed about and wrote about certainly didn't really 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:28.880 enter the public eye. Told quite a while later and 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.679 we're kind of a dirty secret for for a bit, 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:36.040 Are you talking about alchemy? I am talking about alchemy. Yes, yes, alchemy, 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:37.560 as we've discussed I think we discussed this in the 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.280 Frankenstein podcast a bit. This is, of course the the 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.559 old typically thought of as medieval bastardization of chemistry and 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.360 occultism and philosophy and trickery, and just you know that 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:52.680 there is there's chemistry bound up in it, but there's 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.280 just a lot of mess I mean kind of like, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.400 just to to be uh, not very kind about it, 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.520 it's basically taking a pile of dog crap and spinning 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.200 into gold, right, or turning one's urine into gold and 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.360 accidentally discovering phosphorus, that kind of thing. Right. The thing is, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.520 though there was a lot of real chemistry there, there 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.720 was some there was some real science going on in 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.000 the world of alchemy. And if you were interested in 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.360 in the chemistry of the world, this was for the 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.839 most part the only game in town. Um and as 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.520 far as the west goes. So, so of course he 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.200 studied it. And uh. And the thing is that alchemy 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.480 only became this sort of dirty word later in his 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.960 life and after his death. And and also he was 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.240 not afraid of looking into something that was kind of crazy. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.280 And he I mean, he really believed that there was 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.480 there was hidden truth to be found in alchemy. Well 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.560 and during his time to wasn't an alchemy punishable by law? Yeah, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.079 it became so, right, So it's something that he kind 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.160 of squirreled away because obviously he didn't want to um 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.880 to have any sort of negative repercussions from it. But 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.520 it wasn't until the nineteen thirties when I believe that 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.440 was a auction house that's someone found a huge bomb 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.760 volume of his writings and it was discovered to the 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.320 extent to which he had dedicated really his life to alchemy. Yeah, 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:11.600 and that he was serious, like it wasn't just a 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:13.880 this is all nonsense, but I'm kind of interested in 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.520 the chemistry. No, he was trying to create the Philosopher's Stone. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:22.000 Yet the Philosopher's Stone, Uh, it's exact description varies from 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.680 texts at texts, but it's clearly like a man made 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.600 stone or a man made a lixir. Uh, And it 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.360 has this power of universal transmutation, so it can turn 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.839 lead into stone, it can cure illnesses that can transform 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.160 a headless cow into a swarm of bees, or allow 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.200 you to throw some wizard semen um, you know, in 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.439 a jar and add a few other ingredients and make 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.280 a homunculous Yeah. So it's uh, it's like the the 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.240 ultimate power. And that's that's why he was interested in it, 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:54.560 because ideally this would give him power over life and death. Well, 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:56.360 and you know, it turns out that he is really 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.960 interested in this mystical realm, and so the idea something 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.240 people have said. Some historians have looked back at the 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.719 way his mind works and said, you know, he may 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.840 not have been able to discuss um the laws of 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:12.120 motion or discover them, name them um if he didn't 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.080 have this particular mystical bent, because he's thinking about the 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:19.000 forces of the universe, right and trying to harness them. 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:20.880 So I think that's really interesting and thinking about that 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.440 when you think about Newton, he wrote more than one 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.840 million words on the subject of alchemy, which is amazing 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.000 much more than he ever dedicated to um, you know, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.160 his stalwart uh science. Of course, you could look at 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.080 it in this sense that science for Newton was a 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:40.680 problem that he was not that he was eventually able 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.840 to untie in many cases. Alchemy ultimately proves that not 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.000 that never completely untied for him. So it was probably 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:49.280 the kind of thing where you just keep writing and 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:50.920 writing about it because you're never going to reach that 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.000 point with alchemy that you're like, all right, philosopher's stone 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.240 case closed, now, let me move on to something else, right, Yeah, Yeah, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:00.000 And the same thing as we discussed in this doom 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.760 Stay stuff. He was interested in theology. He was interested 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.480 in discovering the coded secrets of the Bible, the wisdom 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.120 of the ancients. And you can set there all day 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.920 looking for these secret codes, and you're just gonna end 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.960 up writing more and more words about it because you're 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.600 not gonna find you're not gonna uncover this this hidden 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.640 equation in the in biblical text, and you're not going 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.120 to find it in alchemy either. But don't tell that 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.720 to Dan Brown. Well, no, he did find the hidden 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.240 the hidden equations. But that's right. It had to do 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.240 with the publishing dollars. Um. Yeah, that's his own kind 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.880 of alchemy. But you know, and we will talk a 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.000 bit more about his sort of obsessive quest for religion, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.520 thinking about religion and uh in the Bible. But before 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.640 we do that, I really want to talk about how 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.720 he was fighting crime in Melton money, all right, sir 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.600 Isaac Newton crime finder. And this was an area that 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.200 I before I was researching in this for work, I 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.040 I really didn't know anything about this this corner of 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.000 his life. Well, he was a bit of a politician, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.200 although kind of a backseat politician. I guess you could say, yeah, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:06.680 so you have to you have to go back to 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:12.240 England's financial system is in full blown crisis mode. Okay Um, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.400 the currencyat consisting entirely of silver coins, and the silver 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:18.840 was often worth more than the value stamped on it 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.880 due to the economic situation. So people start We're often 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.040 melting the chok coins down or chipping the silver from 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.120 the edges and selling them to France. So pretty soon 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.880 the coinage just looks like crap. It's mangled. People have 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.560 been melting this stuff down, They've been chipping off the corners. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.720 So you can imagine at the counter someone goes into 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.360 a store to buy something around this time and they're 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.920 just dumping just a handful of mangled bits of silver 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.880 and counterfeit mangled bits of silver, because how difficult is 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:55.080 it to counterfeit a mangled lump of of shiny metal? 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.160 Right when I was just thinking, like, think of the 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.800 US dollar and just maybe the only thing that's left 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:03.480 is the eye and the pyramid and presenting that. I mean, 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.320 obviously it's going to be a lot easier to to say, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.040 you know, to sort of put together something that looks 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.679 like money. Right, So the powers that be they know 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.480 Newton is a is a smart cookie. Uh. They have 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.040 an idea that he's the kind of guy that likes 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.640 to throw himself at a at a problem. Probably looks 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:20.960 good to throw Newton at a at a problem. I'd 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:22.800 like to think of them all sitting around a table, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.600 all all wearing black and and saying we need to 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.760 bring Newton in, yeah, or or they have the Newton 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:33.159 signal on the on the roof, um and uh. And 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.040 it's also worth noting that, you know, we're talking about 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.760 counterfeiting a little here, and alchemy has in uh in 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.480 many places been tied to to counterfeiting because alchemy often 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.639 involved the creation of dies and uh, and since it 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.480 couldn't actually change something one medal into another, you could, 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.760 it did involve sometimes the technique of creating like fool's 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.600 gold or disguising one medal as another. Um. But but 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.679 that's that's kind of incidental. They so they bring Newton 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.840 in and and and it's largely ceremonial. Nobody really expects 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.480 Newton to solve the problems, and they gave him a 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:13.159 real title, right, Like, yeah, and so what does Newton do? 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.960 He throws on a diskise, Yeah, heads out into the 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.560 mean streets of London, like down into like just the 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.920 poverty and crime ridden alleys, and he starts hanging out 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.600 with the counterfeiters. And then of course he has them 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.480 arrested and subsequently executed, because it was a major offense 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.600 in those days to counterfeit currency. But yeah, like how 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.840 amazing is that? I mean, he's essentially the Batman of 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.159 the seventeen hundreds, right in the sixteen seventeen hundreds, He's 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:42.760 he's wearing the skies, going out there fighting crime, then 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.400 coming back to his scientific layer and developing um, uh, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.000 milled edges for coins. And these are if you if 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.240 you get a quarter out you find or any coin 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.760 where you look at the edges and if you see 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.080 little lines, those are milled edges. And the idea here 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.320 is you're gonna if you're gonna clip the lane and 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.040 try and sell the silver to France. Um, it's going 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.439 to be very noticeable and then you'll be arrested and 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.040 possibly executed. Of course. The the other part of that 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.720 is that it took him a year to create that 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.520 particular currency, right, and um, I mean the conies on 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.920 this guy he gathered up well not just he but 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.080 uh you know, I'm sure he advocated this and they 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.720 adopted it, but they gathered up all of the currency 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.840 and melted it down. So then he could then spend 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.919 like eighteen hours a day, you know, working on this 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.240 problem and creating a new currency. Yeah, he was like 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.920 money is canceled for the next year or so and 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.040 and then we're gonna have new money. I hope everybody's 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.160 cool with that, which sounds like it probably wasn't as 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:40.879 big of a problem as it would seem like today, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.320 because um, you know it was the economy was a 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.879 mess anyway, and there was a lot of rioting before 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.280 this even happens, So I mean, wow, yeah, he but 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.600 he he reorganized the the mint, uh, their system of 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:56.680 creating the coins. Like he went in there and he 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.960 just kicked button the factories and the next thing, you know, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:00.879 you have this new model and standard of what a 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.480 coin is, you know, all in the day's work, right. Yeah, 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.840 And I like to I just made this part out, 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:08.080 But I like to joke too that he put his 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.640 own scowling face on each coin to h to convince 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.640 people that counterfeit. Counterfeiting was a bad idea. He probably 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.080 did put some sort of code in there, for sure. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.280