34 ASTRONOMY • DECEMBER 2019
One of the articles to which Newton would need
to swear was a belief in the Holy Trinity. This repre-
sented a major stumbling block for the young profes-
sor. In his early years at Cambridge, Newton had
plunged into personal religious studies. With typical
Newtonian intensity, he studied the history of the
Christian church from its earliest days. He carefully
analyzed the prophesies in the Bible and calculated
the date of the crucifixion. He even tried to deter-
mine the date of the Apocalypse: Newton thought
this would take place in the year 2060.
What disturbed him most was the concept of the
three-in-one nature of God. Newton found the Holy
Trinity not only illogical, but abhorrent. He had read
the works of an early Christian named Arius. This
writer denied the divinity of Jesus, and Newton fully
embraced the idea. He could not, therefore, swear to
believe in the Holy Trinity when, in fact, he did not.
Newton was ready to resign his chair rather than
swear a false oath. Isaac Barrow, Newton’s mentor and
first Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, appears to have
sent letters on his behalf to King Charles II, who at the
last minute provided a dispensation for Newton. If the
truth of Newton’s beliefs had been made public, he
would have been branded a heretic and could have
been locked away in the Tower of London.Newton the alchemist
Newton was so obsessed with religion and alchemy
that he wrote far more words on them than he ever
did about gravity or optics. As a young boy, Newton
spent time as an apothecary’s apprentice. He learned
to make medicines and potions that he used the rest
of his life. This may have been when he first devel-
oped an interest in alchemy. During the 17th century,
philosophers and scientists still believed that theyshould be able to transmute one element into another.
Such a process could bring great wealth to an indi-
vidual who could, for example, change lead into gold.
They thought this secret knowledge had simply been
lost — and Newton believed he was just the man to
rediscover it. He started experiments as an under-
graduate and continued until at least 1693.
Newton had always been secretive and mildly par-
anoid. In 1693 he wrote to Pepys complaining of feel-
ings of persecution, insomnia, memory loss, and loss
of appetite. He even accused his longtime friend of
spreading rumors about him and broke off their cor-
respondence, though he later apologized.
But according to two papers published in 1979 in
the Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London,In 1815, a tooth from Sir Isaac Newton sold for a sum of £750 — that’s
about £66,225 or $82,935 today. The new owner had it set in a ring!
ABOVE: Newton, lost
in thought as he
contemplates the
apple at his feet, is
one of 28 statues in
the main court of the
Oxford University
Museum of Natural
History. ANDREW GRAY/
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
RIGHT: One of
Newton’s more
famous optical
experiments involved
using a prism to split
the Sun’s white light
into its component
colors. KELVINSONG/
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS