Newton's dark Secrets

I watched a documentary today on one of the greatest physicists of all time Sir Isaac Newton.It was entitled "Newton's Dark Secrets"


Undoubtedly,Newton is indeed one of the greatest  superstars of the Scientific World and his works has been the basis for the development of  modern mathematics and Physics.Its surprising for everyone to believe how could a single mind discover so diverse of theories in such an old period of time namely 1660's and 70's.Many students of today blame him that because of him we have to study so much of things in physics and Mathematics.. :) Ha ha... I feel pity for them... But Newton was truly a genius.. At just the age of 22 he had almost discovered an entirely new branch of mathematics "Calculus" and was working out with the equations on Gravitation!!


We still wonder what equipments he had at that time to go to so intricate details of knowledge?
There were no good measuring devices,for example.There were no good telescopes either..Yet he achieved the feats that today we are using the most sophisticated equipments to prove his theories.


There was but one thing that interested any scientist to go to greater depths of reasoning...and that was the quest to understand Nature and how God has designed it.It was thrilling in those times for people to observe that the Nature,whose activities seemed so random were all operating systematically and in a definite way.The keenness to decipher that language of nature was what propelled the scientists to start experimenting.


In the documentary that I saw it was evident that Newton imagined a lot..He used to visualize the things..the motion...the gravitation...the time passing and the forces acting.. He performed "Thought Experiments".It was known that universe speaks in the language of mathematics..every event could be explained with certain sets of mathematical relationships.. and that was the tool that he had... 


His Thoughts/Imagination +Mathematics= Greatest Discoveries 



Now what was the real secret that the documentary revealed was that Newton used to practice certain occult activities like Alchemy. Now we,in the present day know alchemy was something like chemistry.. but in reality practising alchemy was not at all honoured! The alchemists worked with several metals to find the correct recepie to make the "Philosopher's Stone" that could cure the illness and provide immortality to anyone possessing it and it can turn lead into gold...

So it was surprising when certain papers of Newton was discovered which revealed his keen interest in alchemy and the experiments he performed for it.It was truly shocking how a man of intellect got involved in such a superstitious thing...?


Soon more and more papers of his works in alchemy was found and his works were studied. But at the end, researchers were bound to say that Newton was indeed a "genius".


Newton said that people of the past knew many things about nature and this knowledge was lost over time...But many myths of religions actually tell about the alchemical processes in their stories..   

There goes a certain story about the Greek god Vulcan,goddesses Venus and God Mars and a fine metallic net that Vulcan makes in the story.... now it was just a story.. nothing much..but Newton deciphered the alchemical secret hidden in it..In alchemy Venus,Mars and Vulcan means Copper,Iron and Fire.. So Newton mixes copper and iron and after heating the mixture,he gets a purple coloured alloy with net-like texture as spoken in the myth(Net made by God Vulcan)!!!
Surprising!!
A mythical tale becomes an alchemical recepie...!!
It was Newton's another way for understanding the nature,the Eath,the matter ..the elements...


Some of Newton's secret also revolves around his religious views which he held in his mind but never spoke before anyone.And that was the most dangerous thing that he held as his secret.."Denying the divinity of Christ" He read Bible deeply..he read many copies of Bible,but as he understood nature more and more he began to believe that God is much more powerful than what Christ has been portrayed in the Bible...
Now it was good that he held this thought as a secret coz we all kno what happened to Galilieo when he  challenged the church with his principles...


After his years of research on Bible and with his mathematics he predicted that the world will end in the year 2060(By the way Ive got sick of this 'End of the World' predictions...Atleast it's a relief for those who are expecting the end in 2012.. :) )


At the end we kno...whatever Newton did had a reason behind it...Later it was found that while observing a certain chemical reaction in the laboratory he got an insight about the "Invisible forces" of Nature which he called the Active Principles... He saw Gravity the same way... a mysterious force...An active principle...A divine Force of Nature guiding all the motions in the entire Universe... 
Fascinating!!!

So that is our great scientist...many researchers still believe that Newton was certainly looking for something in alchemy..may be he couldnt achieve the result for what he was looking for.That's why he never published his alchemical works..Moreover he had to give up alchemy because of health issues..He couldnt achieve any breakthroughs in alchemy as in physics and mathematics... Who knows..he was on the way to discover something..........that hasn't been discovered yet.. :)

Newton's Autograph!