The Unknown Newton 277
An anonymous reader writes "The unknown Newton -- The genius who gave us three laws of motion wrote even more about the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon. Eventually, all of his work -- about 10 million words -- will be on the Web.
Quote from the article:
'Yet if we go by sheer word count, physics was only one of Newton's intellectual priorities. He devoted more time to what we would now regard as non-scientific topics such as theology and alchemy, writing treatise after treatise on early church history and biblical prophecy.' An interesting note on Pythagoras and religion too. Should we consider ourselves 'Natural Philosphers' instead of Scientists?" Neal Stephenson fans may find this article a nice adjunct to Quicksilver.
Unknown Newton? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unknown Newton? (Score:3, Funny)
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
What was crazier to think at that time? (Score:5, Interesting)
That it was possible to change lead into gold?
Or that in 300 years from then a bunch of strange libertarians will be discussing about the nature and validity of is work by using emitting light boxes connected by cables going thousands of kilometers around the globe and some time passing information through thin air?
Re:What was crazier to think at that time? (Score:3, Insightful)
The references to alchemy need to be understood in terms of the knowlege of the inner-self. Newton, Pythagoras, etc. were not interested in describing such "matters" to those without "eyes to see."
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Research into a field that didn't prove fruitful, indeed into what we consider a sham today, doesn't in any way dim Newton's other achievements. It's a mistake to judge by our knowledge today, that was built on Newton's original work.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Given Newton's times, alchemy and astrology were not that far out of the mainstream and indeed had their part in the development of the sciences as the world moved out of the Medieval Period.
Heck before Newton's time, there arguably wasn't even Physics or Science! He discovered the laws of motion, helped discover Calculus, proved Kepler's laws of planetary motion, discovered the light spectrum, and helped to found the Scientific Method.
Rather than saying he studied Alchemy and Astrology as a pursuit,
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why you would hold such ideas. I'm not sure even where to begin, because you seem so utterly off-base that I can't formulate how a person would come to say such a thing. Maybe if you explained what you mean by "there arguably wasn't even Physics or Science!" Clearly there was... so I don't know what to say.
As for this: He discovered the laws of motion... Well, he formulated laws of motion that allowed for him to build a physical model of the world we see. I'm not sure "discovered" is the right word. See, many physicists have started with postulates of some kind that allow them to build an accurate model of the universe, but "discovery" implies a sort of independant existence that's very hard to talk about. Often, these amount to "good" or "useful" ways of thinking about things, but "true", independant of human study, is tricky to define, let alone establish. Newton, himself, is very careful about any assertion that the laws of motion, or the model he creates, are "real".
I'm confused and a little annoyed when people talk about the "Scientific Method". I won't accuse you particularly, but most people who use that term have a frightfully bad understanding of the history of science. They think the "Scientific Method", which can be boiled down to observation-hypothesis-experiment-analysis-conclus ion, was something invented a few hundred years ago, and before that, well... people just made stuff up.
In truth, most of what we call "science" traces back to Aristotle, and even then, it may only be because that's as far back as our records go. We don't have records of Aristotle going through the "Scientific Method", but it can hardly be argued that he didn't go through the same process. What part of it do you think he skipped? Examples that he sites clearly indicate both observation and experimentation. In fact, the "Scientific Method" is, at best, a formal characterization of how the human thought process naturally works.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
And there are many things science has been unable to explain and conveniently ignores. Does anyone remember reports of a towering Stay Puft Marshmallow man that wrought great destruction on NYC in 1984. But unlike 9/11, which had a reasonable scientific explanation (terrorists), science could not come to terms with the events on that day in 1984. Theref
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think alchemy was even as silly as you're making it sound. To study alchemy was to try to understand why matter is what it is and does what it does, what makes one substance different from another, and how one substance can change into another. We've refined our methods and our understanding, and we call it "chemistry" now, but it's pretty much the same undertaking.
People seems to want to think that eveyone from more than 50 years ago was a silly, primitive moron, and that we, now, are finally the "smart" ones who have achieved a "real knowledge" that was utterly inaccessable "back then". However, that's what they thought 50 years ago, too- and fifty years before that, and 50 years before that...
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
The political climate [answersingenesis.org] closely tied Religion and Science. (quite evident in the strong tie between Trinity College and the Royal Society) That way they resolved all of the Galileo type problems. Newton disagreed with much of the church's teachings, and refused to be ordained. Thus h
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
By discovering this, my view of him has been elevated not degraded. A great man indeed.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
While it might seem silly to us that he was interested in topics such as alchemy, in his day, their knowledge of what goes on at the atomic level was almost nothing. To them, alchemy could have seemed possible. But the physical world which we experience every day was easily observable. Newton speculated about how both worked, and happened to be mostly right about physics, and wasting his time on alchemy. But at the time, they both probably seemed like promising enterprises.
Today we know o
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Newton would be considered a crackpot and a nut by the scientific community if he were alive today. And who inherited Newton's chair? A believer [hawking.org.uk] in time travel. I wonder who is the greater crackpot.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Relativity does allow time travel, but only with very strong constraints of consistancy.
The spacetime of relativity is frozen
Yes. Spacetime is solved all at once. Everything past and future is set in stone.
from the infinite past to the infinite future, by definition.
No. There is no such constraint. I suggest you do some reading.
Nothing can move in spacetime.
Yes.
It is
briefly recommended: James Gleick's bio of Newton (Score:5, Informative)
astrology: not (Score:4, Interesting)
There's also some interesting speculation as to whether or not he was gay -- here, there's less evidence one way or the other, but his nervous breakdown may have been caused by the ending of his relationship with a much younger man, Fatio de Duiller (?).
Re:astrology: not (Score:2, Informative)
Re:astrology: not (Score:3, Interesting)
That answers a question I came in here to ask about the book "Quicksilver" which contains a strong implication that Newton was gay. Stephenson apologizes in the preface to the book for playing fast and loose with history, but my experience with him is that he doesn't just make stuff up out of thin air. So it's good to know that that aspect of the book was based on existing speculation.
One problem that people like me (history haters) reading historical fiction is that we don't know the facts from t
Too late... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too late... (Score:5, Funny)
Neither (Score:2, Funny)
Number of physics laws I've come up with: 0
Number of treatises on church history and alchemy: 0
I don't know about the rest of slashdot
PS> On the other hand I do have some cool 0 days to my name.
Is this unnatural? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure this disqualifies me from being a philosopher, let alone a natural philosopher.
Erm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can excel at one point but it doesn't mean you know everything.
Re:Erm.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah sure, in business where social networking, dealing, etc are paramount, but most techies are introverts of some sort. Its these unsung heroes who really get the work done.
Then the coporate structure markets their work. There are exceptions of course, but a coder does not a good CEO make. Its the classic Jobs/Woz dynamic. There's a reason Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft and not Bill anymore. He's just a better businessman. He's a better speaker. He's a better socializer. He's a better schmoozer. etc
So yes, the grandparent is quite correct. Someone can excel at one thing and be poor at everything else. Arguably, being a specialist is a gamble of sorts. You can excel at one thing, but if you don't do well or if the market drops out you're screwed, but if you're so specialized that only you can do something or come up with a new way of doing things then there are rewards to be had.
How many people view Chomsky's work on lingustics as groundbreaking but couldn't care less about his politics? How many Cerebus fans share Dave Sim's attitude regarding women? How many people, at the time, though Bucky Fuller's "beef only" diet was a good idea? etc
Why one and not the other? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if this is going to lower peoples opinions of Newton here on slashdot?
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:2, Funny)
[Amusing] Guy splits atom, spills beer! (99)
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:2)
Considering he wrote most of his theological ideas around the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and we, on the other hand, have the vantage of an additional 300 years of science, I think I'll cut him some slack.
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder how Newton would do on slashdot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, he'd be modded up to +5 almost every time.
Look what happens when John Carmack posts stuff (and I've absolutely nothing against JC, he's just an example of somebody famous.)
Protoscience and psuedoscience (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not the 17/18th century anymore and your argument is a pretty weak strawman. Essentially you are saying "Newton's physics were valid (ignoring Einstein) thus his other views are just as valid and deserve the same audience and respect."
Uh no.
All the world's society's gave superstion more than the benefit of the doubt for millenia. It didn't pan out. Move on, don't complain that the book of Revelation or Alchemy or Phrenology deserves a 2nd chance. They have gotten more than their fair share of attention. Its not my fault or anyone else's these theories didn't pan out.
I suggest at least looking at the wikipedia's entries of protoscience [wikipedia.org] and psuedoscience [wikipedia.org] if you are being sincere and not just making a jab at scientific cosmology and the slashdotters who understand it is the most likely explanation of why things are.
I also take slight offense at how you're saying its "hip" to be against these dead philosophies, when in reality its much more hip to be against those eggheads in their ivory towers who challenge traditional beliefs. Its very hip for the religious to cry "Persecution!" when a science teacher mentions evolution or when a social studies teacher mentions different religions other than xtianity. I see it in the paper almost weekly. Yet you can join any religion you want, make your kids believe what you like, and religious organizations enjoy tax-free status, gambling rights, and a power-structure that protects them from criminal investigations (at least for a while).
Ironically, the western world has more religious freedom than ever, thanks to the secularists and western enlightenment.
Also, a decent primer on how what eventually became science is Shapin's The Scientific Revolution. [amazon.com]
Re:Protoscience and psuedoscience (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh please. Netwon lived in a time before the scientific method as we know it and before what eventually became the scientific community distanced itself and became aware of pseudo-scientific pursuits like astrology, prophecy, etc.
Can science tell you who you are? I don't mean some vauge descrition of being a bipedal primate, I mean telling you who YOU are? I noticed you convienientl
Re:Protoscience and psuedoscience (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, do we need another article about the time cube guy?
There's a large context here and I believe its how ideas go from no where to the mainstream. I like to think of LaBerge's work in lucid dreaming in the 80s. LD was considered either false (didnt happen or was just useless micro awakenings) or a philosophical issue (youre just dreaming youre awake while dreaming) but LaBerge worked at finding a experiment which would prove that lucid dreaming existed by fashioning an experiment that used eye control to prove that a lucid dreamer is really in control of the here and now. After being turned down by a few journals he got published here and there and others reproduced his work.
LaBerge isa good example because of how the New Age weirdos co-opted lucid dreaming and how he had to fight against preconceptions to prove his hypothesis. Yes, there were harsh criticisms and hard work involved, but that's the life of a researcher. Science does err on the side of caution but when enough evidence piles up against (or for) something then change happens. It happened to Newton with Einstein.
Or maybe its about how someone can be right in one area and wrong in another. Look at Thomas Gold or Chomsky's politics. History is full of people good at one thing who are wrong/controversial at another.
I wont even go into the irony of how your "moderators are bad" post is now rated at 5 points.
He was a philosopher, not a physicist. (Score:5, Insightful)
This had interesting implications to the way scientific papers were written. Rather than the modern form (just about 300 old) going like "Theorem-proof-example etc.", it was all heavily interwened with theology, intents of the creator, fabric of the world, etc., whatever the domain of the research in the natural sciences was!
split in the computers just like that... (Score:2)
Re:He was a philosopher, not a physicist. (Score:3, Informative)
Not in Newton's case. In fact, the impersonal, Olympian modern style of scientific writing basically dates back to him ("hypotheses non fingo"). Theorem-proof-example was exactly the
Re:He was a philosopher, not a physicist. (Score:2)
Yes, but the idea is that a Ph.D. (even in the sciences) was supposed to be well rounded. When I got my Ph.D. there was technically a requirement that all graduates had to demonstrate fluency in at least one foreign language, but this wasn't enforced.
There used to be a degree,
Re:He was a philosopher, not a physicist. (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein was a natural philosopher. Feynman was a natural philosopher. In twenty years, hopefully, the current set of great scientist will
Because he had to (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Because he had to (Score:4, Insightful)
I guarantee there are certain scientific fields that will seem absolutely retarded in another 200, 500 or 1000 years but are taken very seriously today.
That's why you should never put scientists up on a pedestal like they are so unquestionable or let them tell you that their crappy theories are truth just becuase "you can't understand it".
If you said "transmuting lead into gold? That sounds kind of retarded!" The alchemist would say "oh you silly little man you don't have the same mathematical talents I do, now just go away!"
I now laugh at all high and mighty alchemists who belittled doubters.
Hopefully in a 400 years when some of the silly bull that some "scientists" spew out is proven nonesense someone will laugh at them on my behalf.
Re:Because he had to (Score:2)
In a way, I wonder if it is possible, just not in the way they thought. I would have thought that somebody would have tried it. The only problem is that it is probably not worth doing from a financial perspective.
My thoughts are about smashing protons and neutrons into one material and it would eventually become oth
Re:Because he had to (Score:3, Interesting)
The bigger problem here is that lead is atomic number 82, and gold is atomic number 79 - you need to get the lead to yield up 3 protons - this is going to require an awful large amount of energy.
Some people claim to have pulled it off, however:
Current science. (Score:4, Insightful)
Any scientist that tells you something is "true" has a mountain of evidence to back him or her up.
Understand the theories, _then_ criticize. Most of these kinds of objection I've heard have come from people who either took the dumbed-down high school version as gospel, or who just plain don't understand the field being discussed.
Science doesn't know everything. Any good scientist knows the limits of scientific knowledge in their field. All or nearly all models of reality that science has constructed have areas where they don't apply well, as most of these are simpler approximations to very complex systems. But to use this to say that scientists are talking vapour about the areas where they _do_ apply well is extremely foolish.
The progress of science over the past couple of centuries has not generally been to overturn old theories and models, but to extend scientific knowledge to cover cases where the old models didn't apply. When a new model is proposed, it almost always turns out that it reduces to the old model in domains that the old model was designed to address. This is why Newton's laws of motion still hold, and why you don't need special relativity to find kinetic energy of slow-moving objects, and why general relativity still gives you Kepler orbits and Newton's laws of gravitation in weak gravitational fields, and why you don't need to solve quantum electrodynamics equations to find out how strong an electromagnet is.
In this light, I find it amusing that you use Newton's works as a supporting example for ignoring scientists' statements when we still use his laws of motion and gravitation for engineering today.
Re:Because he had to (Score:2)
I now laugh at all high and mighty alchemists who belittled doubters.
Why? Because their theories weren't true? I didn't realise that we were supposed to laugh every time a scientist researched something but didn't get anywhere. In fact I thought that's how it worked: someone comes up with a hypothesis, investigates it
Re:Because he had to (Score:2)
If you think Alchemy is about turning Lead into Gold, then you seriouly lack a real understanding of what true Alchemy is really about.
--
Why don't any hardware rewiew sites post screenshots of what people + lighting look like in Doom 3 on a DX8 card?
Re: Because he had to (Score:2)
Not at that point -- in fact, alchemical research was banned, and Newton had to conduct his experiments in secret. (On his deathbed, he extracted a promise that his writings on the subject wouldn't be published, which is why they're still relatively unknown.)
More on this in Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. In particular, it points out that alchemy wasn't so much about discovering new things as about rediscovering the supposed 'wisdom of the ancients'. Alchemists believe
Re:Because he had to (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article. His religious writings would have landed him in prison if he hadn't kept them secret.
Re:Because he had to (Score:2)
Insightful. Lets here it for the slashdot moderators! Uninformed christianity-bashing from people who would know better if they'd bothered to RTFA. If you had, you'd have known that Newton's writings actually were fairly heretical, promoting the idea of one God the Father Almighty over the doctrine of the trinity (which would have gotten him i
Re:Because he had to? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Because he had to? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two main world views that my reading has uncovered....those who think that consciousness is a product of the material world. And those who think that the material world is a product of consciousness.
The astrology, alchemy, geometry, references are much older than Newton....they predated him by two thousand years at least. They are meant to be interpreted literally to non-i
Re:Because he had to? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Because he had to (Score:2)
Re:Because he had to (Score:3, Informative)
He actually did a lot of his work in theology against the accepted order of the church in England. Newton was heavily into Arianism, which denies the holy trinity, and would surely have been branded a heretic if he had revealed his beliefs. He believed that the church in his time, and throughout most of its history had been corrupted after th
philosophy and science have always been linked (Score:3, Interesting)
the very meaning of Ph.D. is quite a big hint too.
but I still consider myself a scientist because I think an important thing is that no matter how good your logic is and how nice your explanations are, it doesn't mean a thing if it's inconsistent with ***observations***.
mathematics is the subject for people who have great logic but don't concern themselves with it actually having any relevence to our own universe.
modern "pure philosophers" are people who don't care about their logic being relevent to this universe or any other!
Science Includes Philosphy, Mathematics, Rhetoric (Score:2)
In the broadest sense, Science or scientia is simply knowledge. In classical terms, the four main branches of Science were Mathematics, Philosphy, Rhetoric, and the so-called Practical Sciences.
It is only in recent centuries that we have divorced the more esoteric disciplines from Science and reduced it to the Practical, that is to say, t
Re:philosophy and science have always been linked (Score:3, Insightful)
Heisenberg itself doesn't just say "buggrit, you just can't know where the electron is", it gives you a formula there. You can actually calculate stuff and build practical stuff with that knowledge.
(E.g., the Zenner diode. E.g., Heisenberg may well be the reason why CMOS miniaturization comes eventually to a halt. And it offers you the f
10 Million Words (Score:5, Funny)
Newton's Three laws of motion: A refresher (Score:5, Funny)
2) Motion must obey all orders given by a human, except where such orders conflict with the First Law.
3) Motion must protect its own existance, except where it would conflict with the first or second laws.
It's possible I'm thinking of robots here. It's been a while since I took Physics.
--AC
Re:Newton's Three laws of motion: A refresher (Score:5, Funny)
This shows the power of the scientific method (Score:2)
Re:This shows the power of the scientific method (Score:2)
Similar to Pascal... (Score:4, Interesting)
Newton was a misanthrope (Score:3, Interesting)
Some interesting Newton personality traits and tidbits can be found here [theintrovertzcoach.com].
Re:Newton was a misanthrope (Score:2)
It seems strange that someone who was so eccentric, and not at all a "people person", should be such an effective manager, but perhaps Newton was good at anything he cared to be good at.
Alchemy (Score:2)
By the standards of 300 years from now, I'm sure our science will seem downright primitive and "unscientific" in comparison.
Re:Alchemy (Score:2, Informative)
It is not a problem that some original asumption turned out wrong. This happens in science all the time. But alchemists believed all kinds of traditional stuff and did not know how to separate ideas that worked from those that did not. Mysticism goes against scepticism - the basis of critical reasoning.
not to mention (Score:2)
Also little known to most Newton teamed up with John Nabisco to create many tasty cookie inventions. He was just all over the place!
IP and Newton (Score:3, Interesting)
If Newton lived and philosophised under todays intellectual property reigeme we may not have calculus, especially since he has been credited as one of the founding fathers of this branch of maths. Would it be considered a patentable algorithm or process under todays US enforced laws? What would the world be like without free access to calculs?
Re:IP and Newton (Score:2)
Newton was an INTP (Score:2, Interesting)
Quicksilver.... (Score:2)
I reckon it is best read as a mildly-accurate potted history of modern Science and Economics, rather than a novel. A lot of these historical anecdotes are interesting in and of themselves (e.g. Newton's wider interests), but the attempt to add action and intrigue really just clashes with the long segments of (interpreted) history lessons.
Stephenson would have been better off writing a collection of sho
The Confusion (Score:2)
Why should we be surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, for many here on slashdot the closest they will get to philosophy will be watching a Star Trek episode. But many others have broader interests.
Interesting how Isaac Newton and William Blake... (Score:3, Insightful)
William Blake held Isaac Newton [tate.org.uk] up as an example of stale, dry, Atheistic reason. The famous drawing I have linked to here is that of his conception of Newton, sitting in a dry desert, playing with a compass.
What would have been if Blake would have read some of Newton's writings on theology, I wonder?
'Unknown' in name only (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a bit of socio-scientific revisionism in the concept of the 'unknown' side of those like Newton. It's bizarre to see this 'unknown' meme pop up again and again, particularly because this side of Newton was most famously pointed out in the bestselling Holy Blood, Holy Grail" [amazon.co.uk] twenty years ago.
There's as much resistance to similar evidence about Boyd and Da Vinci, most of it due to ignorance about the 16th century mindset.
Hopefully the Newton Project will do something towards embedding a bit more realism into our historical perspective.
The Age of Unreason (Score:2)
Some "scientific" inventions are the fervefactum, the ethergraph, shoes that float on water and the kraftpistole.
pr0n & Newton (Score:4, Interesting)
So \.-ers if you consume pornography you help the human kind to evolve.
Porn is good!
Re:pr0n & Newton (Score:2)
Re:pr0n & Newton (Score:5, Funny)
Apple? (Score:2)
And here I thought this was a new thing from Apple!
Definitely scientists (Score:2)
Nup we're definitely scientists. Scientists stand slightly more chance of being employed for more than a burger flipper.
"Would you like fries with that? Let us examine exactly what a fry is, taking into account its physical and incorporeal qualities".
Not an adjunct to Quicksilver (Score:2, Informative)
Quicksilver didn't cover Newton's broader--today we'd call them non-scientific--interests as deeply as The System of the World [metaweb.com] most likely will. Half-cocked Jack versus Newton The Exchequer ought to be good!
Scientists already are Natural Philosophers... (Score:3, Insightful)
A phiolospher is literally one who 'loves wisdom', a 'natural philosopher' is therefore one who craves an understanding of nature and all the stuff whats in it.
So, there's nothing new about calling scientists 'natural philosophers'. It's as much a step forward as calling a car a 'horseless carriage' - we're already there.
laws were made to be tested (Score:3, Informative)
Everything else people say, including Newton, that is neither falsifiable nor consistent, belongs not to "physics", the science of physical phenomena, but to "metaphysics". It can be fun, or illuminating, or even persuasive, but it's not physics, it's not as reliable, and it's worth saying only if those values aren't important.
Newton is a legend for his contributions to science. His other contributions might also be worthwhile to discuss. Science has changed a great deal since Newton's time, as has metaphysics. Perhaps some of his other investigations were disregarded, as science itself was not yet sophisticated enough to incorporate them. The basic techniques of science can be applied, and perhaps we can derive yet more benefit from the man's work. But it's important to remember that we're not engaged in "scientistism". We like Newton because of the value of his work. If the rest of it, like his hairstyle, is irrelevant today, that doesn't detract from his other contributions. However, as the work of one man who gave so much, it's probably worth testing at least some of his work that hasn't yet made it to the scientific canon.
Arcane (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess, if you include (Score:5, Insightful)
In Newton's day, the Neoplatonists of the Renaisance (typified by Pico della Mirandola, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, John Dee, Jacob Boehme, etc.) were losing favor and in many ways Newton was a throwback to the likes of Francis Bacon, who was not only an empiricist but also a very well known achemist, or John Dee who was at once an astrologer, alchemist, and mathematician (also reputed to have used his occult powers to save England from the Spanish Armada).
Indeed, I would have expected Newton's stand on Astrology and Alchemy to have made him many enemies in the Church at that time.
This is way off topic for Slashdot (though right on-topic for this story), but as these topics interest me greatly, I would like to see what Newton wrote on astrology, alchemy, etc.
Also as a note-- people develop strange reputations after their deaths that might surprise them. For example Michel de Notradame (Nostradamus) was best known in his day as a physician and alchemist.
Re:I guess, if you include (Score:5, Informative)
He wrote millions of words on alchemy. He wrote almost nothing about astrology, except a brief statement to the effect that he thought it was nonsense. [phys.uu.nl]
Indeed, I would have expected Newton's stand on Astrology and Alchemy to have made him many enemies in the Church at that time.
Astrology was widely and openly practiced. Kings and queens used it to decide when to go to war. Only a generation before, in Galileo's time, there had been no clear distinction between astrology and astronomy. People who had the mathematical skill to do astrology/astronomy often worked for the Church on things like calculating the date of Easter (which is based on the phases of the moon).
Alchemy had a tradition of secrecy, but I don't think it had anything to do with religious prohibitions.
Re:This is news? (Score:2)
Re:Da Vinci Code (Score:2)
Re:Da Vinci Code (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm not a whore of babylon (Score:2)