My April Encyclopedia Show Piece: “Isaac Newton”

I read this story, on Isaac Newton, at the Encyclopedia Show: Omaha‘s “Volume 2: The Moon” at the Omaha Healing Arts Center on April 18th. An audio recording from that reading is forthcoming, courtesy of New Timey‘s Encyclopedia Show podcasts (which start releasing on 20 April 2011 and continue every Wednesday thereafter).

1)

Isaac Newton was born in 1643, and died a virgin. He was obsessed with the moon. Newton was, by most accounts, an unpleasant man; he took pleasure in petty quarrels and in discrediting his rivals. Newton was also, by most accounts, brilliant. In an age of preordained answers he dared to ask questions of the universe. So I ask you, Isaac, what were those questions?

2)

There are two relevant myths surrounding apples: the first concerns the fall of man. The second, man’s rise. But now is not the time to discuss them.

3)

Newton’s laws of motion govern particle movement on a basic level. They state:

- That a body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion, unless either are acted upon by some external force

 - That force is equal to mass times acceleration, and

- That every action produces an equal and opposite reaction

These findings were published in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687.

While developing physics, Newton developed a series of mathematic techniques which he called calculus. The fundamental theorem of calculus is thus:

For any continuous function F(x) which is defined across a range (a,b), the rate of change of F(x) at any point x can be found by taking its derivative. Similarly, the rate of accumulation can be found by taking the antiderivative. Thus, if we can define a curve mathematically, we can know it intimately.

Newton published these methods when he was twenty-three.

4)

Imagine, for a moment, Newton as a child. Sickly, weak, and brilliant. Imagine him during the day, when his intellect so clearly outpaced his peers and teachers that he felt open contempt was the only appropriate response. Imagine a boy who, by the age of 23, had already established himself as one of the foremost minds in the world.

Now imagine Newton at night. He kept simple quarters, and never shared his bed with another. Imagine that he had a small window on his southern wall. Can you see him, staring out at the moon in the dark recesses of midnight? How pure she looked, how unspoiled, and yet she stayed.

Newton was, at the age of 17, engaged to be married. He kept a list of his sins. His engagement was broken off, and the list of his shortcomings no doubt was incomplete.

Yet the moon always came back, predictably and logically and perfectly. Can you see the attraction? Isaac, was this the attraction?

5)

Here is the first myth of the apple, which concerns the fall of mankind:

During earth’s infancy, Adam and Eve lived in harmony with the world in the Garden of Eden. They had two trees: the tree of life, whose fruit ensured immortality, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whose fruit would surely kill them.

Eve, tempted by Lucifer, ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and subsequently fed the same fruit to Adam. They were forcibly expelled from the garden, and thus mankind was condemned to mortality.

I cannot speak to this story’s veracity, but I can say this: If the tree of knowledge existed, Newton tasted its fruit early and often. He was ravenous. Each bite, each sumptuous, juicy bite, served as testament only to the wonders of the world and to his own inadequacy when facing its splendor. How can people, fallible, and foolish, measure up to the mathematical perfection of the universe? They simply cannot.

Adam and Eve were made of dust, of earth. How cruel, then, their expulsion must have been.

6)

Newton’s usage of inertial frames makes it possible for us to think in four-dimensional terms. The first dimension, a line, is one axis of motion for a body. The second dimension gives us a plane, and two directions of motion. The third, a solid, gives us three. The fourth dimension is time, which, while a vacuum, lets us know everywhere that body has been and everywhere it will ever be. If only people were so predictable and orderly, Isaac, perhaps you would have loved us more. But how can we know?

7)

Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that the elliptical form of planetary orbits could result from centripetal force inversely proportional to the square of the radius vector. More precisely, gravitational force varies such that if two objects were moved to being twice as far apart, their gravitational attraction would be one-fourth as strong, and so on.

Newton’s proof took only nine pages, and explained the motions of heavenly bodies. His explanation is the only one that makes sense to me when I wonder why we orbit as we do.

The fundamental difference between scientists and philosophers is that philosophers ask why, whereas scientists only ask how.

8)

Here is the second myth of the apple:

In the late 1660’s, while grappling with the notion of gravitas, Isaac Newton sat near an apple tree. When an apple fell from the tree, he thought “Why would it fall straight down, perpendicular to the earth’s surface? Why not sideways, or upward? There must be a force! And if there is a force, surely it is the same force which keeps us rooted, and perhaps the same force which keeps the moon in place.”

If one were to visit the Cambridge campus, one could see the alleged tree, and perhaps sit beneath it.

Whether the apple actually existed is irrelevant. Newton spent over 20 years developing and articulating this theory, and then bestowed upon it the name gravity. He single-handedly smashed the last vestiges of geocentricism and ushered in heliocentric theory. To pretend otherwise does him a fundamental injustice.  It took him two decades to learn why the moon stays as she does.

9)

For the past six months, I’ve spent my spare time re-teaching myself calculus. It’s been seven years since I last spent any real time on the maths or sciences and I could no longer stand the stench of my own ignorance. I write out the proofs again and again, but I am ankle deep in an ocean of beauty, waiting for the tide to come in. Every so often, a wave of clarity will wash over me and for an instant I can see the perfection, the mathematical harmony that Newton saw.

For an instant I can see it, and then there is just driftwood. I am a child who cannot swim, standing on a beach, turning over pebbles. Only my ankles are wet, yet there is sand between my toes.

In the last six months, I’ve gone on exactly one date. I know that there is a pull to bodies in motion, to friction and to sweat, but that is a messy business, full of imprecision. I’ve not yet learned to see in the dark. I’ve not yet learned where my orbits will take me. It’s been so long since I last reckoned with anyone’s weight but my own, since I last reckoned with equal and opposite forces. It hasn’t been long enough.

Isaac, my work will not change the world as yours did. My work will not outlive me. I am, at best, a derivative. I am, at best, an insect hoping to stand on the shoulders of a giant.

These days, I am late nights and early mornings. I am running up a sleep debt I have no intention of repaying soon. All time is borrowed, and will eventually be paid back many times over. My debtors will forgive the temporary excesses.

Newton’s work in calculus was largely supplanted by Leibnitz, and very little of his original notation remains. Newton’s laws of motions were improved upon by Euler, and are now considered incomplete. He never identified the precise numerical value of the acceleration due to gravity. His work in alchemy produced no significant results. At the time of his death, he had alienated most of his peers and rivals. He refused to take communion while on his deathbed.

In spite of these flaws, in spite of his meticulously kept list of sins, Newton’s work lives on, a singular testament to sheer force of the mind when presented with questions so intrinsic, so fundamental, that they are indistinguishable from the questioner.

Isaac, they sent men to the moon and she was silent. Isaac, men went to the moon and touched her just to prove that they could. They used you, Isaac, they used you. Sound does not travel in the vacuums of space or time, but if the moon screamed, if she screamed you heard her.

You are not responsible, Isaac. You are not responsible.

We should have sent you. It should have been you, Isaac. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

It’s been thirty-nine years, Isaac, since we last set foot on the moon. Thirty-nine.  Current theory states that the moon was once a part of earth before it was ripped away. The moon came from the same place we did; the moon is made of dust, and we are made of dust, and so we are the same. Isaac, the last moon mission brought a geologist. Is that any way to greet our sister? Is that any way to show her we love her? Isaac, how did we forget her gravity? How did we forget her bloodlines?

Everything you did, you did for the Moon. Sound does not travel across the vacuum of space and so you asked the maths to ask the universe. You measured her curves, her motions, her path across your south-facing window. In doing so, you knew her intimately. And you loved her. The questions you asked traveled across the vacuum of space and so were silent. But the moon heard, and she answered.

Newton got his answers. I believe this. And the moon… the moon spins on, silent as she ever was. Sometimes, though, she smiles. I only hope that one day we learn to smile back.

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