Intended
for a general readership, this book rests on an extraordinary foundation of careful
scholarship. Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson (Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009).
Thomas
Levenson teaches science journalism at MIT. He has been granted special
recognition for his Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentaries. Among
those is a Westinghouse award from the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, which he shared with co-producer Paula Apsell, for the 1992 PBS “Nova”
presentation, Eclipse of the Century.
In 2005, the National Academies honored Levenson with a Communications Award
for his PBS mini-series production, “Origins: Back to the Beginning,” about
evidence for the ontology of life. He knows science; and he knows how to
present its difficult facts and complex theories.
This
lively historical narrative of criminology and jurisprudence animates Sir Isaac
Newton’s career as a detective and prosecutor. Levenson delivers to print the
videographer’s impact of sight and sound. Levenson introduces us to Newton in
a series of establishing shots, pan-and-zoom vignettes that sketch and detail
the events spotlighting the intellectual and emotional development of the man
easily nominated as the greatest scientist. You walk down the alleys and into
the pubs where Sir Isaac Newton investigated crimes against the British Royal
Mint which he served as warden and master.
Levenson
opens the book by outlining Newton’s intellectual and emotional development. Complementing
his work in mathematics, astronomy and optics, Newton also experimented with
alchemy, performing purifications and alloys of metals. Emotionally, Newton’s
isolation was rooted in self-abnegation. The hint of a homosexual dalliance
comes as an instantaneous action, the lifelong reaction to which only distanced
his social relations to ethereal planes. You could get no closer to Newton the man
than you could to the Man in the Moon. Thus, this combination of unflinching
pursuit of difficult theoretical and empirical truths, bulwarked by a stellar
disregard for other people’s feelings made Newton the perfect prosecutor.
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Newton portrait
by Enoch Seemar 1726 |
The
counterfeiter, William Chaloner, was Newton’s opposite. A runaway apprentice
whose first lawful skill was making nails, Chaloner found London to be a
probabilistic cloud of moral relativity whose potentials suited his self-indulgence.
For William Chaloner, counterfeiting coins was only one craft in a wider
enterprise. In the language of the day, Chaloner called his swindles “funning”. He funned the Mint with counterfeit coins, and the Bank of England with fake
paper, both bank notes and drafts. When his counterfeit notes were discovered,
he turned informant, not only avoiding prosecution and prison, but being granted
£200 in reward. Accused by informants of counterfeiting, Chaloner won the first
courtroom skirmish, humiliating Newton. Consequently, Chaloner erroneously
considered himself Newton’s equal; and his complex, long-range plans were but
moves in a game designed to give him access to the Mint in order to coin for
his own profit.
Before
Newton, the posts of warden and master were only sinecures for the favored who
then further stocked their own larders at public expense. They were not
exceptions. Married to sisters, the master smelter and the assay master were
brothers-in-law, living beyond the limits of their official salaries,
inferentially guilty of conspiring to pass debased silver into the official
coining operation. The vector that impelled Newton’s trajectory was the sale of
dies from the Mint to counterfeiters on the outside.
Whether
Newton’s career as a detective and prosecutor is “unknown” is putative. While
most readers here probably know of his Three Laws of Motion, his work at the
British Royal Mint is less often taught. Biographer David Berlinksi (Newton’s Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked
the System of the World, New York: The Free Press, 2000) called Newton’s tenure
at the mint uninteresting. Numismatists, who study the forms and uses of money,
feel differently.
Levenson acknowledges the works of Sir John Craig. Craig’s book,
Newton at the Mint (Cambridge, 1946)
is catalogued by the libraries of both the American Numismatic Society and the
American Numismatic Association. Levenson also cites two other Craig
monographs, "Isaac Newton—Crime
Investigator", Nature 182, 149-52; and Isaac
Newton and the Counterfeiters, 18 Notes and Records of the Royal Society 2, 136-45 (1963).
When I proposed a review of the Levenson book to the Numismatic Bibliomania
Society, editor Wayne Homren shot back: “How does it compare to Craig?” Levenson
draws on the same sources as Craig: Newton’s papers, the mint archives, court
records, a biography of Chaloner, Chaloner’s own petitions and letters. Where
numismatist John Craig presented the facts, videographer Thomas Levenson brings
them to life.
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Merchant Token 1791 Middlesex
1penny; size larger than
US quarter dollar. |
Nonetheless,
graphical animation can be dangerous. Of Newton’s meeting in a pub with an
informant, Levenson says, “The detective swallowed his irritation.” (P. x.) Did
he? Was that recorded? “For Newton’s part, this first
encounter with Chaloner did not register very deeply.” (P. 157.) The
storyteller’s power depends on many such inferences and inventions. The salient
question is: Does the poetic license that is extended to creative non-fiction
jeopardize the truth?
Of
course, we have the compiled confessions of the accused and the accusations of
informers whom Newton interrogated. Yet, those folios are decidedly incomplete.
We know that many were burned. To explain why official records were destroyed, Levenson
leaves the main narrative to establish a historical context for the use of
torture in interrogation, a subject of some immediacy to us. Newton could not
resort to extreme methods, but the actual tactics are lost because the
documents were burned according to the reports of Sir Isaac Newton’s secretary.
Whether
William Chaloner was factually guilty may never be known. It is accepted that
William Chaloner did not get a fair trial. “Chaloner was sentenced to death, very fairly on his record, unjudicially
on the evidence …” (Craig, 1963; P. 143.) Levenson concurs. William Chaloner
was accused of crimes committed in London. “And yet Chaloner faced charges
brought by a Middlesex grand jury, being heard by a Middlesex trial jury. How
could such a court, Chaloner asked, address crimes committed outside its
jurisdiction?.” (P. 231.)
Our
modern experience with wrongful convictions throws a harsh light on the
testimonies of jailhouse snitches, casting shadows of doubt. Yet, those
informants were the only source of Newton’s evidence against Chaloner. Prima facie evidence is easy to accept.
Chaloner probably was guilty, but certainly did not get a fair trial by modern
standards. Moreover, our sociological context also condemns much else of that
time and place. We do not horribly execute counterfeiters. Chaloner was drawn and quartered.
As
a casual read, the book can be enjoyed in a couple of hours. No reference
numbers or inline citations encumber the text. The Notes are all in the back
with concordance by page number and key words. Some readers will find
profitable cause to linger there and reflect.
PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
Computer security journalist Brian Krebs ("Krebs on Security" here) signed books at Barnes & Noble in Austin on November
24. Spam Nation is really about
two nations: Russia and the United States. Two criminal organizations dedicated to online spam and
botnets, perhaps the largest in the world, work(ed) from Russia, targeting
Americans. 
When asked about security
tools, Krebs replied that good procedures are the best protection. Rather than trying to keep people out
of your network, you need to focus on finding them once they get in. Rather than spending money, sometimes
millions of dollars, on tools that no one actually uses, it is better to hire
good people to really use the tools your company now has. 
Asked about the threat of a
catastrophic attack on our information infrastructure, Krebs said that it is
not in the interests of these criminals to harm our economy. They want us to buy from them. Disrupting commerce is
unproductive. Krebs suggested that
a catastrophic event will come from a Wargames
scenario where “some kid in his mom’s basement who will see a big red button
and has no social understanding.” 
