Actually, England (along with the rest of the British Isles) was ruled by James II (numeral applies only in England, different for other parts of the British Isles), a Catholic, when Newton published the Principia. However, you are right to say that the country was Protestant though, as a year after the publication of the Principia, the Protestant William of Orange was called upon to overthrow James. He duly obliged in the “bloodless” (wasn’t at all) Glorious Revolution, and jointly ruled with his wife as William III and Mary II (English numerals again). Shortly after, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 was passed, which has had an massive effect not just on English history, but also of places historically associated with England, particularly the US, where it was a source of inspiration for the US Bill of Rights.

So although this perhaps seems like a very pedantic comment, particularly as James didn’t reign for very long, this point isn’t trivial to me, as it is a massive moment in my country’s (the UK) history, and the pedantic details then come naturally from that.

Sean Carroll over at the Cosmic Variance blog linked to this interesting talk by Chad Orzelon scientific communication. He compares the communication models of Isaac Newton (highly technical, highly mathematical) and Galileo (accessible, readable)…

Another big difference is that reading Galileo’s dialog was not sufficient for figuring out how to do any useful calculations. It was a philosophical work. Newton’s book was designed so that those who could follow it could duplicate his work, and use it for predicting orbits, artillery ranges and so on. In many ways it was a more radical work, since Galileo did not address causes the way Newton did. Galileo’s model of the solar system was perfectly compatible with active divine intervention. Newton argued that the cause of planetary motion was independent of any divine intervention, save as the initial creator of the system and the laws of physics themselves. In fact, it was this radicalism that led Newton to caution, and led to repeated references to God as the clockmaker, to provide the deity with a suitable role. Consider, once the clock is built, it operates just fine without a clockmaker. In a Catholic country, that argument might be considered blasphemous.

Besides, Erdös remained a virgin, and that did not reduce his (mathematical) fertility.

Newton was very picky about releasing any information until it was complete. Plus, he had many characterization problems of his own, so he was secular in his relations. He just wanted the facts, while he dabbled in Chymistry and its psychological benefits to change that.:) Bogus or not, Newton cared about his conduct

Hey nice editing comment feature here.

It’s available at http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/NATP00006

But Sean, wouldn’t we all<- like a pony? (Besides, I would love to keep dung beetles)

Brilliant post!

Claire

As far as being a nasty person goes, he was also quoted, after learning of Leibnitz’s death , as saying, ‘Ha, ha, I broke his heart”. Being a super genius does not guarantee that you’ll also be a decent human being.

Or, he may have got it for free from ladies who were into high ranking gov’t officials. This ability to sign death warrants could seem sexy to some.

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2009/08/worldcon_talk_how_to_effective.php

The United States actually leads in most questions, except the ones pertaining to world & human origin. So apparently we actually do a relatively great job of teaching science, except when it contradicts religious dogma.

With a prediliction of getting forgerers executed.

So, yeah … Iono.