Isaac Newton, Biography Of A Man In Chiaroscuro

The most puzzling thing about Isaac Newton’s biography was a man inhabited by contradictory dimensions. He is mainly remembered as the father of modern physics, but the truth is that he devoted much more time of his life to mystical matters. He is seen as a model of rationality, but his life was marked by irrationality.

Beyond the extraordinary scientist who formulated the law of universal gravitation, there was a man who fantasized, imagined and suffered with what he felt and intuited. Although many classify him as the greatest scientist of all time, and he probably is, a good part of his existence was dedicated to alchemy, to the secret messages of the Bible … to madness.

Isaac Newton is perhaps the greatest proof that reason and unreason can coexist in the same human being, without mutually excluding each other. It is also a model of the highest intelligence applied to hard work, based on rigorous observation and method, resulting in sheer genius.

Isaac Newton and an unhappy childhood

Isaac Newton came into the world in the midst of adverse circumstances. His father died three months before he was born. His mother had a premature delivery and the boy was born so low and weak that no one believed he would survive. Against all odds he did so and was baptized with the same name as his father: Isaac.

His mother remarried a man named Barnabas Smith. He did not want to carry other people’s children and that is why he sent the boy to live with his own parents, whom Newton called “grandparents”, without actually being so. The relationship with the boy was very unfortunate. Much later, Newton would make a list of his sins . He included among them the desire to burn his grandparents alive.

When he was 10 years old, his stepfather died and he returned to live with his mother and two new stepbrothers. At 12 he was sent to boarding school. In those years, he learned Latin, mathematics and entered the study of the Bible. He was a weak and lonely boy , who did not stand out much in class. Therefore, he was relegated to the last bank.

A restless and hostile young man

Isaac Newton was a stutterer , probably for his entire life. Also sickly. He did not interact much with his peers and it was usual that if he did it it was to make practical jokes or attack them in some way. After a fight with a classmate in which he managed to defeat and publicly humiliate, he decided to become more studious.

He spent a lot of time locked up in his room and there he began to build mechanical objects, models and various devices. He studied hard and was curious about all areas of knowledge. At a very young age, he met Catherine Storer, the only woman with whom he possibly had an affair in his life. He made dollhouses for her as a gift. The relationship did not transcend and, in fact, it is known that Isaac Newton died a virgin.

At age 18, Isaac Newton entered Cambridge University. He was basically self-taught, but he also found several teachers who increased his knowledge. He soon established a correspondence with the Royal Academy of Sciences, which was interested in his findings and his devices. It was also then that the first scientific debates arose, which Newton always maintained throughout his life.

A tormented genius

Isaac Newton formally had two “nervous breakdowns”, that is, two outbreaks of insanity. The first took place in 1693 and the second, probably, in 1703. During those episodes he neither ate nor slept. He suffered from deep depression and was carried away by paranoia. He radically isolated himself and distrusted everyone.

Meanwhile, he formulated the Law of Gravitation, as well as the Laws of Mechanics. As much as he disliked his contemporaries, he soon made a name for himself as the genius that he was. He held various academic positions and was even a member of the English Parliament, a space in which he basically did nothing.

The last 30 years of his life he devoted to religious studies and the occult. He believed that he was chosen by God to decipher secret messages from the Bible. He pointed out that the end of the world would take place in the year 2060. He declared that the Catholic Church was the beast of the Apocalypse and that Moses had been an alchemist.

During his last years, he had multiple ailments: moral, due to a fierce debate with Leibniz and physical, and due to a serious kidney problem, as he suffered atrocious renal colic and died during one of them. His memory has been honored in multiple ways. Without Isaac Newton and his discoveries the civilization we have today would not have been possible.