Isaac Newton Bbc4

[Khandro]

I have just watched the above, and thought it was a very poor and chauvinistic programme. Newton was a great genius and indubitably altered the course of scientific knowledge, but it portrayed him as a paranoid psychopath working in isolation from his contemporaries and predecessors. There was no mention (unless I missed it) of the theories and work done previously by Tycho Brache and Johannes Kepler into planetary motion, and his work on alchemy was made, with typical 'clever' hindsight, to appear ludicrous, making no reference to contemporary beliefs.
Did anyone watch it and if so what do you think?

[LazyGun]

Didn't see it - I had not realised it was on - should be on iplayer I guess?

[Khandro]

Mistake; it was on BBC2. LG I look forward to you observations

[jim360]

I might have a look. But out of interest, before you watched this program what did you think of Newton?

[Buenchico]

Newton was possibly/probably autistic.

Quote:
"Isaac Newton hardly spoke and had few friends. He was often so absorbed in his work that he forgot to eat, demonstrating an obsessive single-mindedness that is commonly associated with Asperger's. If nobody attended his lessons, he reportedly gave lectures to an empty room. When he was 50, he suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by depression and paranoia".

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_figures_sometimes_considered_autistic

[boxtops]

We watched it - I found it very low key and sluggish so I lost interest by about half way through.... I found Hooke's portrayal more interesting. I think the BBC have missed a trick here, this could have been a stunning programme.

[Khandro]

Yes jim, I love Newton and the way the prog. has been trailed for some weeks, I was looking forward to it. I agree with boxy; it was another missed opportunity. I left the room to re-charge my glass, and received a phone call during it, but was he was portrayed other than sitting in a chair? Post-psychological assessments by psychiatrists are bad enough,(as in the otherwise excellent recent J.S.Bach prog.) but by an economist, really!
Regarding contemporary thought, it should be remembered that up to that time, astronomy and astrology were inextricably linked (even by Kepler) and alchemy was still taken seriously by many others.

[beso]

Did they mention Newton wrote more about theology than he did about science?

[jim360]

Well there's little a program like this can teach me about Newton I didn't already know. It depends largely on what their point is. The fact that he was, by modern standards, barmy in believing in alchemy and magic hardly devalues the rest of his Scientific work. Some of what went on then is going to fall short of modern standards almost inevitably, since the method was still very new.

One of the ones which always gets me is the route Kepler took to his three laws - particularly the idea that planets move in ellipses. No careful measurements and observations were enough. No, apparently it started out by the most bizarre argument I've seen in a Scientific paper:

1. Circles are perfect.
2. The Universe we live in is hardly perfect - look at all the evil in the world.
3. Therefore planets do not need to move in circles.

I mean, ??!

[jake-the-peg]

//paranoid psychopath working in isolation from his contemporaries and predecessors//

Er yes that's about the size of it (sociopath really I think rather than psychopath)

I think I once used the expression 'Think Sheldon Cooper with a mean streak a mile wide'

No doubt they went into his war with Leibniz and Hooke - It's said he had all the portraits of Hooke burnt after Hooke died.


The sheer breadth of his work is astounding and I can think of nobody better deserving the tag 'Genius' but I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to spend much time with the man

[Khandro]

jim; Amazing :-) I think what we have to remember though, and it is my beef with this kind of programme, is how these guys had to tread very carefully, the crime of blasphemy was still very much in force and you could get burnt at the stake for saying the 'wrong' things, Galileo (died the year Newton was born) had come very close to it.

[jim360]

The thing about Galileo is that he was persecuted not really for going against the established view, so much as being arrogant and rude about it. Notes from the time show that his view was taken seriously, and evaluated on the evidence of the time, and found wanting. Not entirely surprising, that, since his case was basically "moons go around Jupiter so the Earth goes around the Sun". Maybe if he hadn't labelled the speaker for the church's position "Simplicius" he might not have been persecuted by them.

[Khandro]

Filippo Bruno wasn't quite so lucky, after proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings, the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy and he was burned at the stake, - dangerous times for free-thinkers, at least for outspoken ones.

[jake-the-peg]

Yes jim

As I recall Galileo was given permission to publish his ideas as long as he published the opposing ideas along side.

However he published with a thinly disguised character of the pope putting forward the Aristotelean view and being corrected and made to look stupid by the wise character putting forward Galileo's views.

Not surprised he got thrown in gaol!

Bruno did get harshly dealt with but he was a friar and supposed to be obediant

[jim360]

Perhaps part of the reason Bruno got burned for heresy was because of his belief in other planets holding other intelligent life. Even now I think it can be argued that religions on this planet will lose the argument for good if we found intelligent life elsewhere, as it would be the final blow to the idea that humans are in any way special. So perhaps it was that, more than his "Earth moves round the Sun", that cost him his life.

[Khandro]

I'm not sure why the discovery of other life within the universe would necessarily demonstrate that human life wasn't special.
Back to Newton though and what Chris quotes above; "If nobody attended his lessons, he reportedly gave lectures to an empty room." I like this idea, after all you are paid to 'give a lecture', it's not your fault if nobody shows up, and talking to ones self is good method of clarifying thoughts, I don't think it indicates madness.

[jim360]

Well I suppose it depends at some level on precisely what the religion says. But in nearly all cases I'm aware of humans are special, or chosen, among this planet. That special-ness is defined by the fact that we're just more intelligent or somehow the chosen people. I don't see how that can possibly stand up if there is an equally intelligent species somewhere else.

[jim360]

Well I watched it and perhaps I'm just trying to find a reason to argue, but I thought it captured Newton pretty well. He did work in isolation through his life, though surely built on the work of his predecessors. A program focusing on one man is bound to skip over the contributions from people before him, which is perhaps a bit disappointing. But he was a bit weird and I think that was made very clear. Then again, all geniuses are weird.

[vetuste_ennemi]

The description of the teaching of natural sciences at Cambridge in the late 17th century as "Aristotelean" seems a little far-fetched, although I'm prepared to be proved wrong. You would never have got the idea from the program that this was the Age of Enlightenment across the whole of Europe. Poor old Hooke got a bit of a hammering. But it's probably encouraged me to do a bit more reading.