The Life of Isaac Newton (Canto original series) [Paperback]

As its Cambridge press I guess I should have known this would be a very academic book. Not difficult to read after a little adjustment having come from a lot of popular fiction recently but nether the less pretty dry until it approached the end. Not sure if more life was pumped into the text or I'd just become engrossed.

I didn't know too much about Newton other than his Law's of Physics in the Principia and that he studied Alchemy but I certainly found out that there's a lot more to this man than that. My motivation for reading the book was to find out a lot more about this clever man from than 400 years ago that "gave" us gravity and "wasted" a lot of time studying alchemy; for which I appreciated much more after reading this book. I read this purely as an interested layperson, not for any studies.

I hadn't appreciated the breadth of work he had study, the quality of his thinking, the intensity of this study and his reluctance (lack of confidence?) to publish. What I also found out was that he was a cantankerous and could certainly hold a grudge.

Newton's up bringing is covered which is interesting in itself and it may be insightful to the man's character. The rest of his life is covered in detail from his published studies at Cambridge on Optics and the Principia his major works and his time in London at the Royal Mint and the Royal Institute. There is also much about the priority dispute on who can take credit for Calculus, Newton or Leibniz.

An extra surprise for me was how much he studying theology and not only that but that he managed to marry up his scientific beliefs with his strong religious ones. It is also fascinating that his actual beliefs are heretical, based on his theological study, and, perhaps less surprisingly, that he hide them.

This books is based largely on what must be a huge amount of personal papers Newton left so the given detail is very insightful in many ways. The one area that seems absence is his personal life beyond his upbringing and scientific/ professional disputes. I assume he was a bachelor dedicated to his intense work.

I'd certainly recommend this book to someone wanting to find out more about Newton, its insightful, seems comprehensive and is fascinating. The one warning to give is it can be quite dry especially at the beginning. If you want to find out more on Newton there's also an excellent further reading section at the end and also as this 300 page book is an abridged version there plenty more directly from where this came from.