WEBVTT - Sir Isaac Newton: Greatest Scientist of All Time? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.760 Hey, everybody out there in the United States, we are 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.800 coming on tour in January to select cities. Yea, so 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.080 probably the city where you are is really really cold. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:14.280 Come down below the frost line and see us. Yeah, 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:15.800 and you know, iup, you're in a cold place. We 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.599 might see in the spring or summer, don't fret. Sure, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.240 but for now we are sold out in San Francisco, 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:26.040 San Diego, and Austin. You can still get tickets in Dallas, Atlanta, Birmingham, 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.640 in New Orleans, and if you live in Mississippi you 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.639 might want to go to Birmingham if you're interested in 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:36.560 seeing us. Uh yeah, or you know, surrounding areas around Birmingham. Sure, 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.800 anywhere in the southeast. Yeah, maybe Atlanta and Birmingham are 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.440 your best shots at this point. And you can make 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.400 it to New Orleans or Birmingham from the state of 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.080 Florida to yeah, over the Panhandle, yeah yeah, just creep 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.839 up north of it. Come on, so it comes to us. 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.280 If you want ticket information, go to s y s 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:58.160 K live dot com, which is our wonderful website powered 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.640 by Squarespace, who are also sponsoring our tour because they're cool. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.960 That is right. So we'll see you guys in Welcome 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:16.680 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hi, 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:22.120 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.760 Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. This is the Stuff you should know. 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.800 H that was my Isaac Newton press. Really yeah, you 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.240 didn't have an accent, that was That's what he sounded like. Oh, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.199 it's very it's a very common misconception that British people 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.240 in the seventeenth century sound like British people today. They 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:46.280 actually sounded exactly like how I existed. All right, well 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.440 you did extra research, then it's pretty good. Let's travel 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:54.480 back in time. We we just had a nice ten 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:01.080 minute discussion Jerry and you and I about or me? Alright, uh, 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.640 who cares? Yeah, about pop culture things that we've ingested 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.959 since our break six weeks ago. Yep, And that could 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.240 be a show. Everyone wants to know what we watched 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.080 and absorbed and how we feel about it, but they 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.239 never will. We talked about making of a Murderer or 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.320 making a Murderer. We talked about Hateful Eight and Star 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:27.760 Wars and The Revenant. People want to know, but they 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:33.040 never will. You gotta keep him mysterious, right, guys, that's right. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.320 And all this leads to Isaac Newton, who it was. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.040 So you know, um Wolf from Science World. Who Wolf 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.760 from Science World. It's a very very bona fide science website. 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:52.640 No dumbing down there it so Wolf from put it 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:59.600 like this, He's the bomb dignity. It is no, it 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.840 is no exaggeration to say that Isaac Newton is the 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.239 single most important contributor to the development of modern science. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.400 And Wolf from Science World knows what they're talking about 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.400 when it comes to contributors to science. Yeah, you know what, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.720 I will agree with that, even though we will see 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.960 he was many things, including a little screwy, super screwy. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.400 But um, what I gathered after researching this dude, is 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.840 that science this is seventeenth century stuff going on. Science 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.280 was the wild West. And he came in like a 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.920 sheriff and basically brought order and discipline and said, this 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.080 is the way we should do things if we want 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.280 to be taken seriously, guys, varmints. Um, you can't just 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.840 say things like the world's flat. You gotta prove it 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.760 or or this is kind of the thinking. And he 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.520 really kind of rose to prominence while the scientific revolution 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:57.360 was already going, but he very much contributed to it 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.720 because still at the time you could be like, well, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.640 the uh, the Earth spins because God spun it and 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.360 it is God's will, and like people would be like, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.760 absolutely scientist. Not the case after Newton came along. Now 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.400 it's like, you gotta prove the stuff. There's gotta be 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.760 a method in place, you gotta test things again. And 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.320 again he was I didn't know this. He was one 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.600 of the or if not the first person to average data. Yeah, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.360 what did they do before that? Just cherry pick something? 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.960 Probably they're like, oh, that looks like the nice round number. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.400 I'll go, I'll use this one. So like, if he measured, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.960 say the how long a top spun because that's what 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.520 scientists measure a lot of top spinning. Um, if he 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.840 measured it four or five times, then he got different 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.320 measurements every time. Yeah, I guess before they would just 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.400 pick whatever when they like the most. It just seems 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.440 so he was the first one to average. Yeah. It 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.800 just seems so second nature to think while averaging something 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.000 is what you should do, But back then it wasn't. No, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.440 and that's that's so that came up a lot while 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.400 I was reading this article. It's a very good article 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.839 by Jacob Silverman one on Jeopardy. Pretty yeah, um he 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:08.080 uh he he. The way that he portrayed Newton. I 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:13.320 think it gets across that we take Newton's work so 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.919 for granted these days as just that's the way the 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.120 universe works. That to think otherwise, it's just totally alien 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.719 to us. And it's that's just such evidence of how 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.719 much that man single handedly changed the world. But you 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:35.080 also can't say single handedly he's His genius is unequivocal, right, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.200 But he also did definitely stand on the backs of giants, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.560 on the shoulders of giants, people who came before him, 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.839 a sis, and the work of his peers. But he 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.200 also like to take a lot of the credit for himself, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.760 sometimes unnecessarily. He was a very complex man. He was 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.960 a scientist who deeply believed in God. He believed that 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.000 you that there was law in order that could be deduced, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.480 that could be investigated, but it was orderly and rational, 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.760 because God was an orderly, rational creator. Yeah, he saw 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.839 logic and he thought God was that logic. He also 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.719 thought that the stuff that he was uncovering was actually 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.480 ancient wisdom that was being recovered from pre Christian civilizations. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.119 That's it gets a little screwy. Yeah, that had um 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.679 kind of da Vinci coded, uh, this knowledge in things 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.039 like pyramids and stuff like that, and that he was 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.520 hand selected as a select view to uncover this knowledge. Yeah, 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.360 so much so that he made he made a name 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:45.320 for himself, Chuck. And once you start to really investigate Newton, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.680 you can just kind of see him like tittering to 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.280 himself as he's talking to himself in his chambers at Cambridge, 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.760 calling himself this out loud to an empty room. Yeah, 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.960 he was. He changed his name or didn't change it. 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.200 I'm sorry. He had a special name for himself, Jehovah 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.920 Sanctus Unice, which means Jehovah the Holy One. And he 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.200 he got that name by rolling a twenty sided die 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:14.239 several times. So that was his special uh. I guess 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:19.000 Council of of Unique Scientists, like a league of extraordinary gentleman. 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.000 That was a super hero name. Yeah, and he was. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.800 He was an alchemist as well. He very seriously pursued 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:30.000 the study of turning plain old metal into gold of um, 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.200 finding long life Elixer's. He was a very complex man, 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.000 and a lot of people like to put him in 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:42.760 in this this um rational scientists compartment as like how 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.120 we view scientists today typically, And he wasn't that. You 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.680 just can't look at science the same in the seventeenth 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.880 century as you do today, No, because different. It wasn't 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.480 like this guy was helping form science today, and at 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.000 the time it was he was seeking answers to the 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.760 universe where ever there it was. There weren't many boundaries 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.240 to him, Like if he could come to conclusions about 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.640 the universe through weird mysticism, then whatever. He still came 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.320 to the same conclusions that he did through mathematics, which 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.240 by the way, a major part of of which he 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.960 helped develop single handedly. Almost. Yeah, it's kind of a 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.000 weird time because you could on one hand, be a 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.160 very rational thinker and say you have to prove this, 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.440 but you can also say that lady didn't float, so 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.520 she's a witch and that's why she drowned, and and 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.880 be completely like normal, say it with a straight face. Yeah. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.240 That was like like Newton, like I can turn this 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.560 mercury into gold, right, there's an elixir that will let 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.280 you live forever. And I can also say you should 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:48.040 average data and write the principia. Right, I can also 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.640 literally discover gravity, like there was no such thing as 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.400 gravity as far as humans were concerned before Isaac Newton 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.880 came along. All right, that's a great setup. That was 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.920 even better than our field. So January four, which is 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.600 yesterday in real time, was his actual birthday? Did not 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:12.040 know that? Weird timing? Um, it depends on the calendar. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.600 Depends on the calendar Christmas Day or January four, right, yes, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.240 but like a year apart rather than like a week 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.280 or so apart. Right, Because one of the great myths 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.920 is that he was born on Galileo's the day he 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.920 Galileo died, which means that he's not true, right. Galileo 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.679 reincarnated is what people say. It's some people catch you, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.000 some people like Isaac Newton. Probably I don't think he 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.960 said that, but yeah, that was using the old Julian calendar. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.959 When you use the Gregorian calendar, his birthday was actually 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.640 Jane uh, January four of the following year, or no 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.000 of the year before. I think, oh wow, he got younger. 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.559 No of the same year. So like if he was 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.000 born in December twenty on one calendar. For the other calendar, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.160 he would go back in time to the beginning ing 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.280 of that same year, so almost a year apart. And 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.520 the reason that there is a weird discrepancy is um 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.040 in fifteen eighty two the Catholic nations converted from the 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.640 Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, full hundred or so 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:17.000 years before Newton, or a little less than hundred years, 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.439 But it wasn't until the seventeen fifties that the British 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:25.280 Isles Protestants converted to that Gregorian or Catholic calendar. We 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.559 should do one of calendars. Oh, we definitely should. More 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.880 complex than you think. But in the in in the 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.800 in the continent, and in Great Britain or in the UK, 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:41.760 um they I don't know still after all these years. 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.760 So it's Great Britain in Northern Ireland, right, the United 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.640 Kingdom and Northern Ireland. I'm just gonna let you go 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:53.840 down this road anyway. Uh. They used to notate dates 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.040 with um old style and new style, depending on what calendar. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.280 So anyway, that's the whole discrepancy between his birthday. No, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.480 that makes sense, Oh it sure it does. Uh, all right, 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.040 so let's go back in time. Let's get in the 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.480 way back machine and go back to one of those 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.600 two days depending on our calendar that we have in 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.760 the way back machine. How it's programmed, well, the way 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:27.720 back machines programmed to um Gregorian. So it's fine. Great. Uh, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.360 So we are back when he was born as a 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.240 little baby. He was a premature and very sickly. And 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.480 here's how things can go in the world. He wasn't 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.839 supposed to live. And like, what would the world have 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.760 been like without Isaac Newton? Pretty dark? Yeah, or at 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.520 least it would have taken them longer. Maybe, yeah, maybe 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.520 it just would have been someone else, like the clapper 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.800 would have been invented, but we would just assume it 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.840 worked because God willed it too. That's right. Born uh 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:57.520 in eighteen I'm sorry, sixteen forty three, not eight um. 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.000 He was from a family of farmers that did pretty 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.160 well for themselves, although his dad, Isaac died before a 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.679 few months before he was born, and was an illiterate 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.440 farmer who was successful at his work, but very big 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.480 that his father died before he was born. Because he 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.280 never quite got over that. He ended up um living 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.920 for a short time with his mother and new stepdad, 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.040 Reverend Barnabas Smith. But he sounded like a jerk who 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.920 did not like Isaac said, I cast the out, And 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.120 he was cast out and lived with his maternal grandmother 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.440 for nine years from age three to twelve. Yeah, I 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.240 mean it was pretty much raised by his maternal grandmother. Yeah, 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.320 and he was apparently old enough to realize what was 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.680 going on, because the any psychoanalyst would have a field 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.520 day with Newton, because he grew up to be a 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:48.720 very insecure man who had a tremendous amount of difficulty 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:53.520 trusting people because he's rejected, yes by his mother. Um 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.840 and who who who suffered from what you would probably 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.680 call these days hostile attribution bias, where the any any 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.920 slight or something was clearly intended by the other party. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.480 Everybody else was hostile and out. Again, I'm not necessarily 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.200 making a paranoid but just any slight was intentional, even 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.960 when it was unintentional. It's a way to live. Yeah, 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.760 it took everything personally interesting. So this led over his 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:25.080 life to a couple of nervous breakdowns. Um, and you 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.800 know that also had to do with the fact that 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.840 he worked tirelessly and didn't sleep well and was in 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.760 a lot of ways a prototypical scientists like he never 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.880 got married, was just consumed with his work and didn't 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.360 take care of himself and uh, sort of obsessed with 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.840 his with his life's work. Yeah, and some people have 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:48.240 posthumously diagnosed him, including Simon Baron Cohen who's a um 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:56.000 an expert on autism and uh uh Asperger's borat his relative. Interesting. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.920 I don't think it's his brother, but there are related Yeah, 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.880 I was totally kidding. Well, you're totally right. So what 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:07.400 are he diagnosed with Asperger's? But that's definitely come under 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.360 fire lately. They think that So there's something UM called 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.240 I don't remember what it's called. But in sixteen his 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.760 second his second nervous breakdown in the sixteen nineties, he 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.600 um they he stopped doing any kind of scientific research 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:29.680 I for that, and he apparently declined mentally compared to 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.600 his previous state, which means that he came down to 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.520 about normal levels I would guess. But they think that 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.800 it was actually mercury poisoning. Yeah, and that he wasn't 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.040 necessarily autistic. It's an easy catch all to put him 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.760 in that in that again in that compartment these days, 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.080 but we don't know enough about him to say that 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.720 whether he was autistic, like like one of the um 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.160 one of the evidences was that he didn't play with 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.640 the other kids, Um, he just kept two himself. So 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.440 they're like, well, that that shows a lack of social 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.040 communication skills or or um, you know, being able to 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.480 connect with others. But then if you look back at 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.560 historical data, he he he tried to hang out with 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.800 his peers at school, but they didn't like hanging out 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.040 with them because he was too smart for them, so 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.160 they shunned him. So, you know, does that make him 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.000 autistic or does does that mean he had autism spectral 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.880 disorder spectrum disorder or aspergers. You can't say he may have, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.240 but easy to go back now and put people on 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.720 the on the spectrum. But they do think because he 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.400 was exhumed a few hundred years after his death and 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.840 they found a lot of mercury still like in his 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.040 um system or in his bones, I would guess, um, 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.600 and they think that he inadvertently poisoned himself and that 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.480 that led to his second nervous breakdown and mental decline. Interesting, Yeah, 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.040 all right, Well, let's take a break here and uh 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:18.800 we'll talk about his schooling years right after this. All right, 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.840 so Newton in school, Uh wasn't a great student in 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:29.000 high school? Um? He who was the mascot? Was there 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.400 was there one? I don't think so, okay, because I 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.000 thought they were God that would be like really great 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:39.920 trivia Newton's high school mascot? What was yours in Silanto's mind? 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.280 What you remember Silanto? The kid who's like watching me, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.360 watching me night. You guys went to the same high school. 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.440 Remember I told you we were the Red and Raiders Raiders? Okay? Yeah, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.400 and my elementary school was the Red and Little Raiders. Ah. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.680 That is cute, isn't it? H l I l Um. 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.280 So he wasn't a great student. He was also a 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.960 terrible farmer because of course, being uh the son of 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.000 a farmer. They were like, you need to work on 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.560 the farm. And there are some people that think he'd 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.840 purposefully like he was clearly smart enough to do this, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.280 but purposely failed at it. So he didn't have to 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.800 do it because he was really into book learning. Uh 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.480 so that makes sense to me. Um, he did continue 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.760 his education because he wasn't farming I went on to Cambridge, 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.520 but UM had to act as a valot to wealthy 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.760 students for a little while. Yeah, way through basically what 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.399 we would consider undergraduate school. Yeah, and then he got 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.800 a scholarship which allowed him to continue UM through his 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.760 uh graduate studies. But all that didn't happen in like 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.399 some smooth things. So he went to school first. His 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.840 mom came back for him, took him out of school, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.040 tried to set him up as a farmer. He failed 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.359 at that, ended up going to Cambridge, working his way, 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.679 working to pay his own way to Why though, if 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.320 they had money, did they not want to pay for school? 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.199 I wonder. I think maybe his mom wasn't happy about 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:01.840 it or something. I'm not sure because that's the only 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:03.879 thing I couldn't figure out, because she didn't have money 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.040 for sure. Um, but he had to pay his own 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.240 way through Cambridge, at least undergrad. And while he was 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.960 there as an undergrad, chuck, he he pursued his own studies. Yeah. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.320 He basically got a syllabus each quarter, tore it up 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:19.800 and said, you guys don't know this yet, but I'm 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:25.120 Isaac Newton and I'm gonna invent a great figgy cookie 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.240 and a lot of other great stuff. That is a 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.920 great figgy cookie. Um So, so he almost he basically 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.399 failed out or almost self educating himself. But there is 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:40.800 a man named Isaac Barrow who was the Lucazian chair professor, 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.359 and he took a notice of Newton and said, I 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.800 think there's a little more to this kid than appears 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.080 to meet the eye. He was the Robin Williams to 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:54.240 Newton's Matt Damon precisely, you know, precisely, except Damon was 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.280 a custodian and Newton was an actual student. But he 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.800 did clean rooms too. Yeah, so there is a pretty 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:06.000 deep parallel there. But um so, Newton got his hands 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:07.920 on something by the guy who came up with the 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.719 Mercader projection I can't remember his first name, and basically 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.159 took this book and expounded on it um and it 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:17.240 was just mind blowing stuff that he did. And he 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.920 did it as like a year old. And Barrow got 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.480 his hands on it and said, you need to stick around. 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.520 So he ended up getting him basically a four year 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.959 scholarship for postgraduate studies. Yeah, and not only that, but 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.040 he uh for various reasons which we'll get into here, 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.480 and there. Newton was reluctant to publish a lot of times, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.240 and Barrow was the one that really helped him say, like, 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:41.719 you know, you need to get this out there. This 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.560 is great stuff you've got, ye, Matt Damon. Yes, Like 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:47.439 you know what kind of movies you're going to be 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.400 in after this? Yeah, you're going to be Private Ryan. Yeah. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:57.040 You give me Jason Bourne and The Martian. You can't 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:02.080 think of any other Matt Damon movies. Sure, uh uh 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.439 of course. Oh you're gonna be The Scoundrel and The Departed. Yeah, 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.199 great movie it is. I thought Jack really overdid it 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.280 in that one. Oh. I loved it. Although, dude, I'll 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.760 tell you something. Another movie I saw recently was The Shining. Yeah, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.440 I did say I saw it recently because I see 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.760 The Shining probably every three months. Yeah, I saw it 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.600 again recently. I think that that might be the best 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.600 movie ever made. It's pretty great, and no joke, I 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.879 really think The Shining might be at least my favorite 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:38.400 movie of all time. Boy he uh, he can set 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.879 a mood. It is so good and you can watch it. 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.560 I can watch it anytime, any time of year, any 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:52.000 time of day, any day of the week. Christmas morning exactly. Yeah, 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:53.960 and I'll enjoy it just as much as I would 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.639 on like Halloween or something. You know, it's my honeymoon night. 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:01.320 Let's watch the shining right all the normal times. So um, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.960 Newton eventually, uh, well, actually not eventually. He was forced 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.520 to leave Cambridge for um a little while because the 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:13.200 bubonic plague swathed through London to the tune of about 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.600 a hundred thousand people dead in six months. That's qui. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.119 So they closed Cambridge and said everyone go home. He 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:26.400 went home, and everyone go home to London. He went 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.760 home and h had a what they called later a 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.760 year of miracles. He and us mirabilis uh. And it 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.040 was a little bit mythical, and that supposedly he came 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.239 up with all the great stuff of his career in 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:45.679 this one year, probably played up for the newspapers or 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.600 you know, for his own reputation of of the age, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.119 because in reality he did come up with a lot 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.399 of great stuff, but he clearly didn't come up with 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.119 everything in that year. He might have started a lot 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:59.399 of good uh conversations in his head about things, but um, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.720 it was a little trumped up that that was the 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.720 year of miracles. So it probably, like you said, there 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:08.720 were some things I'm sure that he thought of during 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:13.240 this year. But again, he placed his entire career in 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.280 this one year, including the apple falling from the tree. 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.760 Should we go and cover that? Sure? Did it happen? Uh? 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:26.240 Probably not, And even if it did, it didn't. Historians 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:30.600 are like, that is a fairy tale. On its face, 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.480 you can tell it's a fairy tale. But Newton himself 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.960 is like, oh no, this happened. That, this is really true. 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:41.679 This is where the theory of gravitational um force sure 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:44.240 came from. Yeah, Like he was laying on the ground, 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.320 supposedly looking up at the moon, wondering, how's that thing 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.280 just sitting up there? Spin off into space? Yeah, apple 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.000 falls and he puts it all together. Sounds kind of unbelievable. 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.680 Sounds like folklore to me, it does. But again he 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:03.040 promoted this story. He was definitely for somebody who was 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:08.360 just a hair's breath away from being uh shut in. 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:11.400 And there was a d in there. It was breadth 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:16.720 not breath, I know the difference. Um And and he 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:21.119 didn't have virtually any friends. He had not one, but 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:25.359 two nervous breakdowns in his lifetimes. Very insecure. He was 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:30.199 also like an astute self promoter. Yeah, he he had 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:35.720 a lot of contradictory sort of traits I think so. Um. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:39.120 Like we said earlier, he was very much noted for 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:44.600 his precision with notes and experimentation. Um, with the averaging 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:50.000 of data and uh what else the scientific method of course, 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:52.440 putting these things into place. Yeah, the scientific method was 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:55.040 already around. He didn't come up with a scientific method, 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:59.200 but he definitely refined it and created the scientific method 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:03.760 as we recognize as it today under ideal scientific inquiry, 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:07.880 when when a scientist today follows that scientific procedure, what 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:12.040 he's doing basically or she is following in Newton's footsteps. 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:14.840 Like Newton took this thing and said, here's the best 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:20.320 way to do this. Like you, you make some observations. 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:23.480 From these observations, you come up with a theory, and 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.800 then you figure out an experiment to test that theory, 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:31.120 and then you either discard the theory or you um 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:35.000 you yeah, you test it again until the theory becomes 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.080