William Wordsworth wrote the following of a bust of Isaac Newton that is still on display at the University of Cambridge:
And from my pillow, looking forth by light / Of moon of favouring stars, I could behold / The Antechapel where the statue stood / Of Newton, with his prism and his silent face, / The marble index of a Mind for ever / Voyaging through strange seas of / Thought, alone.
Newton is remembered now as a great genius, which he was. He was also a peculiar man. He was famously rude and antisocial, with little apparent interest in friendships or romantic relationships. He was obsessed with his work, which included theology as well as natural science, and he would labor on a problem for days without food or sleep. An assistant who worked for him for five years saw the great man laugh only once: when someone asked Newton why anyone would want to study the mathematics of Euclid. His was a mind that not only voyaged “through strange seas of thought,” but did so—as Wordsworth understood—alone, for all his life. Brilliant people are not like the rest of us.
Read Full Article »