Isaac Newton

With the interesting news this week that Isaac Newton calculated when doomsday will occur, I thought I'd share a passage I came across in one of my books:

On Christmas Day, 1642, the year Galileo died, there was born in the Manor House of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth a male infant so tiny that, as his mother told him in later years, he might have been put into a quart mug, and so frail that he had to wear a bolster around his neck to support his head. This unfortunate creature was entered in the parish register as 'Isaac sonne of Isaac and Hanna Newton.' There is no record that the wise men honored the occasion, yet this child was to alter the thought and habit of the world.
- James R. Newman

Any student of physics has heard the story of Newton fitting in a quart mug, but the last sentence is obviously the one that really packs the punch. I'm not in any way belittling religion, but the last sentence is a fact that affects the life of every human on earth. Newton's work changed everything and while his pseudo-scientific dabblings are amusing, it's important to keep his true genius at the forefront.