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Asked by agomez100 to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 21 Mar 2011.
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Caspar Addyman answered on 21 Mar 2011:
not when I was younger because Newton seemed like quite an eccentric character (Einstein was my hero)
but I recently read Neal Stephenson’s huge three volume historical science fiction novel The Baroque Cycle.. It is all set around the time of Newton and he is one of the main characters.. The book is very heavily researched and based on reality and yes Newton was very eccentric.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 21 Mar 2011:
No I wasn’t inspired by Newton. However, he was probably one of the most influential people in human history! The sheer volume of work that he did and problems he solved is immense! Newton described universal gravitation, he showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws. He built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours that form the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound!!!
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Murray Collins answered on 21 Mar 2011:
Well, yes, to the extent that he was insanely intelligent, inventing for instance an entire branch of mathematics called the Calculus, and then forgetting about it!
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