Newtonmas 2016: Great Man or Social Forces?

December 25 is the traditional birthday of Sir Isaac Newton(1).  So, some fans and followers of physics, and perhaps some professionals, celebrate Newtonmas on December 25.  The TV sitcom, The Big Bang Theory brought the holiday to millions who had not heard of it.(2)  The question remains: Why celebrate Newton, rather than Descartes, Einstein, or many other scientists?

• Sir Isaac Newton represented Cambridge at Parliament.
• He offered an original proof of the binomial theorem, what in high school we learn as “Pascal’s Triangle.”
• He developed an algorithm for rapidly approximating square roots.
• He investigated light and demonstrated that “white” light is composed of discrete colors.
• Based on his experiments with light, he invented the reflecting telescope.
• He invented calculus.
• He invented calculus as part of his general proof of the laws of motion, including the motion of bodies under the influence of gravity. He showed that motion on Earth is not different from motion in the heavens. That was a radical departure from 2000 years of philosophy.
• He served as warden and master of the British Royal Mint for 30 years. His tenure began with his rescuing the British economy from near certain collapse. He had himself sworn as a magistrate so that he could investigate counterfeiting, going in disguise to pubs.

If he had done any one of those, he would have earned a place in history.  He did all of them. 

That brings up the problem of “the great man” versus “social forces.”  If Newton had died in infancy, as he was truthfully at risk, would someone else –Robert Hooke, Rene Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz – have filled the void?  Would we have waited until 1800 or 1900 for the next Newton to invent calculus and achieve all of those other heights?  Did we wait until 1680 because some previous Newton of 1300 died at birth? 

For all of Newton’s specific achievements, his greatest glory may be in being the exemplar of the Age of Reason and the gateway to the Enlightenment.  The Newtonian Revolution was not just about the orbit of the planets.  The American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution are consequences of the work of Sir Isaac Newton. The founders of our republic sought natural laws to inform their designs for a just and workable republic with a balance of powers.  As late at the 1830s, diametrically opposed philosophers August Comte and Herbert Spencer attempted to devise “social physics” as a science of human action. They each gave up on that label and settled for mere “sociology.”

(1) Note: Newton was born in 1742.  The English Parliament passed the Calendar Act in 1750 to take effect on 2 September 1752, which was followed by 14 September 1752.   Newton’s birthday (New Style) is January 4. Similarly, George Washington was born on February 11, 1732, which became February 22 when the calendar was set forward. The Gregorian reform of the Julian calendar realigned the solar year with the vernal equinox in order to keep Easter in the spring. 

(2) Note: The first Newtonmas was actually celebrated in Japan before 1890.  I recorded a Newtonmas message for the Community Commentator series of WKAR AM/FM, East Lansing, in 1982 or ’83. I sent Newtonmas cards to my friends off and on over several years.  Meanwhile, Kwanza was invented. Then, Seinfeld introduced “Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us.”  Organized atheists began offering Newtonmas as an antidote to Christmas.  Whether and to what extent Newton would have felt honored or horrified is open to debate. Counterfactuals can be unresolvable. 

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Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;

God said, 'Let Newton be'  and all was light.

Alexander Pope

Sir Isaac Newton was born on Christmas Day 1642, the year that Galileo died.  For most people, Newton is famous for his Three Laws of Motion.  Beyond that, those with additional education know him for creating the Calculus to prove his theories of celestial and terrestrial mechanics. In addition Newton invented the reflecting telescope as a result of his experiments with light.  And he also proved the general case for the Binomial Theorem (“Pascal's Triangle”). He served in Parliament, representing Cambridge, where he had been a professor of mathematics.  He served as president of the Royal Society of scientists. Few people except numismatists know him to have been the Warden and Master of the British Royal Mint for thirty years.  He had himself sworn as a justice of the peace so that he could pursue and prosecute counterfeiters.  Any one of those achievements would have made him important to us today. That he accomplished all of that - and more - set Sir Isaac Newton apart even from the geniuses and polymaths recorded by history.

Newton's Reflecting Telescope

 Newton’s colleagues called him fearful, cautious, suspicious, insidious, ambitious, excessively covetous of praise, and impatient of contradiction. Even his relatives and his true friends were modest in their praise of Newton. Physically sound in his life, he died at 84. He had lost only one tooth, still had much of his hair, and read without glasses. Yet, he was a hypochondriac, suffering from illnesses and diseases that he treated with medicines he made for himself.

Yr humble servant Ic Newton

The Cambridge Digital Library, Newton’s Papers.

The full story of Newton’s tenure at the Mint is told in Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson.  Professor Levenson’s narratives in this book have the inclusive force of videos.  He puts you on the teeming streets of London, inside the sweat and smoke of the Mint, down the dank alleys and into the rowdy, bawdy taverns where criminals swap and wager.

The First Newtonmas?

 “Celebration of Newtonmas can be traced back to 1890. An 1892 issue of Nature records it thus (on page 459): 

At Christmas 1890, or Newtonmas 248, for the first time, the members of the Newtonkai, or Newton Association, met in the Physical Laboratory of the Imperial University, to hear each other talk, to distribute appropriate gifts, and to lengthen out the small hours with laughter and good cheer. The Society has no President : a portrait of the august Sir Isaac Newton presides over the scene.” (http://jdebp.eu./FGA/newtonmas.html)

In 1982-1984 I was recording “Community Commentaries” for WKAR-AM/FM in East Lansing.  One holiday season, I built up the imagery of a little boy born in a small village across the sea who would grow up to bring light to the world.  When I quoted the poet's eulogy, I emphasized the word Pope - and then announced that Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year that Galileo died.  Since then, over the years, I have sent out Newtonmas cards to my friends.  I also posted Newtonmas greetings to Usenet newsgroups for numismatics and physics. 

Middlesex 1793 Half Penny Token
"Payable in London Bristol & Lancaster"

Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society has been celebrating Newtonmas for about 25 years.  Richard Dawkins touted Newtonmas in 2007. Blogging for the New York Times on December 23, 2008, Olivia Judson suggested that we capitalize on the change in calendars since Newton’s birth.  When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in the United Kingdom and its colonies in 1752, Newton’s birthday moved from December 25 to January 4.  Pointing to the fact that Christmas runs until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6, Judson suggested celebrating Newtonmas for ten days.  In 2009, Newtonmas was a scene in The Big Bang Theory.

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"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:

God said, let Newton be! and all was light."

A little boy born in a small village across the sea would grow up to bring light to the world. 

Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year that Galileo died.  Newton is perhaps best remembered for his work in physics, the Three Laws of Motion and his Law of Gravity.  To prove his physics, he invented the calculus.  He also invented the reflecting telescope.  His work in optics showed that white light is composed of colors.  This laid the foundation for the wave theory of light, though he advocated for light being a particle.  Newton demonstrated vector arithmetic.  He delivered an algorithm for conveniently computing square roots.  He offered an original proof for the Binomial Theorem (also called “Pascal’s Triangle”).  His image appears on coins and bank notes, which is appropriate since he was Master and Warden of the Mint, rescuing Britain’s money from looming disaster.  Sworn as a justice of the peace, he circulated in disguise among criminals to pursue counterfeiters.  He served in Parliament, representing Cambridge.  He was president of the Royal Society, England’s crown chartered association for scientists.  Alone, any of Newton's achievements would have left his imprint in history.  Together, they give shape to a complex and powerful intellect. 

Middlesex token 1792

Today, we ignore his religious writings, the extent of which actually eclipsed his scientific production.  His heretical Arian beliefs foreshadowed modern Unitarianism, but he swore under oath to be a Trinitarian so that he could teach at Cambridge. 

Newton’s colleagues called him fearful, cautious, suspicious, insidious, ambitious, excessively covetous of praise, and impatient of contradiction. Even his relatives and his true friends were modest in their praise of Newton. Physically sound in his life, he died at 84. He had lost only one tooth, still had much of his hair, and read without glasses. Yet, he was a hypochondriac, suffering from illnesses and diseases that he treated with medicines he made for himself.  

Newton's Reflector built by Himself

Newton’s many biographers illuminate different aspects of his life.  To Richard S. Westfall, he was “never at rest.”  Michael White called him “the last sorcerer” a soubriquet first suggested by John Maynard Keynes.  Newton did bring his alchemical knowledge to the Mint to test the gold plate for coinages; and he also conducted time-and-motion studies to improve efficiency.  But David Berlinski closed his story when Newton was appointed to the Mint, calling the last 30 years of his life “uninteresting.”  Yet that is where MIT professor of science journalism, Thomas Levenson, begins his narrative.  Richard P. Feynman once sought to treat his students to a complete demonstration of Newton’s proof of Kepler’s Laws and found that he could not: thanks to the calculus, we have forgotten much geometry. 

The fundamental industrial technology we take for granted is possible only because of Newton.  Moreover, his work launched the Enlightenment, offering a rational and experimentally-testable explanation for both celestial and mundane motion.  This suggested that all natural phenomena, including human events, could be understood by the same scientific method.   

Merry Newtonmas, everyone!
The Zebrowskis are part of small, but apparently growing, number of atheists, skeptics and other nonbelievers who make merry over Newton’s contributions to science and math—the discovery of gravity, the invention of calculus and the first reflecting telescope, to name a few.
Religion News Service 12/16/2011 here.

SOURCES

Berlinski, David. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. New York: Free Press, Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Craig, Sir John. Newton at the Mint. Cambridge: University Press, 1946.

Craig, Sir John. "Isaac Newton and the Counterfeiters."  Notes and Records of the Royal Society (18), London: 1963.

Craig, Sir John. “Isaac Newton - Crime Investigator,” Nature 182, (19 July 1958), pages 149-152.

Keynes, Milo. “The Personality of Isaac Newton,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society (49), London: The Royal Society, 1995.

Levenson, Thomas. Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World’s Greatest Scientist (Boston;New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. 336 pp. $25

Marotta, Michael. “Merry Newtonmas,” Newsgroups: rec.collecting.coins, Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 11:49:41 GMT

Marotta, Michael. “Sir Isaac Newton: Warden and Master of the Mint” http://sites.google.com/site/washtenawjustice/numismatics/sir-isaac-newton

Newman, E. G. V. "The Gold Metallurgy of Isaac Newton." The Gold Bulletin Vol 8. No. 3, London: The World Gold Council, 1975.

Westfall, Richard S. Never at Rest: a Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

White, Michael. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. Reading, Mass.: Helix Books, Perseus Books, 1997.

www.experiencefestival.com/newtonmas

www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/, The Newton Project, Professor Rob Iliffe Director, University of Sussex, East Sussex - BN1 9SH

www.royalmint.com/museum/newton Web site pages of the British Royal Mint.