0:00:14 > 0:00:18'I do not know what I may appear to the world
0:00:18 > 0:00:19'but to myself,
0:00:19 > 0:00:23'I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27'amusing myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble
0:00:27 > 0:00:29'or prettier shell than ordinary,
0:00:29 > 0:00:35'while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'
0:00:39 > 0:00:42Isaac Newton is considered by many
0:00:42 > 0:00:45to be the greatest genius of all time.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47His virtues proved him a saint
0:00:47 > 0:00:51and his discoveries might well pass...
0:00:51 > 0:00:53..for miracles.
0:00:53 > 0:00:59He was revered as a scientific demigod in his own lifetime.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01Now the keenness of his sublime intellect
0:01:01 > 0:01:04has allowed us to penetrate the dwellings of the gods
0:01:04 > 0:01:07and ascend the heights of heaven!
0:01:08 > 0:01:10If anybody was a genius,
0:01:10 > 0:01:13Newton was.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17Newton revealed the nature of light,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21allowing us to explore the universe.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25He enabled us to calculate motion
0:01:25 > 0:01:28and predict change.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32He distilled the force that unites the whole universe
0:01:32 > 0:01:35into a precise mathematical formula -
0:01:35 > 0:01:39the Universal Law of Gravity.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Newton is celebrated as the rational genius
0:01:43 > 0:01:46who propelled us out of medieval darkness
0:01:46 > 0:01:49and into the Enlightenment.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53But Isaac Newton was also a complex,
0:01:53 > 0:01:57difficult and secretive man.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59He wasn't communicative.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01He didn't want to work with anybody else.
0:02:01 > 0:02:03He was easily offended.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Spiteful and swayed by those who were worse than himself!
0:02:08 > 0:02:11In vulgar modern terms,
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Newton was profoundly neurotic.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Newton's deepest obsession would only be revealed
0:02:17 > 0:02:21200 years after his death,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25an occult world of heretical religion and alchemy.
0:02:27 > 0:02:32There is a vital agent, diffuse through everything in the earth,
0:02:32 > 0:02:34a mercurial spirit,
0:02:34 > 0:02:38extremely subtle and supremely volatile.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41But Newton's secret obsessions
0:02:41 > 0:02:46would transform the way we understand the universe.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50Newton was not the first of the Age of Reason.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53He was the last of the magicians.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03BOMBASTIC MUSIC
0:03:03 > 0:03:08In 1705, Sir Isaac Newton was 63 years old
0:03:08 > 0:03:11and a pillar of the British Establishment.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14He had just been knighted.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18He was recognised across Europe as the master of the Enlightenment.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21He did not suffer from self-doubt.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27He rather liked to think of himself as the new Messiah,
0:03:27 > 0:03:29a sort of scientific Christ
0:03:29 > 0:03:34who was bringing a new kind of knowledge to save the world.
0:03:34 > 0:03:39This messiah had a low opinion of lesser mortals.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies
0:03:43 > 0:03:46but not the madness of people.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52Newton's estrangement from humanity began from the moment he was born
0:03:52 > 0:03:54at Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire,
0:03:54 > 0:03:58on Christmas morning, 1642.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03When I was born, I was so little they put me in a quart pot,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07and so weakly, they did not think I would live.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10I was a little fellow.
0:04:11 > 0:04:17The 1640s were the most tumultuous decade in English history.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21The English Civil War left one-in-ten men dead.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25King Charles I was beheaded.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Oliver Cromwell's puritanical government
0:04:28 > 0:04:32waged war against Catholicism in the monarchy.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37Bubonic plague was rampant.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42People genuinely believed the world was coming to an end.
0:04:42 > 0:04:47This time of chaos and upheaval marked Newton for life.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53Newton craved certainty.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58All of Newton's work is about finding certainty,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00finding the truth
0:05:00 > 0:05:04and the things that you can absolutely believe in.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09His home was anything but a haven.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13His father died a few months before he was born.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17He was then rejected by his mother.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21She abandoned him to start another family when he was three years old.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27Newton grew up in tune with the Protestant spirit of the age,
0:05:27 > 0:05:32anti-Catholic, Bible-reading and introspective.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36He made a list of childhood sins, written in code.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39The list begins innocently.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42"Making pies on Sunday night...
0:05:43 > 0:05:46"..making a mousetrap on Thy Day,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49"squirting water on Thy Day..."
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Then a darker side is revealed.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56"Striking Minnie,
0:05:56 > 0:05:58"punching my sister...
0:05:59 > 0:06:04"..threatening my Father and Mother Smith to burn them and the house over them."
0:06:06 > 0:06:08He was so obsessive.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12He was a man who lived his entire life inside his head, and that's how he did what he did.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14You look at the papers he left behind
0:06:14 > 0:06:18and there are millions of words, of scribbling.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21They are not words written to impress anybody.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23They're not words written for publication.
0:06:23 > 0:06:28They're words written because that was how Newton thought. That's what he did.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33The 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes
0:06:33 > 0:06:38was fascinated by the man behind the scientific legend.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Geniuses are peculiar -
0:06:40 > 0:06:44the uneasiness, the melancholy, the nervous agitation...
0:06:44 > 0:06:47In vulgar modern terms,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Newton was profoundly neurotic.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Newton relied on no-one...
0:06:54 > 0:06:57- ..but himself. - CLOCK TICKS
0:06:58 > 0:07:01He has almost a sort of visceral dislike
0:07:01 > 0:07:03of following other people.
0:07:03 > 0:07:09He has a very strong belief in his own originality.
0:07:10 > 0:07:11As a schoolboy,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15Newton's innovative mind was already at work.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19He decided to invent his own way to tell the time.
0:07:20 > 0:07:25Newton turned the attic into a giant astronomical clock.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27It was like a sundial.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33He plotted the sun's movement every 15 minutes
0:07:33 > 0:07:36as it moved across the walls of his room.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42He could go into any room and he could tell what time it was
0:07:42 > 0:07:44by looking at the shadows on the walls.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48Light, space and time
0:07:48 > 0:07:51were already his playthings.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57Newton's teenage notebooks mention no friends.
0:07:57 > 0:08:02Instead, they reveal his efforts to find his own answers to practical problems,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05like alleviating wind.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11Steep horse dung, especially a stone-horse,
0:08:11 > 0:08:13in ale.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22Then take it out, strongly express the juice
0:08:22 > 0:08:24and drink it.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30But Newton's fertile mind was almost stifled
0:08:30 > 0:08:33before it could flourish.
0:08:33 > 0:08:38His estranged mother pulled him out of school when he was 17 to run the family farm.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43His mother intended he apply himself to the management of the estate
0:08:43 > 0:08:47but his genius could not brook such an employment.
0:08:47 > 0:08:53Newton was the most useless manager of a farm you can possibly imagine,
0:08:53 > 0:08:57and it was his mother's brother who suggested that Newton was too good,
0:08:57 > 0:09:01too talented to be kept away from his destiny,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04which was university.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09Isaac was soon packed off to Trinity College, Cambridge.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11CLOCK TICKS
0:09:11 > 0:09:14He was drawn to natural philosophy,
0:09:14 > 0:09:17the study of the physical world,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21what we now call science.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27In the late 17th century, when Newton was a student,
0:09:27 > 0:09:33science was not held in any particular esteem at all.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37There was no degree in science, there was no career in science.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Science hadn't so far produced...
0:09:40 > 0:09:43..any useful results.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Newton's professors taught Aristotle's concept
0:09:46 > 0:09:50of gravity and levity.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54You know, they would've said an apple has some gravity.
0:09:54 > 0:09:58And how do we know? Because it has a tendency to fall down.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01They would've said fire and smoke have levity
0:10:01 > 0:10:04because they rise to the heavens.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06That's what Aristotle taught them.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10But Newton was ready to reject 2,000 years
0:10:10 > 0:10:13of scientific orthodoxy.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18He thought and believed that what other people wrote was wrong.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21It's as if he believed, even at this early period -
0:10:21 > 0:10:23he's 21, 22 -
0:10:23 > 0:10:29that he was destined to be the person to reform natural philosophy.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33Newton only believed
0:10:33 > 0:10:36what he could prove himself.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Natural philosophy should not be founded on metaphysical opinions.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46Its conclusions can only be proved by experiment.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49He wanted to know everything.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53He had an insatiable curiosity.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57He was handed this interesting, complicated world
0:10:57 > 0:11:00and he could almost see the gears turning
0:11:00 > 0:11:03and he wanted to figure them out.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07By 1664,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10aged only 21,
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Newton devised a curriculum for himself -
0:11:13 > 0:11:1845 topics that obsessed him for the rest of his life.
0:11:18 > 0:11:19He called them
0:11:19 > 0:11:22"Certain Philosophical Questions".
0:11:23 > 0:11:25Of time and eternity,
0:11:25 > 0:11:29of the sun and planets and comets,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32of air,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34of meteors,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38of atoms, of density,
0:11:38 > 0:11:41of vacuum,
0:11:41 > 0:11:43of reflection,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46of attraction - magnetical,
0:11:46 > 0:11:48of attraction - electrical,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51of light,
0:11:51 > 0:11:56of colours, of heat and cold,
0:11:56 > 0:11:59of gravity and levity,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01of vision...
0:12:03 > 0:12:08Newton was obsessed by the mysteries of vision and light.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10He went to extraordinary lengths
0:12:10 > 0:12:13to examine the mechanics of how the eye works.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17I looked upon the sun in a looking glass with my right eye,
0:12:17 > 0:12:22and then turned my eyes into a darker corner of my chamber and winked
0:12:22 > 0:12:26to observe the impression made and the circles of colours which encompassed it
0:12:26 > 0:12:30and how they decayed and at last vanished.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32He's trying to work out
0:12:32 > 0:12:36how much of what we see is due to the will, so to our mind,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39and how much of it is due to what there is in the outside world.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43In a few hours time, I had brought my eyes to such a pass
0:12:43 > 0:12:45that I could look upon no bright object.
0:12:45 > 0:12:48I only saw the sun before me!
0:12:48 > 0:12:51I could neither write nor read.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53To recover the use of my eyes,
0:12:53 > 0:12:57I shut myself up in my darkened chamber for three days.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59DOOR CLOSES & LOCKS
0:13:00 > 0:13:03Newton was prepared to risk blindness
0:13:03 > 0:13:06to ensure his findings were correct.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11In his notebooks, there are some wonderful diagrams
0:13:11 > 0:13:14of him putting a bodkin, which is a long toothpick,
0:13:14 > 0:13:16as close to the back of his eye as he could get.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19Betwixt my eye and the bone,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22as near to the back of my eye as I could,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25and pressing it with the end of the bodkin,
0:13:25 > 0:13:29there appeared several bright dark circles of colours.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33What he's doing with the eye experiments, he's trying to work out
0:13:33 > 0:13:36how much the imagination, what he calls the will or the fancy,
0:13:36 > 0:13:39contributes towards vision.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42Newton's mathematical mind
0:13:42 > 0:13:46was driven to search for bigger answers
0:13:46 > 0:13:48to ever bigger questions.
0:13:52 > 0:13:58In 1665, an outbreak of bubonic plague swept through England,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01killing 100,000.
0:14:05 > 0:14:10Newton took refuge in his childhood home, Woolsthorpe Manor.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15More isolated than ever,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18he continued his compulsive questioning.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Newton realised there were certain problems,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27mostly motion and falling objects,
0:14:27 > 0:14:32that you just couldn't solve with the classical mathematics.
0:14:33 > 0:14:39He invented the means to compute virtually any rate of change...
0:14:40 > 0:14:43..the moon's path around the earth...
0:14:45 > 0:14:48..the growth pattern of a spiral shell...
0:14:51 > 0:14:55..the trajectory of a projectile fired from a cannon.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00A new type of mathematics was born.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Calculus.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07Calculus is used today
0:15:07 > 0:15:12in every branch of the mathematical sciences and engineering.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15Every time you have a changing quantity -
0:15:15 > 0:15:18say, for example, the acceleration on a car,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21how much petrol is being injected into the engine -
0:15:21 > 0:15:23there's a changing quantity there
0:15:23 > 0:15:26so you have to use calculus.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Without the least help or instruction from any person,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33he laid the foundation of all his discoveries
0:15:33 > 0:15:35before he was 24 years old.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Newton was now the world's leading mathematician
0:15:43 > 0:15:46but no-one else knew it.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49He kept his great inventions to himself.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54Instead he started an entirely new set of experiments,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57this time...
0:15:57 > 0:15:59..with light.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02In August, 1665,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06Sir Isaac bought at Stourbridge Fair a prism
0:16:06 > 0:16:09to try some experiments on Descartes' book of colours,
0:16:09 > 0:16:14and when he came home, he made a small hole in the window shutters
0:16:14 > 0:16:16and darkened the room.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21..the celebrated phenomena of colours...
0:16:21 > 0:16:22Having darkened my chamber
0:16:22 > 0:16:24and made a hole in my window shuts
0:16:24 > 0:16:28to let in a convenient quantity of the sun's light,
0:16:28 > 0:16:30I placed my prism at its entrance
0:16:30 > 0:16:34that it might be refracted to the opposite wall.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36It was a very pleasing divertissement
0:16:36 > 0:16:41to view the vivid and intense colours produced.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45For centuries, white light was considered
0:16:45 > 0:16:48the purest form of energy in the universe,
0:16:48 > 0:16:52a symbol of God's power.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57Newton was about to prove that white light...
0:16:57 > 0:17:00..was not pure.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05Everybody knew that if you let sunlight shine through a prism,
0:17:05 > 0:17:09the prism divides it into a spectrum of colours.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13What they didn't know was what happens next
0:17:13 > 0:17:18if you put a second prism into a piece of the beam.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Newton showed that the colours of the spectrum
0:17:23 > 0:17:26could not be split any further.
0:17:26 > 0:17:28They were elemental.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32White light was composite.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37Newton saw right away that white itself is not pure.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40White is a mixture.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Newton had shattered one of the most fundamental beliefs of his time
0:17:48 > 0:17:51with demonstrable proof.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Before Newton, a prism was just a toy.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58Now he had made it into a tool
0:17:58 > 0:18:01that would transform the study of our world
0:18:01 > 0:18:04and outer space.
0:18:04 > 0:18:0890 percent or more of our knowledge of the universe
0:18:08 > 0:18:14has come from collecting light from the sky and stars and planets,
0:18:14 > 0:18:18and splitting it, effectively, through a prism.
0:18:19 > 0:18:24They can tell us about the composition of planetary atmospheres
0:18:24 > 0:18:26or the composition of stars.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29They can tell us about the rotation rates of planets.
0:18:29 > 0:18:35All of that derives from Newton's looking at the colours.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43And yet Newton still seemed destined for obscurity.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46He showed no interest in publishing his findings
0:18:46 > 0:18:50and seemed to despise the acclaim it could bring.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54I do not see what is desirable in public esteem,
0:18:54 > 0:18:57were I able to acquire and maintain it.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00It would only increase my acquaintance,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03the thing I chiefly study to decline.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09Newton's reclusiveness was about to be shattered,
0:19:09 > 0:19:12thanks to his obsession with light
0:19:12 > 0:19:15and a practical little invention.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19By the mid-1660s,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22telescopes were simple tubes, up to 20-feet-long,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26using a series of lenses to magnify the image.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31Newton tried a radical new approach.
0:19:32 > 0:19:38The reflecting telescope uses mirrors inside a much shorter tube
0:19:38 > 0:19:44so that the beam of light is bent often enough
0:19:44 > 0:19:47that the lenses can be much closer together.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50That's wonderful. Now you can take it on-board ship,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53and, indeed, you can carry it around the country.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58Newton was extremely proud of his telescope.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03- I did it myself. - HE CHUCKLES
0:20:03 > 0:20:07If I had waited for others to make my tools and things for me,
0:20:07 > 0:20:09I would never have made anything.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14Newton's reflecting telescope was only six-inches-long,
0:20:14 > 0:20:16yet it was as powerful as lens telescopes
0:20:16 > 0:20:19ten-times the length.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21It was totally portable
0:20:21 > 0:20:25and ready to revolutionise navigation.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30The telescope and the clock are what is needed
0:20:30 > 0:20:33to tell you where you are at sea.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35And until GPS,
0:20:35 > 0:20:40it was still the way that it was done if you were on a sailing ship.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48In 1671, Newton's mathematics don Isaac Barrow
0:20:48 > 0:20:50finally brought Newton to the attention
0:20:50 > 0:20:54of the world's first scientific organisation,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57the Royal Society in London.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03Its members included great minds of the time
0:21:03 > 0:21:07such as Christopher Wren and astronomer Edmund Halley,
0:21:07 > 0:21:11as well as a fair few eccentrics.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17They are a collection of gentlemen and nobility
0:21:17 > 0:21:19and what they are interested in covers the spectrum,
0:21:19 > 0:21:22from the ludicrous to the high-powered.
0:21:22 > 0:21:28They are interested in looking at their own sperm,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30which they found completely fascinating
0:21:30 > 0:21:33and I'm sure they went away and tried at home.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37You have Edmund Halley writing a paper on cannabis.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39You have How to Develop a Better Apple,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43How to Wash Your Laundry
0:21:43 > 0:21:45and How to Deal With the Gout.
0:21:46 > 0:21:51You're in a world of magical mystery...
0:21:51 > 0:21:55..nonsense and science, all mixed up together.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59There is nothing that is off-limits for the early Royal Society.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05Newton's compact telescope was a hit.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09The man who lived in his head was hailed by the Royal Society
0:22:09 > 0:22:12for what he had made with his hands.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Newton was delighted.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19I was surprised to see so much care taken
0:22:19 > 0:22:22about securing an invention of mine
0:22:22 > 0:22:27for which I had hitherto had so little value.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32Newton was accepted into the Royal Society
0:22:32 > 0:22:35in January, 1672,
0:22:35 > 0:22:39and he finally published his findings from the prism experiments
0:22:39 > 0:22:43as his Theory of Light and Colours.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47Newton was in no doubt about the importance of his work.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50My theory of light and colour is the oddest,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53if not the most considerable detection which has been made
0:22:53 > 0:22:56in the operations of nature.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Newton's paper would now have to be reviewed
0:23:03 > 0:23:07by the curator of experiments at the Royal Society,
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Robert Hooke.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Hooke was a highly respected natural philosopher and inventor,
0:23:14 > 0:23:18famous for his drawings of insects, lice and house flies
0:23:18 > 0:23:22as seen through his homemade microscope.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25Hooke would rule on the credibility
0:23:25 > 0:23:28of Newton's Theory of Light and Colour.
0:23:29 > 0:23:35I have perused Mr Newton's discourse about colours and refractions,
0:23:35 > 0:23:37and I was not a little pleased
0:23:37 > 0:23:42with the niceness and curiosity of his observations.
0:23:42 > 0:23:49Yet as to his hypothesis of solving the phenomena of colours thereby,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52I confess, I cannot see yet
0:23:52 > 0:23:54any undeniable argument
0:23:54 > 0:23:57to convince me of the certainty thereof.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Robert Hooke peer-reviewed it
0:24:00 > 0:24:03and said it was worthless.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08I don't think Newton ever forgave him for that.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10I've been peer-reviewed.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13You do never forgive the person who rejected your paper!
0:24:13 > 0:24:17Am I bound to satisfy YOU?
0:24:17 > 0:24:21It seems you thought it not enough to make objections
0:24:21 > 0:24:26unless you could also insult me for my ability to answer them.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31He's very, very quick to defend his intellectual property,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34and he does it in a kneejerk way, I think,
0:24:34 > 0:24:38with people like Robert Hooke.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41There's certainly an element of paranoia that derives, I think,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44from his own self-belief.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51Newton regretted having ever permitted his paper to be published.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54I find from what little use I have made of the press
0:24:54 > 0:24:58that I shall not enjoy my former serene liberty till I have done with it.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01I intend to be solicitous no further!
0:25:02 > 0:25:07Every time anybody criticised him, any time anybody dared disagree with him,
0:25:07 > 0:25:09he went into retreat.
0:25:09 > 0:25:15- I told the Royal Society that I was busy in some- other- subject,
0:25:15 > 0:25:18some business of my own.
0:25:18 > 0:25:23His deepest instincts were profound shrinking from the world,
0:25:23 > 0:25:28a paralysing fear that his thoughts, his beliefs, his discoveries
0:25:28 > 0:25:32would be exposed to the criticism of the world.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40Newton withdrew back inside his mind.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42Locked in his Cambridge rooms,
0:25:42 > 0:25:46he became a virtual hermit for the next 12 years.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54The work he produced there was considered so dangerous
0:25:54 > 0:25:58that it would be locked away for two centuries.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03This was his deepest obsession.
0:26:03 > 0:26:05It lay waiting in the dark
0:26:05 > 0:26:08until, like some mythical dragon,
0:26:08 > 0:26:10Isaac Newton's secret
0:26:10 > 0:26:14could be released back into the world.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21A bunch of impoverished English nobility
0:26:21 > 0:26:23needed to raise some money,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25and started selling papers
0:26:25 > 0:26:29that had been sitting in storage for centuries.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36In 1936, the economist John Maynard Keynes
0:26:36 > 0:26:39bought some of Newton's secret papers at auction -
0:26:39 > 0:26:43one great mathematician admiring another.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46Sotheby's was auctioning the stuff off
0:26:46 > 0:26:50and Keynes was righteously horrified.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54I mean, this is, excuse me, but it's England's birthright,
0:26:54 > 0:26:59and the idea that these very important and revealing papers
0:26:59 > 0:27:02were going to go into private hands
0:27:02 > 0:27:04kind of disgusted him.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07What he found...
0:27:07 > 0:27:10..revealed an utterly different Newton,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14not the rational scientist we thought we knew.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17What Newton does in a very, very large project
0:27:17 > 0:27:19beginning in the late 1670s,
0:27:19 > 0:27:23he goes back to as many classical sources as he can find -
0:27:23 > 0:27:27Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian, Chaldean -
0:27:27 > 0:27:29and he reads into them
0:27:29 > 0:27:33the idea that these people knew about Newtonianism.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Newton alleged that these ancient cultures
0:27:38 > 0:27:43had always known that the earth and comets travel round the sun.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45They understood God's power,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48the invisible force that shaped the universe.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53And now he would, too.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55He was the last of the magicians,
0:27:55 > 0:27:58the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians,
0:27:58 > 0:28:03the last great mind that looked out on the visible world with the same eyes
0:28:03 > 0:28:06as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance
0:28:06 > 0:28:0910,000 years ago.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15Newton believed he'd been put on earth
0:28:15 > 0:28:19to reveal these great truths to humanity.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24I think there's something extremely arrogant and ambitious
0:28:24 > 0:28:26about how Newton sees himself,
0:28:26 > 0:28:28and he sees himself in a lineage
0:28:28 > 0:28:31that goes from Noah to Moses to Christ
0:28:31 > 0:28:33and ends in himself.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Newton believed that these ancient civilisations
0:28:38 > 0:28:43all shared one scientific religion.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47That first religion was the most rational of all others,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50till the nations corrupted it.
0:28:51 > 0:28:56Newton was convinced he'd found the source of the corruption.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59He believed something that most Christians,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02whether they're Protestant or Catholic,
0:29:02 > 0:29:06would find deeply reprehensible, disgusting,
0:29:06 > 0:29:09probably even worse than atheism.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11Newton denied
0:29:11 > 0:29:14that God was a Trinity.
0:29:14 > 0:29:16There is one God,
0:29:16 > 0:29:22the Father ever-living, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty,
0:29:22 > 0:29:24the maker of Heaven and Earth,
0:29:24 > 0:29:28and one mediator between God and Man,
0:29:28 > 0:29:31the Man, Christ Jesus.
0:29:33 > 0:29:38This went beyond even the most radical Protestantism.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41This was heresy.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44But Newton had studied the Bible more thoroughly
0:29:44 > 0:29:47than any scientific question.
0:29:49 > 0:29:55He concluded that false texts had been inserted into the Bible in the 4th century
0:29:55 > 0:29:58to assert Christ's divinity.
0:30:01 > 0:30:03Anti-Trinitarianism was illegal.
0:30:03 > 0:30:07It was outlawed. In principle, you could be put to death for it.
0:30:07 > 0:30:09This was a dreadful secret
0:30:09 > 0:30:14that Newton was at desperate pains to conceal all his life.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19Newton concealed more than heresy.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22He was also following a mystical quest
0:30:22 > 0:30:25that went back to the Greeks and Egyptians -
0:30:25 > 0:30:28the study...
0:30:28 > 0:30:31of alchemy,
0:30:31 > 0:30:34the search for the divine ingredient
0:30:34 > 0:30:37that could not only turn lead into gold
0:30:37 > 0:30:41but give the power of life itself.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47Newton was searching for The Philosopher's Stone.
0:30:47 > 0:30:54This was the vital substance that, if introduced into a chemical potion,
0:30:54 > 0:30:59could turn that from just a lump of metal
0:30:59 > 0:31:02into something alive.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04There is a vital agent,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06diffuse through everything in the earth,
0:31:06 > 0:31:08a mercurial spirit,
0:31:08 > 0:31:12extremely subtle and supremely volatile,
0:31:12 > 0:31:15which is dispersed through every place.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20The idea that you could have God's power,
0:31:20 > 0:31:23the power of life and death
0:31:23 > 0:31:26distilled into a substance,
0:31:26 > 0:31:29made it seem so dangerous
0:31:29 > 0:31:31that it had to be illegal.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37The fire scarcely went out night or day -
0:31:37 > 0:31:40he sitting up one night and I another,
0:31:40 > 0:31:45till he had finished his chemical experiments.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48Newton was always precise.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51He meticulously recorded his results,
0:31:51 > 0:31:55even when pursuing the magical goals of alchemy.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59Today, we call it the Scientific Method.
0:32:00 > 0:32:05He was most accurate, strict and exact.
0:32:05 > 0:32:10What his aim might be, I was not able to penetrate into,
0:32:10 > 0:32:15but his pain, his diligence,
0:32:15 > 0:32:19made me think he was aiming for something
0:32:19 > 0:32:23beyond the reach of human art and industry.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32He was not just a crazy obsessive alchemist.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34He was the peerless alchemist of Europe.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37There was no better alchemist.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41Newton's alchemical studies
0:32:41 > 0:32:45inspired him beyond even his scientific abilities.
0:32:45 > 0:32:51His intuition led him to describe a seemingly magical transformation
0:32:51 > 0:32:55that would only be understood 200 years later.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02is very conformable to nature,
0:33:02 > 0:33:07which seems delighted with transmutation.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13This transmutation
0:33:13 > 0:33:18anticipated Einstein's great breakthrough in physics in 1905.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23Mass and energy are interchangeable,
0:33:23 > 0:33:25or as Einstein puts it,
0:33:25 > 0:33:28E = MC2.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35Actually, it does sound very like Einstein.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39He is exactly saying that body and light are interchangeable
0:33:39 > 0:33:41in the same way that mass and energy
0:33:41 > 0:33:44are interconvertible or interchangeable.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47So Newton is saying, you know, all the things in the world
0:33:47 > 0:33:51can be transformed into everything else.
0:33:52 > 0:33:55Newton's quest for transformations
0:33:55 > 0:33:58is now at the heart of modern physics and chemistry.
0:34:00 > 0:34:05Alchemy is at the root of today's practical magic.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11By being open to ancient wisdom,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14Newton was able to go beyond the thinking of his own time
0:34:14 > 0:34:17and into the future.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20The documents in the trunk
0:34:20 > 0:34:26finally reunited the two sides of Newton's genius.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29It was... centuries
0:34:29 > 0:34:32before history of science
0:34:32 > 0:34:37could tolerate a Newton who did both alchemy and astronomy.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41That's why it looks as if he's a fractured figure.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44It is actually that...
0:34:44 > 0:34:48..the alchemical works were buried, literally hidden from view.
0:34:48 > 0:34:53We imagine that there's a clear line to draw
0:34:53 > 0:34:56between Newton the scientist and rationalist,
0:34:56 > 0:34:58and Newton the mystical theologian,
0:34:58 > 0:35:01but he was only one man.
0:35:04 > 0:35:06In 1684,
0:35:06 > 0:35:10Newton was just an obscure academic,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12hiding from the world.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17Newton's wilderness years,
0:35:17 > 0:35:20his 12 years of studying alchemy,
0:35:20 > 0:35:22come to a sudden stop
0:35:22 > 0:35:25with a chance visit from Edmund Halley,
0:35:25 > 0:35:28the astronomer from London.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34In 1684, I came to visit him in Cambridge
0:35:34 > 0:35:38and I asked him what he thought the curve would be -
0:35:38 > 0:35:40described by the planets -
0:35:40 > 0:35:42supposing the force of attraction toward the sun
0:35:42 > 0:35:46to be reciprocal to the square of the distance from it.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50Sir Isaac replied immediately, "It would be an ellipse."
0:35:50 > 0:35:54I was struck with joy and amazement!
0:35:54 > 0:35:58I asked him how he knew. "Oh why..." said he, "..I've calculated it."
0:35:58 > 0:36:02I asked him for his calculations without any further delay
0:36:02 > 0:36:06and he promised to re-do it and send it to me!
0:36:06 > 0:36:08Well, Halley was agog by this.
0:36:08 > 0:36:13He had actually said that if you could understand why the planets moved,
0:36:13 > 0:36:15you would have perfected astronomy.
0:36:15 > 0:36:20That would be it. Subject finished, full stop, go home.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23All the great minds of the day
0:36:23 > 0:36:26were trying to explain the movements of the planets,
0:36:26 > 0:36:31from Christopher Wren to Newton's old adversary
0:36:31 > 0:36:33Robert Hooke.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36He was particularly intrigued to do this
0:36:36 > 0:36:39because Robert Hooke couldn't.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44So here was an opportunity to prove once and for all
0:36:44 > 0:36:47who was the best mathematician.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01He, er, sometimes would take a turn or two around his garden,
0:37:01 > 0:37:03suddenly stood still,
0:37:03 > 0:37:08turned about and back up the stairs like Archimedes with a "Eureka!"
0:37:08 > 0:37:13and began writing at his desk while standing,
0:37:13 > 0:37:17without drawing a chair to sit down!
0:37:17 > 0:37:20Now I was upon this subject,
0:37:20 > 0:37:24I would gladly know the bottom of it before I publish my papers.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29Newton worked relentlessly for over two years,
0:37:29 > 0:37:33drawing on everything he had ever discovered.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36He's not so much content
0:37:36 > 0:37:39with coming up with possible explanations,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42he wants THE explanation.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46I kept the subject constantly before me,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49until the first dawnings opened slowly,
0:37:49 > 0:37:55little by little, into the full and clear light.
0:38:01 > 0:38:07The result was a mathematical way to predict how forces affect movement -
0:38:07 > 0:38:12Newton's Three Laws of Motion.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Every body continues in its state of rest,
0:38:15 > 0:38:18or in uniform motion in its right line,
0:38:18 > 0:38:21unless it is affected by an external force.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27This change in motion is in proportion to the external force,
0:38:27 > 0:38:31and is made in the direction of the straight line in which that force is impressed.
0:38:33 > 0:38:38To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction,
0:38:38 > 0:38:41the mutual action of two bodies upon each other are always equal,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44and directed to contrary parts.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54These three laws managed to explain the mechanics
0:38:54 > 0:38:57of how virtually everything moves.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05But Newton realised there was another invisible element involved
0:39:05 > 0:39:09that kept the planets orbiting the sun.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12From his alchemy,
0:39:12 > 0:39:14he was quite comfortable with the idea
0:39:14 > 0:39:17of spirits pervading space,
0:39:17 > 0:39:21influencing things without contact.
0:39:21 > 0:39:27And he transmuted those ideas into one of forces.
0:39:27 > 0:39:32Newton deduced that these forces acted at a distance,
0:39:32 > 0:39:36across space, between all things.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40The sun attracts Jupiter and the other planets.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43Jupiter attracts its satellites
0:39:43 > 0:39:45and, for the same reason,
0:39:45 > 0:39:50all planets act mutually, one upon the other.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53Newton's masterstroke
0:39:53 > 0:39:58was realising that the same force that attracted the planets to one another
0:39:58 > 0:40:02also existed on earth.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06It is now established
0:40:06 > 0:40:09that this force is gravity.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22Newton's search for a vital agent,
0:40:22 > 0:40:27a single magical force that runs through the universe,
0:40:27 > 0:40:30had finally been fulfilled.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Newton had combined mysticism and mathematics
0:40:37 > 0:40:39to prove that a single power
0:40:39 > 0:40:43affects every object in the universe.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51It pulls a raindrop to earth
0:40:51 > 0:40:54and a river to the sea,
0:40:54 > 0:40:59carving the earth as it flows.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02Gravity holds the sea to the earth,
0:41:02 > 0:41:05and the moon and the sun
0:41:05 > 0:41:08pulls the earth into tides.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12Gravity makes the moon go round the earth
0:41:12 > 0:41:16and the earth go around the sun.
0:41:18 > 0:41:24Just one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27the Milky Way...
0:41:28 > 0:41:30..just one more galaxy going round
0:41:30 > 0:41:35with the 200 trillion stars of the Virgo Supercluster,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38all of it held together
0:41:38 > 0:41:41by gravity.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46Why do I call him a magician?
0:41:46 > 0:41:49Because he looked on the universe and all that is in it
0:41:49 > 0:41:51as a riddle,
0:41:51 > 0:41:53as a secret which could be read
0:41:53 > 0:41:56by applying pure thought to mystic clues
0:41:56 > 0:41:59which God had laid about the world
0:41:59 > 0:42:03like a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08There are two kinds of geniuses.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12There are ordinary geniuses and there are magicians.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16An ordinary genius is someone who, once you understand what they've done,
0:42:16 > 0:42:19you say, "Oh, OK! If I were just a lot smarter,
0:42:19 > 0:42:21"I could've done that."
0:42:21 > 0:42:25But a magician is someone who, even after you see what they've done,
0:42:25 > 0:42:29even after you understand it, you think it's a complete mystery.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33And Newton was a magician.
0:42:34 > 0:42:39He was somebody who seemed to pull ideas out of nowhere.
0:42:41 > 0:42:46Isaac Newton finally published his magnum opus in 1687,
0:42:46 > 0:42:52500 pages of densely-packed words, diagrams and calculations -
0:42:52 > 0:42:56The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,
0:42:56 > 0:42:59the Principia.
0:43:06 > 0:43:12The few people who could understand Newton's maths were in raptures.
0:43:13 > 0:43:14A divine treatise,
0:43:14 > 0:43:17exalting human reason to such a pitch
0:43:17 > 0:43:20by this... this utmost effort of the mind!
0:43:22 > 0:43:24Newton's precise calculations
0:43:24 > 0:43:28gave the world a way to predict the motion of virtually...
0:43:28 > 0:43:30..everything.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33Comets and eclipses were no longer omens of doom.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37They could be accurately forecast.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40Tides could be explained.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44The forces holding up buildings could be worked out
0:43:44 > 0:43:47and weight distribution computed.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50Eventually, aeroplanes could be designed
0:43:50 > 0:43:53and rockets launched...
0:43:54 > 0:43:59..all due to the ability to calculate forces and motion.
0:44:00 > 0:44:04The Newtonian Age had arrived.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16But publication also brought controversy,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19once again from Robert Hooke,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21who claimed he was the originator
0:44:21 > 0:44:25of the Theory of Universal Gravitation.
0:44:26 > 0:44:32I conceived that discovery of the cause of celestial motions,
0:44:32 > 0:44:37to which Mr Newton, nor any other, has any right to claim.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41I now conceive it to be one of the greatest discoveries yet made
0:44:41 > 0:44:44in natural history.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47It's true that Hooke was working on the same thing,
0:44:47 > 0:44:49and Halley was interested, and all of these...
0:44:49 > 0:44:55..the knowledge that all these other people were working on it was a part of what made it possible
0:44:55 > 0:44:58for him to discover what he discovered.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04Newton was prepared to admit that he built on other people's work,
0:45:04 > 0:45:09but not the work of people like Hooke.
0:45:09 > 0:45:11If I have seen further,
0:45:11 > 0:45:16it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
0:45:16 > 0:45:20Some believe this was really a cutting reference to Hooke's short stature.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28Newton was not interested in sharing credit for his discovery.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30He rejected Hooke's claim
0:45:30 > 0:45:33and said that Hooke was too poor a mathematician
0:45:33 > 0:45:37to even understand the calculations involved.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42He does nothing but pretend and grasp at all things.
0:45:42 > 0:45:47He should rather excuse himself by reason of his inability.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50Those properties of gravity,
0:45:50 > 0:45:52which I myself first discovered
0:45:52 > 0:45:56and showed to this society many years since,
0:45:56 > 0:45:59Mr Newton has done me the favour
0:45:59 > 0:46:03to print and publish as his own inventions.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07Interest has no conscience.
0:46:09 > 0:46:13Hooke's reputation never recovered.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17He was soon eclipsed by Newton's fame.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26Newton's time had come.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29The Age of Enlightenment was in its glory
0:46:29 > 0:46:31and he was famous.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34Even his extreme Protestantism was more acceptable
0:46:34 > 0:46:37under the new King William of Orange.
0:46:37 > 0:46:43Newton became a Member of Parliament for Cambridge in 1692.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48But Newton revealed nothing about his alchemy.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52Instead, he began to popularise his ideas,
0:46:52 > 0:46:56starting with gravity.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59The apple... Musing in the garden,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02it came to mind that the power of gravity,
0:47:02 > 0:47:04which brought an apple from the tree to the ground,
0:47:04 > 0:47:08was not limited to a certain distance from the earth.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12This power must extend much further than was usually thought.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15"Why not as high as the moon?" I said to myself,
0:47:15 > 0:47:19"And if so, that must influence her motion."
0:47:20 > 0:47:21The story caught on
0:47:21 > 0:47:27and soon became better known than the science that inspired it.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32Did it actually happen? We only have Newton's word for it.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36He told the story four times shortly before he died,
0:47:36 > 0:47:40so for the majority of his life he never mentioned it.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46Eventually, the apple was shown falling on Newton's head
0:47:46 > 0:47:50like a moment of divine inspiration.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53It's become a scientific myth.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57It frames, it governs how we think about science.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01We really like to think that there's great geniuses
0:48:01 > 0:48:05who suddenly are inspired by God.
0:48:11 > 0:48:15But just as the world began to recognise his genius,
0:48:15 > 0:48:19Newton retreated once again.
0:48:20 > 0:48:22Somewhere about his 50th birthday,
0:48:22 > 0:48:27he suffered what one we now term a severe nervous breakdown.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30Sleeplessness, melancholia,
0:48:30 > 0:48:32fear of persecution...
0:48:33 > 0:48:36The cause of his mental collapse
0:48:36 > 0:48:39remains the greatest mystery of his life.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42Theories abound.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45The particular breakdown
0:48:45 > 0:48:48or collapse, or whatever it was, of 1693,
0:48:48 > 0:48:52it does coincide with a period
0:48:52 > 0:48:55when he's corresponding with Robert Boyle
0:48:55 > 0:49:00about some very specific alchemical experiments,
0:49:00 > 0:49:03and it does involve close-up use of a lot of mercury.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10It may be that part of the reason for his breakdown
0:49:10 > 0:49:13was that he realises that he cannot urge
0:49:13 > 0:49:16the alchemical work to fruition,
0:49:16 > 0:49:20that perhaps there's nothing in this after all.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27It may also be that Newton had not been as solitary
0:49:27 > 0:49:30as is commonly believed.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33It is absolutely no coincidence that
0:49:33 > 0:49:38shortly before he had the so-called breakdown,
0:49:38 > 0:49:44his friendship with a young man called Fatio de Duillier, a Swiss mathematician, broke off,
0:49:44 > 0:49:47and de Duillier went back to Switzerland
0:49:47 > 0:49:50and Newton hardly ever saw him again,
0:49:50 > 0:49:52whereas before that, for the space of a year or two,
0:49:52 > 0:49:58they'd been writing to each other and staying in each other's houses for protracted periods of time.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00So it seems quite clear to me
0:50:00 > 0:50:04that there was a very strong emotional bond between them.
0:50:06 > 0:50:09Newton never married,
0:50:09 > 0:50:12nor is he known to have had any relations with women.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16He began to imagine that his friends were mocking him.
0:50:16 > 0:50:18He writes to John Locke letters...
0:50:18 > 0:50:23..that lead Locke to think that Newton's mind is deranged.
0:50:23 > 0:50:29Sir, being of the opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women,
0:50:29 > 0:50:31and by other means,
0:50:31 > 0:50:33I was so much affected with it,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37that when someone told me you were sickly and would not live,
0:50:37 > 0:50:40I answered it were better if you were dead.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45He lost, in his own words, the former consistency of his mind.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50He never again concentrated after the old-fashioned,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53or did any fresh work.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01Three years later, he packed up his papers and left Cambridge.
0:51:03 > 0:51:08Newton was about to perform his strangest transformation.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11The hermit and academic
0:51:11 > 0:51:14became a man of power.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18In recognition of his international fame,
0:51:18 > 0:51:21he was awarded a position at the heart of the Establishment
0:51:21 > 0:51:25as Warden of the Mint at the Tower of London.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31Newton also took his place
0:51:31 > 0:51:35at the top of the scientific elite.
0:51:36 > 0:51:40He becomes President of the Royal Society at the end of 1703,
0:51:40 > 0:51:44and then within the scientific world and pretty much within Europe, as well,
0:51:44 > 0:51:47he becomes the dominant intellectual figure,
0:51:47 > 0:51:50the dominant scientific politico.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52This power that he has
0:51:52 > 0:51:56brings out the nastier side of his personality.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03Robert Hooke had died earlier that year.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07Newton seemed determined to obliterate his rival's place in history
0:52:07 > 0:52:10and ensure his own.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16One of the first things he did
0:52:16 > 0:52:19when he became President of the Royal Society
0:52:19 > 0:52:22was to donate his own portrait,
0:52:22 > 0:52:24and this was also the time
0:52:24 > 0:52:29when Robert Hooke's picture went mysteriously missing.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36Nobody has ever been able to find a portrait of Robert Hooke. No portrait exists.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40There's no proof, but it's a bit suspicious.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45Newton promoted his supporters
0:52:45 > 0:52:48and crushed the doubters.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51He also demanded deference.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55He ordered the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57to supply him with data.
0:52:57 > 0:52:59A complete catalogue of the fixed stars
0:52:59 > 0:53:03should be composed by observations to be made at Greenwich,
0:53:03 > 0:53:07and the duty of your place is to furnish such observations.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10Your speedy compliance is expected.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16He treated Flamsteed shabbily and he wanted the data.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19Flamsteed thought, "I'm the Royal Astronomer.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22"Don't just use me, collaborate with me."
0:53:22 > 0:53:26You know, you can see how Flamsteed's feelings would've been hurt.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30He called me all the ill names he could think of!
0:53:30 > 0:53:32I put him in mind of his passion
0:53:32 > 0:53:35and asked him to govern it and keep his temper.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37This made him rage worse!
0:53:37 > 0:53:42I soon perceived that he planned only to force me to comply with his will
0:53:42 > 0:53:46and flatter him and praise him as Dr Halley did.
0:53:47 > 0:53:53Flamsteed makes Newton out to be a psychopath
0:53:53 > 0:53:57who was intent only on getting idolaters,
0:53:57 > 0:53:59and one has to say
0:53:59 > 0:54:03that Flamsteed has captured something of Newton's personality.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11Psychopath and genius,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14visionary and misanthrope,
0:54:14 > 0:54:16revered scientist
0:54:16 > 0:54:19and lonely old man...
0:54:20 > 0:54:23..Isaac Newton lived out his final years
0:54:23 > 0:54:25as an autocratic civil servant,
0:54:25 > 0:54:30Master of the Mint and President of the Royal Society.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34He revised some of his earlier work but produced little new.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38The storm of his genius
0:54:38 > 0:54:40had blown itself out.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45On Saturday March 18th, 1727,
0:54:45 > 0:54:49Newton made his final retreat into himself.
0:54:49 > 0:54:53Aged 84, he slipped into a coma.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56That evening, he grew weaker
0:54:56 > 0:54:58and all Sunday was quite insensible
0:54:58 > 0:55:02and seemed to be quiet and free from pain.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05On Monday 20th, at one in the morning,
0:55:05 > 0:55:07he died.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21Isaac Newton was buried in Westminster Abbey
0:55:21 > 0:55:25with unprecedented pomp and ceremony.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28He became a new kind of national hero -
0:55:28 > 0:55:31the scientific genius.
0:55:33 > 0:55:35For such a lonely, isolated guy,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40he did achieve an unparalleled measure of fame
0:55:40 > 0:55:44for someone who was merely an intellectual.
0:55:44 > 0:55:46I mean, he had a state funeral.
0:55:46 > 0:55:48No-one had had a state funeral before
0:55:48 > 0:55:53who had no noble connections or artistic achievements,
0:55:53 > 0:55:56whose achievements were purely in the realm of the mind.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01Over the next 200 years,
0:56:01 > 0:56:06Newton's fame as the titan of rationalism grew
0:56:06 > 0:56:09thanks, in part, to the conspiracy by his admirers
0:56:09 > 0:56:12to safeguard that reputation.
0:56:12 > 0:56:14BOMBASTIC MUSIC
0:56:21 > 0:56:25All his manuscripts were bundled up and put into two large trunks,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29and from time to time during the 18th and 19th centuries,
0:56:29 > 0:56:34people who were writing about Newton would go and rummage through these two trunks.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38Whenever they found anything to do with alchemy or religion,
0:56:38 > 0:56:41they shoved it back into the trunk
0:56:41 > 0:56:45because they thought that might damage Newton's reputation.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52When John Maynard Keynes uncovered them in 1936,
0:56:52 > 0:56:56Newton's passion for alchemy was revealed.
0:56:56 > 0:57:02Newton the magician had been buried under his fame as the scientist.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05Keynes realised that Newton was much more complex a man
0:57:05 > 0:57:08than history had allowed.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13He has become the sage and monarch of the Age of Reason,
0:57:13 > 0:57:17THE Sir Isaac Newton of orthodox tradition,
0:57:17 > 0:57:22Newton, whose secret heresies had been the study of a lifetime!
0:57:25 > 0:57:30Isaac Newton, scientist and magician,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33always asked the big questions,
0:57:33 > 0:57:36questions we still haven't answered.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41We still don't know what is the nature of life.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45What is the difference between me when I'm dead and me when I'm alive?
0:57:45 > 0:57:48We don't really have an answer to that question.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53We still don't really know what light and gravity and electricity and magnetism are.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56We've got mathematical equations that can describe them,
0:57:56 > 0:57:59but the natural philosophical question -
0:57:59 > 0:58:03Why are they there? What are they? how does gravity operate? -
0:58:03 > 0:58:06I don't think we really have the answers to those big questions.
0:58:11 > 0:58:16Maybe the most important thing to remember about Newton in the end
0:58:16 > 0:58:19is that he did not think he had finished anything.
0:58:19 > 0:58:24He did not think he had solved a problem for all time, any problem.
0:58:24 > 0:58:28He thought he had opened a door
0:58:28 > 0:58:32and that people would continue to walk through it.
0:58:36 > 0:58:40'I do not know what I may appear to the world,
0:58:40 > 0:58:41'but to myself,
0:58:41 > 0:58:45'I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore,
0:58:45 > 0:58:48'amusing myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble
0:58:48 > 0:58:51'or prettier shell than ordinary,
0:58:51 > 0:58:57'while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'
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