Yet, from all of his suffering would arise great insight-for Newton's restless mind was tirelessly at work, and his drive towards understanding would usher in a new era of mathematics and physics. At Cambridge, Newton made only one friend among his fellow students, and his college notebooks document anxiety, sadness, fear, a low opinion of himself, and suicidal thoughts. He experienced panic attacks and rage directed toward his family and then would experience intense remorse, making long lists of his 'sins' or wrongdoings. From his youth until the end of his days, Newton suffered from a variety of mental health disorders-including deep fits of mania, anxiety, insomnia, depression, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, and most likely schizophrenia.Īs a solitary child who didn't engage in games with other children or know how to relate to them, he spent most of his time alone, building miniature machines, mills, carts, and other inventions. Isaac never met his father, also named Isaac, because tragically, he died three months before his son was born. A Difficult Beginningīorn prematurely in 1642 on Christmas Day in the old Julian calendar, the baby Isaac was so tiny that his mother Hannah remarked that he could have fit inside a quart mug. Yet, for all his love of solving scientific riddles, Newton's deepest passion and interest was in discovering the source of science itself-namely, the mind of the Creator whose infinite genius had etched into the cosmos the very logic of the laws of nature that Newton's unrivaled insight endeavored to decipher. Unveiling hidden laws of nature, Newton shed light on many of the most obscure mysteries of physics and even illuminated the true physical nature of light itself. As the most brilliant physicist ever, says Neil De Grasse Tyson, Newton possessed a genius that was "spooky"-intuitively understanding deeper levels of physical and mathematical reality in ways that appear to be beyond human capacity. Albert Einstein said that Sir Isaac Newton was the smartest person who ever lived and the greatest scientific mind of all time.
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