Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World [Hardcover]

David Berlinski (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684843927 | ISBN-13: 978-0684843926 | Publication Date: October 10, 2000 | Edition: 1

Sir Isaac Newton is among the giants of the scientific era. It was Newton who conceived the imperial vision of mathematical physics and Newton again who created the first and perhaps the greatest of scientific theories. Physicists searching for the elusive final theory that will conclusively explain matter in all of its manifestations are his heirs.

Yet for all that, Newton has remained inaccessible to most modern readers, and even to many scientists, indisputably great but indisputably remote.

In this witty, engaging, and often moving examination of Newton's life, David Berlinski recovers the man behind the mathematical breakthroughs. The story carries the reader from Newton's unremarkable childhood to his awkward undergraduate days at Cambridge and then to the astonishing year in which, working alone, he laid the foundation for his system of the world. Thereafter, Berlinski describes the creation of Newton's masterpiece, the "Principia Mathematica," the monumental feuds that poisoned his soul and that wearied his supporters, and Newton's final re-creation of himself as the master of England's financial system.

This is less an exhaustive biography than an appreciation of Newton's greatest accomplishment. When he brought together years of work and towering logic into his "system of the world," Newton projected just one human mind to the outermost stars and planets. At once, he forever redefined the meaning of "nature," and of man's place in the cosmos. This seminal creative act has proved more powerful than that of any politician or king and more long-lasting than any dynasty. "Newton's Gift" is an edifying celebration of a transcendent man.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Who else could have constructed the basis for modern science out of an apple? Sir Isaac Newton, the celebrated genius behind the Principia Mathematica, lived inside his head--but not so much as to make his story dull. Mathematician and writer David Berlinski takes a new tack on the man's biography by approaching it through his work. Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World does explore Newton's strange childhood and eventual career in government, but it stays largely focused on the Cambridge years and especially on the development of the Principia.

Berlinski's uniquely impressionistic prose is perfect for his subject, whose penchant for withdrawal, depression, and misanthropy has driven many writers to despair. He instead fills the reader with visceral revulsion for the plague and ecstatic delight in a perfect English summer day before turning to intellectual matters. The author's knack for explaining tricky matters of mechanics is awe-inspiring; he moves with ease between captivating metaphor and precise mathematical language. Reading the Principia, even in English translation, is more of a chore than a delight, but Newton's Gift is precisely the opposite. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

Isaac Newton (1642-1721) invented or coinvented calculus, discovered gravity and organized physics around mathematical laws. These and other findings in math and optics established him as the great mind of his age. Retiring, introspective and sometimes difficult, he also devoted much of his time to fine points of Christian theology. Known for hit books about math, Berlinski (A Tour of the Calculus; The Advent of the Algorithm) devotes this compact, engaging and readable volume to Newton's life, mind and accomplishments. Mixing snapshots of Sir Isaac's life and times with explanations of what the great man discovered, Berlinski hopes to produce not a detailed biographical record but "a sense of the man" and of how his mind worked. Berlinski's prose adapts with equal ease to historical background and to mathematical explanations: he's sometimes glib, but often a pleasure to read. (The text includes only the barest, most necessary graphs and equations: an appendix goes into greater detail.) The volume draws clean connections between Newton's works and his life, and links both to big questions dear to Berlinski: Did Newton inaugurate two centuries of attempts to explain all of life through math and physics? If he did, how? Are those attempts ending now? And how, exactly, does math relate to physicsAor to anything else in the world? Some readers will engage with Berlinski as he explores these philosophical tangents; others will simply enjoy his explication of Newton, whom Berlinski very plausibly labels "the last great natural philosopher whose vision about the world can be expressed in an intuitive way"Anot to mention "the largest figure in the history of western thought." (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (October 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684843927
• ISBN-13: 978-0684843926
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leap from Intellectual Peak to Intellectual Peak with Newton, November 16, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World (Hardcover)

David Berlinski has created a marvelous intellectual history focusing on the progression of Newton's epic breakthrough thinking. He does this in a way that is totally accessible to those who are phobic about mathematics. The explanations are achieved through a skillful combination of simple sentences, symbols, pictures, and diagrams. The presentation is so effective that most readers will find their understanding of important mathematical and scientific principles greatly improved. This is a great book!

Newton was a seminal thinker in the areas of mathematics (developing calculus), physics (with his propositions about gravity and motion), and optics (with his conceptualization of light as being comprised of particles moving in parallel). He also did much work in theology and alchemy, which are recounted here.

A key challenge for David Berlinski was presented by Newton's reticence. He was not a very social person, and wrote almost nothing about how he developed his ideas. Berlinksi does a magnificent job of locating and sharing hints and clues about the bases of these intuitive leaps. This result is enhanced by considering the continuing themes in Newton's thinking, and assuming a connection to his intuition. I suspect that Berlinski is right in connecting the dots that way, but we will never know for sure.

The centerpiece of our story turns out to be the tangent to a curve. From that humble beginning, most of our modern understanding of how physical motion takes place follows.

I also enjoyed better understanding how Newton's thinking was aided by the careful observations and conclusions of Kepler.

If the history of science were always this entertaining, this subject would be one of the most popular majors in colleges.

As Berlinksi tells us in the beginning his purpose in the book is "to offer a sense of the man without specifying in details his . . . activities." This allows us to see the other sides of Newton, but without spending too much time on them. Newton was not perfect. We get glimpses of places where he wasted his time, such as his unsuccessful experiments with alchemy. We also see his flirtations and infatuations. Beyond that, we see what could enrage him, and how he took his revenge. This fleshing out of the whole man makes the scientific history all the more compelling.

If you liked David Berlinski's book, The Birth of the Algorithm, you will probably like this one even better. The asides are much more contained and relevant here.

For those who want a little more math with their scientific history, Berlinski has provided supplementary materials that are quite entertaining.

After you have finished enjoying this wonderful romp, I suggest that you think about where everyday events are unexplained in your life. For example, why do the people you meet with act the way they do? Why is progress slow in many areas, and rapid in others? By looking for connections, you, too, may isolate fundamental principles that can expand our own appreciation as a species of how we achieve understanding. The mysteries of how to improve thinking are still mostly unsolved, and many are relatively unexplored. Perhaps you can be the Newton of this important "last frontier" of self-limiting progress for humans.

Think about it!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rich overview, November 5, 2004

By 

Ladyfire (NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World (Paperback)

Most of us wonder about the things we see around us. "Why is grass green", "Why doesn't a ship sink?", "Why do the planets move?"
Arguably, no one has wondered more fruitfully than Isaac Newton, who produced three revolutionary ideas: gravity, calculus (concurrently with Leibniz), and the particle theory of light.

Serious math & science folks will find this book too elementary. It is also not an exhaustive biography, or a detailed treatment of Newton's ideas. This info is easy to find. Much rarer is a good synthesis view aimed at a popular audience.

For those who never studied math or science beyond college survey courses, this book is a gem. Berlinski provides a rich sense of Newton's personality and times. More importantly, he explains some of the questions Newton asked, how he answered them, and the implications of some of those answers. Berlinski does this in a manner that is engaging without seeming weighty or tedious.

I am a lifelong learner who never finished college. I found math difficult and impenetrable because my central question, "How do I use it" was never answered. With age and experience, I found that I needed math, particularly calculus, to answer many of the practical questions I pondered. I've read a number of books that dealt with what calculus does, but never found a useful explanation of what it IS.

Berlinski shows us how calculus was made possible by Descartes' coordinate system, explores the fundamental questions that led Newton to calculus, and show us how Newton tied it all together. The real gift is that Berlinski does this in a comprehensible way,with concise illustrations and a clear, logical progression. The math is in the Appendix, for those who wish to delve deeper.

I wish the author had recommended some further reading, but he does comment on several editions of "Principia" in footnotes.

I find myself re-reading sections as I ponder the concepts. Now that's a book!

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but too thin and too cute, January 26, 2001

By 

D. Eddy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World (Hardcover)

After reading the other reviews, I was eager to read this book. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. There were three main problems.

The first was that the writing was far too cute for my taste. This was true for both the history and the math sections. The author seemed to be straining to find clever and erudite ways to say things. I assume the intention was to add color and interest to the text, but I found it cumbersome and irritating.

The second problem was that the author frequently flicked off allusions to the inner thoughts and motivations of Newton and other partipants in the story. I couldn't tell if there were any historical bases for his interpretations, or if they were just Berlinski's flights of fancy. It came across to me as gossipy and catty.

The third problem was that with all the cute writing, the book actually contained very little information. I thought it could have been tightened up to about 50 pages, and been much more readable.

The good news is that the book is a very fast read.