Nothing heavenly in Newton's earthly duties

BIOGRAPHY: Newton and the Counterfeiter By Thomas Levenson Faber, 320pp. £15.99

ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) is considered by many to be the most influential scientist who ever lived, but boy was he odd. This book does not hold itself up as a comprehensive biography of the man but it gives a reasonable overview of his life. There is no mention anywhere of Newton having physical contact with anyone, there is little mention of ordinary human warmth, and there is only one mention of anything resembling love.

In the 1689 to 1693 period (when he was half a century old) he appears to have fallen for a younger Swiss mathematician, Nicholas Fatio de Duillier, the ending of which relationship seems to have caused Newton to suffer a breakdown. Levenson writes that no-one knows if the two men were lovers, but says the evidence would indicate probably not.

Newton entered Cambridge University in June 1661, as an undergraduate, and by 1669 was a professor of mathematics. He remained at Trinity College, Cambridge until April 1696 when he left to become Warden of the Mint, in London. Despite spending such a long and intellectually eventful period of his life at the college, Levenson writes that Newton appears to have left without a pang of regret. Not a single letter exists showing him corresponding with any of the colleagues he left behind.

He did leave the college between 1665 and 1667, when he retired to Woolsthorpe to avoid the plague. He immersed himself in his studies of mathematics, gravity (it was during this period that he reputedly observed an apple fall to earth) and the movement of celestial bodies. By the time he returned to Cambridge, Levenson writes, Newton was the greatest mathematician in the world, though no-one knew and he appears to have had little urge to tell anyone.

The picture that is painted is of a man so obsessed with his work that he resented the time he had to spend eating and sleeping. And it wasn’t just science and maths that he worked hard on. He also worked hard on alchemy and had an outhouse where he conducted his secret efforts to transform base metals into gold. Also, his religious faith was a key factor in his life and he spent much of his time involved in intense scrutiny of the Bible. He may have considered himself an important agent of God’s will on earth.

Indeed, Levenson explores the idea that Newton was troubled by the way his key findings on gravity, cause and effect, and the movement of bodies, explained the workings of the world without any role for God. In this context, his passionate study of alchemy might have been a quest to discover God again at work in the world.

Newton's Philisophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, is one of the most influential books in the history of science. It came about after Edmond Halley, of Halley's comet fame, told Newton about a bet involving him, Robert Hooke, and the architect Sir Christopher Wren, concerning the motion of the planets. Newton revealed that he knew the answer to the question that was troubling the men and when asked how, replied: "Why, I have calculated it." It was by way of following up on this claim that he wrote his Principia. The influence and success of the book brought fame and renown to Newton. He was in time offered the post of Warden of the Mint, a position in London that could supply him with a good income and little by way of distraction from his important work. However Newton threw himself fully into his new role, part of the duties of which involved the protection of the currency from counterfeiters. In time Newton became a sort of professional policeman, complete with a network of informers, personal involvement in interrogation, and an insatiable appetite for detail.

William Chaloner was the son of a poor weaver from the English midlands who made his way to London to seek his fortune. At the time London had a population of approximately 600,000 and no sewage or drinking water systems. It was a crowded, poor, foul-aired, smelly, disease-infested, crime-ridden and dangerous place. Three to four out of every 10 children died before the age of 10. The Old Bailey had an open roof to guard against the prisoners infecting the judges with typhus. The administration of justice was a rough affair, imprisonment in Newgate meant being placed at the mercy of the rapacious prison guards, and execution was the penalty for many offences, including the production of counterfeit coins. Yet a counterfeiter is what Chaloner became, and not just a common or garden one either.

In time he came up against Newton, whom he, understandably, underestimated. Levenson uses a biography of Chaloner written soon after his death, and records from Newton’s time as Warden, to piece together the tale of Chaloner’s various criminal enterprises, and Newton’s emergence as a somewhat obsessed police chief determined to get his man. Newton was not averse to using the threat of the gallows to encourage inmates at Newgate to inform on their former colleagues, and there is even a possibility that straightforward physical torture may have been used.

It’s a long way from the study of the heavens, though Levenson floats the idea that Chaloner’s interfering with the kingdom’s currency may have been viewed by Newton as a form of sacrilege. Some condemned prisoners were dragged through the streets to the execution site at Tyburn, now Marble Arch, encountering copious animal and human waste on their way. There is nothing in this book to indicate that Newton was in any way troubled by his role.

In later life he appears to have mellowed, especially in his dealings with the younger members of his extended family. And also standing in his favour is the poetic insight of the suggested epitaph he wrote before his death: “I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered around me.”

Levenson tells the story in a clear, journalistic style. There are three main characters: Newton, Chaloner, and scary, stinky, 17th-century London.

Colm Keena is public affairs correspondent with

The Irish Times

and a natural sciences graduate of Trinity College Dublin