Isaac Newton
"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James Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus.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 subtleties of personality that were mirrored in the invisible forces he first identified as the building blocks of science. More than biography, more than history, more than science, Isaac Newton tells us how, through the mind of one man, we have come to know our place in the cosmos."--BOOK JACKET
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What Hacker News says
- 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 authoritative or at least engaging biography of this "last universal genius" (as the wikipedia article puts it, quoting an online article)?
I'm a big fan of reading offline when I can so am looking for a book, rather than lots of online materials. ;)
Thanks HN (figured this would be the best place to ask...)
- 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.
- 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 rather complete picture of the man. It's basically common knowledge now, but Newton's writings on alchemy and religion are in vast excess of his writings on physics and mathematics. It seems that intriguing questions that he couldn't find answers for almost made him rabid, in a sense.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
