Thursday, February 18, 2016

A Nobel Octet

Writing at Real Clear Science's Newton Blog, Tom Hartsfield suggests that had they been awarding Nobel prizes during the lifetime of Isaac Newton, the famous developer of the Laws of Motion could have pulled down eight of the beasties with his body of work.

Hartsfield suggests that the laws of motion, the law of universal gravitation, the orbital mechanics of celestial bodies, the law of universal heating and cooling, formulation of modern color theory, a particle theory of light and the development of the modern reflecting telescope would all have earned ol' Ike seven science Nobels. The eighth would have come in the area of economics, where Newton developed a standardized monetary system and fought counterfeiting as the head of the national mint from 1699 through his death in 1727.

You might make that eight and a half, because I'm pretty sure Newton and Gottfried Liebniz would share a prize for their parallel creation of calculus. But since they fought over who was first with that little brain cruncher, I don't know if "share" would be the right word.

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