Isaac Newton
by James Gleick · first published 2003
80% recommend20% neutral
"In this biography, James Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus. He makes us see the old intuitive, alchemical universe out of which Newton's mathematics first arose and shows us how Newton's ideas have altered all forms of understanding from history to philosophy. And he gives us an account of the conflicting impulses that pulled at this man's heart: his quiet longings, his rage, his secrecy, the extraordinary su
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Newton was a nut, in nearly every positive and negative, sense of the word. I highly recommend James Gleick's Isaac Newton: https://www.amazon.com/Isaac-Newton-James-Gleick/dp/14000329... It is an engrossing and not long read on Newton. It covers a fair amount of his heretical thoughts and feuds with people and paints a…
on “Isaac Newton’s attempts to unlock secret code of pyramids” ↗Genius by James Gleick is the best biography I've ever read. It's about the life of Richard Feynman. Gleick's Isaac Newton is also fantastic.
on “Ask HN: Biographies recommendations – both Westerner and Non-westerner” ↗I kind of enjoyed Gleick's bio of Newton: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17098.Isaac_Newton It doesn't shy away from what later hagiographies deride as "religious superstition", but what according to Gleick was integral to Newton's worldview.
on “The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius” ↗I recommend James Gleick’s Isaac Newton as a short but engaging and broad view of Newton. He was a nut in all senses of the word.
on “Newton's Philosophy” ↗James Gleick's Isaac Newton is an excellent account of the time. It focuses on Newton's life and is quite brief, but still prepares you to recognize many of the cast in the Baroque cycle.
on “Lab hidden inside a famous monument” ↗I'm a massive fan of James Gleick and really enjoyed his biography of Isaac Newton, though it's a fair few years since I read it. Recently I've been interested in the influence of Leibniz, particularly as I'm working with calculus so much more than I used to! Does anyone know of an…
on “Ask HN: Equivalent of James Gleicks Isaac Newton – For Leibniz” ↗Based on my reading of Jim Gleick's biography Isaac Newton and my background as a theoretical physicist, I believe your comment is essentially accurate. In particular, Newton's desire to connect calculus with Euclidean geometry is certainly correct. As you note,…
on “Calculus distilled into hours” ↗