Even today, scientists are still often considered to be an odd bunch—socially isolated, badly dressed, incapable of talking about anything other than their work, and fully focused on research, they have no private life and spend their whole time locked away in their labs. And even if that is a complete exaggeration, it would fit Isaac Newton very well. He was the epitome of a nerd. In itself, that's a likeable thing—and the nerdiness of the seventeenth century will come across in this chapter as a rather sweet characteristic. But Newton took his uncompromising nature to the extreme. When he was trying to find out something about the world, he had no regard for his own sensitivities and those of other people, or for social conventions. His thirst for knowledge resulted in a radical approach, which caused him not infrequently to cross the line into asshole territory.
Humphrey Newton, Isaac's assistant in Cambridge (but no relation), wrote of Newton's behavior: “I never knew him take any Recreation or Pastime…. Thinking all Hours lost, that was not spent in his Studyes…So intent, so serious upon his Studies, that he eat very sparingly, nay, oftimes he has forget to eat at all, so that going into his Chamber, I have found his Mess untouch'd, of which when I have reminded him, would reply, Have I; & then making to the Table, would eat a bit or two standing, for I cannot say, I ever saw Him sit at Table by himself…He very rarely went to Bed, till 2 or 3 of the clock, sometimes not till 5 or 6, lying about 4 or 5 hours…He very rarely went to Dine in the Hall unless upon some Publick Dayes, & then if He has not been minded, would go very carelessly, with shoes down at Heels, stockins unty'd, surplice on, & his Head scarcely comb'd.”1
Even when Newton did take time for a quick stroll, it would often occur that, inspired by a sudden thought, he would hasten back to his study and get back to work at his desk—standing up, as Humphrey Newton describes, since Isaac's time was obviously too precious to be wasted on the act of sitting down.
Sadly, no records have been left by students who attended his lectures. This may have something to do with the fact that their number was extremely limited: “when he read in the Schools…where so few went to hear Him, & fewer that understood him,” writes Humphrey Newton.2 Isaac Newton seems not to have minded this at all; if the students stayed away from his lectures, he would simply speak to the walls of the empty hall.
Apart from the world in his head, the only other thing that seems to have been of interest to Newton during his time at Cambridge was his vegetable garden, where he would go for walks and regularly pulled out the weeds that, according to Humphrey Newton, he simply couldn't stand.
Little sleep, eating on his feet, lectures to empty halls, and a distaste for weeds—right from the beginning, Isaac Newton ticked all the boxes as a mad professor. But he was far from being a harmless figure of fun; when it came to understanding the world, his rigor knew no bounds.
“Fresh air, fasting and little wine,” was the recipe for a successful scientific career that he jotted down in his notebook. But he also wrote that “too much study (whence…cometh madnesse).”3 Perhaps he should have paid more attention to his own advice, since when we look at the way he worked, it would appear as though he had long since crossed the line to insanity.
Take the time when, as a young man, he stuck a needle into his eye in order to find out more about the nature of light. A completely crazy thing to do, but he wanted to gain knowledge at all costs. As already mentioned, Newton's rigor knew no bounds—and he was definitely not a softie.
TALKING DOGS AND VOMITING SALAMANDERS
Let's not forget the time in which Newton lived, though. At the end of the seventeenth century, there were no “natural sciences” in the modern sense of the term. Nature was full of mystery, and unanswered questions abounded about almost every aspect of it. Newton wasn't alone in his peculiarity—the entire world of science he lived in seems absurd to us now. You only need to take a look at the publications of the time. In March 1665, the first edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society appeared, in which scholars of the time discussed their findings. The Philosophical Transactions, along with the French Journal des sçavans, founded three months earlier, are the oldest scientific publications in the world.
Though, one might doubt their scientific value when one looks at the articles published therein. In an early edition, for instance, a Mr. Colepresse reports on “A relation of an uncommon accident in two aged persons”: Joseph Shute, eighty-one, and Maria Stert, a mother of nine aged seventy-five, both grew new teeth, despite their advanced years. And this occurrence was obviously considered to be remarkable enough to be published in the new scientific journal!
But that's nothing compared to “An extract of a letter not long since written from Rome, rectifying the relation of salamanders living in fire.”4 A “gentleman,” whose name is not given, had cast a salamander from overseas into a fire in order to see what would happen. The creature began vomiting to extinguish the flames and continued to do so until it was removed from the fire two hours later in order not to “hazard” it any further, as the report puts it. The veracity of this story is doubtful, as is the case with many other “research reports” of the time. Everything that was in any way unusual was considered to be worth reporting—a stone that was found in the head of a serpent, the birth of a calf with two heads, an English merchant bitten by a snake in Syria, a mysterious shower of fish that fell on England (recorded by an “honourable gentleman” who gathered these curious fish that had fallen from the heavens and preserved them, only to misplace them, alas, and thus not be able to present them for inspection).
The random and untamed curiosity of the scientists of the time is perhaps best illustrated by an article that appeared in the fourth edition of the Philosophical Transactions with the title “An extract of M. Dela Quintiny's Letter, written to the publisher in French sometime agoe, concerning his way of ordering melons; now communicated in English for the satisfaction of several curious melonists in England.”5 An incredible four whole pages are devoted to the description of how melons should be arranged in beds, how their leaves should be trimmed, and how they should be treated and harvested, complete with corresponding diagrams.
The world was one big mystery, and people were busy trying to decipher it. They didn't call themselves “scientists” at the time. Those who, like Newton, were busy trying to understand the world using scientific methods were “natural philosophers.” What they were doing did indeed include traces of what we understand today as philosophy, but ultimately it would over the course of time become true natural science. For that to happen, it was necessary to finally begin using new methods to try to understand the world, and melons, deformed baby cows, or vomiting, fire-extinguishing salamanders were just as interesting in this regard as what we would call “true science” today. Renowned scientists like Robert Hooke or Robert Boyle wrote in the Philosophical Transactions about their work with vacuum pumps, astronomic observations, or new optical devices. Boyle, for instance, laid the foundations for modern chemistry back then and developed what is known as Boyle's Law (or the Boyle-Mariotte Law), about the characteristics of an ideal gas,6 a law that is still taught at every university today. But he found nothing unusual about also publishing an article called “Observations upon a monstrous Head of a Colt,” in which he went into detail about the deformed skull of a newborn foal. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of the greatest scholars of the time (and one of Newton's archenemies—see chapter 7) is known today with some justification as a mathematical genius, an eminent philosopher, and a computer pioneer, and is often referred to as the last polymath. And yet he also wrote articles for the Journal des sçavans containing reports of a goat with an extremely unusual haircut. Apparently, this animal lived in Zwickau at the home of a Herr Winckel and had at first completely normal hair, before developing a strange hairstyle after it kicked a passerby and was therefore locked away. Leibniz, every inch the curious natural scientist, wondered why this should be and speculated that it was probably the goat's mourning for the loss of its freedom that was responsible for the change in its coat and hair.
Some years later, Leibniz wrote about a talking dog in the town of Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt. A child had taught the dog a few words, such as thé (“tea”), caffé (“coffee”), or chocolat (“chocolate”).7 Leibniz's reputation didn't suffer in the least as a result of these reports, since they were considered perfectly normal by seventeenth-century standards. When practically nothing is known about the world, dogs that can apparently talk are almost as useful as sources of information as astronomic observations are. And even what we now consider to be “serious” science didn't follow the same procedures as those we are used to today. When Robert Hooke (another major scientific figure who would later count among Newton's enemies—see chapters 3 and 4) wanted to understand how the breathing system worked, he simply grabbed a dog, cut the living creature open, and blew air into its lungs with a pair of bellows. The dog survived (though only for a short time, alas), and Hooke began to wonder if he could perhaps learn more if he were to divert the blood from the veins and bring it into contact with fresh air.
RESEARCH, REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES
In this strange world of burning salamanders, it was a considerable feat to be even more strange and curious, but Isaac Newton managed this without any difficulty at all. It wasn't enough for him simply to trust what some “honourable gentleman” had reported. He had no interest in the scholastic traditions of the universities, where it was still common practice to interpret the texts of the ancient Greeks. He had no time for hypotheses and only wanted reliable knowledge gained from actual experiments. He wanted to find out things for himself, and from bottom to top—a completely new approach at the time, and one that met with incomprehension.
Even as a schoolboy, Newton filled his notebook with information and questions of all kinds. He copied out texts from other books, for instance instructions on how to draw landscapes, melt metal, or catch birds (apparently, it works best if you make them drunk with wine). He was fascinated by light and color even before he carried out his revolutionary research on them, and he put together a list of the different paint colors that he knew of. His view of the relative importance of these is slightly bizarre. “A colour for dead corpses” and “Colours for naked pictures” have their own section, whereas the rest of the list contains rather lackluster descriptions, such as “A green,” “Another green” or “A light green.” But then, Isaac was still a teenager at the time, and nudes and corpses were of course of greater interest.
We can also find in his notebook a list of things which are painful for the eye. Dust, fire, and “too many tears” sound reasonable enough, as do “garlic,” “leek,” and “onions.” But why Newton considered “warm wine” to be detrimental to the eyes remains a mystery—perhaps only disgusting plonk could be had in England at the time. “Sticking a needle into your eye” is not on the list, but that is exactly what Newton did a few years later.
He didn't do it just for fun—even Newton wasn't that crazy. The aim of this experiment was to solve an important question: How do our sense organs work? This was another thing about which little was known at the time. Ancient Greek philosophers like Euclid or Ptolemy thought that the eye emitted mysterious rays that rendered objects visible. Aristotle and his followers, on the other hand, believed that the objects themselves projected rays into our eyes and could thus be seen. People hadn't gotten much further than this in the seventeenth century, and this bothered Newton, who asked himself the following: If we don't know how our sense organs work, but it is these senses that enable us to perceive the world, then how the hell are we supposed to understand the world?
A fair question, and perhaps a good enough reason to tinker around with your own eye with a big fat needle. Newton stuck the thing between his eyeball and the socket in such a way that he could press the eyeball from behind with the tip of the needle. He was thus able to change the shape of the eyeball and observe the effect this had on his visual perception. He saw rings of differing sizes and colors that changed when he moved the needle, but disappeared when it was still, as though light was something that arose through pressure. An interesting observation indeed, since as little was known at the time about the exact nature of light as about the way the eye worked.
Newton wasn't satisfied with sticking a needle in his eye, however. These days, when there is a solar eclipse, an astronomer can hardly mention it without having to give repeated warnings not, in any circumstances, to look directly at the sun with the naked eye, since this is incredibly dangerous (which unfailingly leads to everybody suddenly wanting to buy eclipse glasses, so that the shops run out and people then use other, potentially risky, means to protect their eyes).8 So what did Newton do? Precisely that—he simply stared at the sun with his naked eye for as long as he could, just to see what would happen. He survived all of these self-experiments without losing his sight and was deeply fascinated by the effects that arose. If he stared at the sun for long enough, he could later still see afterimages and curious colors that were obviously not real. Despite the interesting fruits of his research, Newton was actually slightly concerned about his eyes and locked himself away in a completely darkened room for three days, only reemerging when they were working normally again.
Just as Newton, in his thirst for knowledge, had little regard for himself and his own health, he was equally inconsiderate of the sensitivities of others. If they even dared to cast doubt upon the things he had painstakingly found out for himself, he showed no mercy or even understanding in his reactions, as many of his contemporaries discovered (in particular his counterpart Robert Hooke, see chapters 3 and 4).
This is somehow understandable, too. After all, if you go to such great lengths as he did, then it's normal to be a bit sensitive if others don't appreciate your efforts. If you stick a needle into your eye, it's not difficult to feel a bit pissed off when people then go on to criticize you for it. Especially if your critics have no idea what they are talking about. And Newton was absolutely convinced that his critics didn't have the faintest idea. Nevertheless, a little understanding on his part would have been advisable. His scientific methods were certainly out of the ordinary for most of his contemporaries, and he certainly took a different approach from scholars before him. But he wasn't completely removed from his time; he was familiar with the world of the universities and their customs. He must have been aware that much value was placed on academic debate about philosophical ideas and that his refusal to participate in it was bound to meet with incomprehension.
But Newton was not an understanding man. He couldn't see any point in taking into account the views of those around him. He was completely focused on his own view of the world and was offended that nobody had any inclination to appreciate his new methods of investigation. Newton carried out experiments to test out hypotheses. In other words, he did exactly what natural scientists today always do as a matter of course. But in the seventeenth century, many scientists still had to get used to this idea.
Newton's ruthless approach in pursuing his goals can be seen not only at the beginning of his career but also to an equal extent at the end. He lived until the age of eighty-four—quite an achievement in those days—but made practically all of his major scientific discoveries during the first thirty years of his life. For the last thirty years, he busied himself in a completely different field—and was as unrelenting in this as ever before.
THE WARDEN AND THE FORGER
So let's jump from the young Newton to the old one. Much had changed (and the things that Newton had experienced in the meantime are the subject of the following chapters); much, though, remained the same. Instead of arguing with his peers as an unknown scientist and ordinary member of the Royal Society, Newton now argued with them as a famous scientist and president of the Royal Society. And he was as uncompromising as in his youth. Probably even more so. For, in his old age, Newton got to live out, at least to an extent, every nerd's secret dream: he left the university and began to fight crime. Not as an early superhero complete with a cloak and supernatural powers,9 but he was at least armed with an impressive title: the warden of the Royal Mint.
Newton held this post from 1696 onward. Until that year, he had scarcely ventured out of his customary surroundings, his life being split between his home village of Woolsthorpe and the leisurely tranquility of academia in Cambridge, some 100 km away. He paid his first visit to London in 1668 and seldom returned in the years that followed. It was only later that he became a regular visitor to the capital city, above all in 1689 and 1690, when he held a seat in the English Parliament. Little is known about these early stages of Newton's political career. He seems not to have given any stirring speeches or otherwise distinguished himself. The only evidence of activity on his part concerned a complaint about a cold draught.
He seems to have liked it in the big city, however. In the years following his spell in Parliament, the isolation of life in Cambridge must have been too dull for him, and he started looking for new challenges in London.10 He needed to find a suitable job there to earn a living and was fortunate enough to have a niece, Catherine Barton, who was involved with Charles Montagu, the Earl of Halifax and the queen's chancellor. Newton obviously took advantage of this relationship in order to land a well-paid post at the Royal Mint.11
Others might well have taken it easy after obtaining such an administrative post and spent their twilight years enjoying peaceful prosperity at the state's expense. Not Newton, however, who continued to demonstrate the same pigheadedness that had been his trademark during his scientific career. He needed to as well, since he was confronted by not only a dilapidated financial system, but also an opponent of a completely different caliber from the scholars with whom he had till now crossed swords.
Newton was no superhero during his crime-fighting years—similarly, his adversary was anything but a classic supervillain. Had William Chaloner chosen anyone other than Isaac Newton as his opponent, it is likely that his name would have fallen into obscurity today. We do not know his exact date of birth and his origins were unremarkable. He trained as a smith in Birmingham, and didn't even do that properly, learning only the specialist trade of nail-maker, a profession that was already on the verge of dying out. At the end of the seventeenth century, machines were first used in the production of nails, and nail-makers like Chaloner were consigned to being just poorly paid laborers. It is no wonder that many metalworkers of the time turned away from nails to the more lucrative activity of forging money. If you have to spend your days working on small pieces of metal, you might just as well make coins, Birmingham's smiths thought to themselves, and put this idea into action with such enthusiasm that the forged coins became known as “Birmingham groats”12 and were for a time more commonly available than the genuine version.
It is not recorded whether Chaloner was already producing forged money at the time, but he certainly had the requisite skills to do so. When he left Birmingham to try his luck in London, he began by applying his talents in another direction. Contemporary sources are rather vague when it comes to describing the product that Chaloner dealt in: “The first part of his Ingenuity shoed it self in making Tin Watches, with D-does &c in ’em.’” What Chaloner's biography Guzman Redivivus somewhat bashfully calls “D-does &c” seems to have been no more than a sex toy.13 Chaloner obviously made a kind of pocket watch with inbuilt dildos. Highly sophisticated stuff.
His early criminal activities were equally illustrious. He conned people into buying pseudo-medical tinctures and acted as a soothsayer. He was particularly skilled at predicting where people would find possessions that had been lost or stolen, an ability that was no doubt linked to the fact that he himself had pinched the things in the first place. He also learned japanning and gilding on the side, an art that would later help him with his coin forging. And there was certainly opportunity enough to exploit the financial system in Great Britain toward the end of the seventeenth century.
Britain's currency was in rather dire straits. The old silver coins had long since ceased to be worth their supposed value. It was easy enough to cut a tiny bit off the edge and collect the silver thus gathered. This practice, which was called “clipping,” reduced the weight and thus the value of the coins, leaving a nice profit for the “clippers.” The Royal Mint tried to undermine the practice by issuing new coins that were also embossed on the edges, meaning that any clipping would be easily noticed. Another problem remained, however: the silver used for the coins was worth more on the European continent than the coins’ nominal value in Britain. Traders hoarded the English coins, therefore, and shipped them to Paris or Amsterdam, where they could be melted down into silver bars and sold for a profit.
England's coinage was in the process of disappearing. The coins that remained were constantly losing value because of clipping—or were indeed counterfeit. It is estimated that 10 percent of all coins at the time were not produced by the Royal Mint and were instead made by counterfeiters like William Chaloner.
Isaac Newton wasted no time in his new job. His first suggestion was for a completely new coinage for Britain's currency. All the old coins were to be withdrawn from circulation and replaced by new, more secure ones. In order to execute this idea as quickly as possible, he needed to put his talents to use in a wholly new fashion. He studied the production methods, examined the machines, and observed the workers. He analyzed each and every process involved, measured the time taken, and worked out how to optimize them all. He calculated the ideal frequency at which hammers should be hammered, presses should be pressed, and workers should work, and it was no surprise that he was extremely successful in all this. While the Mint could previously produce just about 15,000 pounds’ worth of new coins per week, Newton's improvements led to this figure rising to 50,000 pounds per week (with highs of up to 100,000 pounds per week).14
After a surprisingly short time, the replacement of the coinage had been completed, but the counterfeiting problem was still there. Chaloner and the many like him remained active. However, while most of the criminals were content to stick to forging money, Chaloner had set his sights higher, namely, on the place where the most profit was to be made—on the Royal Mint itself.
To this end, he promoted himself in the public eye as an expert who could solve the problems besetting the financial system. He composed pamphlets with titles like “Proposals Humbly Offered, for Passing an Act to Prevent Clipping and Counterfeiting of Money” and did indeed manage to attract the attention of several influential figures, to whom he made suggestions for new machines and processes that would enable the production of supposedly counterfeit-proof coins. The only thing he required was access to the Mint, so that he could carry out his experiments there. At the same time, he took every opportunity to discredit those already working at the Mint and accused them of criminal activities themselves.
In short, Chaloner did not merely claim to know better than Newton how to run the Royal Mint; on top of that, he accused him of being involved in dodgy dealings. Chaloner need not have brought out such heavy artillery to turn such an easily offended man as Newton against him, but by so doing, he managed with all flags flying to make a sworn enemy out of him.
CUT TO THE QUICK
Once Newton had completed the replacement of the coinage, he devoted himself completely to another of his duties as warden: the pursuit of counterfeiters. He did so with the same wholehearted persistence that he applied to everything else in his life, as extracts from his expense accounts demonstrate. He created a network of informers throughout London and equipped them with suitable clothing so that they would not stand out in the world of petty criminals. He himself frequented taverns and jails in order to question suspects and those in custody. He had many people locked up in cells at the Royal Mint in order to be able to interrogate them at his leisure. We do not know how he went about this, but it is unlikely that he was particularly friendly. The written records of the interrogations have mostly disappeared—many of them were burnt by Newton himself or otherwise destroyed on his orders. Whether he simply wanted to get rid of old paper, or didn't want posterity to hear about the interrogation methods he used, we do not know.
For all Newton's dedication to law and order, one man managed continually to evade him: William Chaloner did keep on ending up in prison, but he never remained there for long. He often played a similar game to the one he had practiced as a soothsayer: he would forge money (including the newly introduced banknotes) and, when the matter was exposed, would explain to the banks how the money had been forged and what they could do in order to prevent this in the future. The information not only bought his freedom—it often got him a reward as well.
His main target remained the Royal Mint, however. In 1697, he did indeed receive permission to carry out his experiments there with new machines. Newton himself was supposed to prepare everything and show Chaloner all the things that outsiders would normally never get to see. But he simply refused to do so—and ended up getting his way. The Royal Mint remained closed to Chaloner, though a few of the allegations he made about Newton refused to go away, meaning that the latter had no choice but to put up with the criticism (not an easy thing for him, see chapter 3).
At least to begin with, for he soon had the chance to deal with his enemy once and for all. In 1698, Chaloner was in jail once again (this time for forging lottery tickets), and this time Newton did his utmost to gather enough evidence to make a conviction inevitable. He prepared for the trial as methodically as he would have for a scientific treatise, attempting to obtain proof of every single one of Chaloner's offenses. And his aim was for Chaloner to die on the gallows, should he be convicted.
He questioned witnesses, once even for ten days in a row, and gathered statement after statement. In the meantime, Chaloner began to get nervous and wrote letters to Newton from his cell, attempting to talk his way out of the situation.
Yet this technique, which had always worked so well with others, failed with Newton. Chaloner's first letter was still rather confident: “I am not guilty of any Crime,” he claimed therein. Newton gave no response. Chaloner then became more dramatic: “I have been guilty of no Crime these 6 years…if I die I am murdered.” Newton gave no response. The verdict in Chaloner's trial was returned on 14 March 1699. He was found guilty. He wrote a last desperate letter to Newton: “Nobody can save me but you. O God my God I shall be murdered unless you save me. O I hope God will move your heart with mercy pitty to do this thing for me. I am Your near murdered humble Servant.” Again, there was no response from Newton, and on April 1, 1699, William Chaloner was hanged.15
IN PRAISE OF MODERATE RUTHLESSNESS
Isaac Newton was an uncompromising and pigheaded man, going far beyond the clichéd image of the obdurate, mad professor. Without such characteristics, he would probably have never become such a great scientist. If you want to be successful in the world of science today, it's okay to be a bit odd. But it's by no means a prerequisite—whatever popular TV series like The Big Bang Theory may suggest. It has long since ceased to be true that all scientists are as nerdish and detached from reality as we like to imagine. Having said that, such clichés don't come from nowhere. One of the reasons why they hold true to an extent is the work itself. In modern science, you deal with highly specialized subjects that are scarcely comprehensible to the rest of humanity and it is hardly surprising that a certain amount of social isolation can arise. On top of that, universities and research institutions offer a kind of “protected environment” for people who are, or want to be, somewhat different. Unlike in many professions, it (generally) doesn't matter one bit how you are dressed, for example, as long as your work is good. Regular working hours don't necessarily need to be kept to, either—as long as suitable, scientifically useful results are achieved, it rarely bothers anybody else if you prefer to work through the night and sleep all day.
A nerd like Isaac Newton, with all his quirks and foibles and completely focused on his work, would probably have no difficulty fitting into the world of science today. It would more likely be his inconsiderateness that would lead to difficulties. Though having said that, he could also set an example in this regard, too, at least if we take a pragmatic view of things: inconsiderateness is most certainly not a positive quality, but sadly it is one that is needed far too often in the modern world of science.
Natural sciences in the seventeenth century promised neither a secure job nor an important career (something they still don't guarantee today). They were often a pastime for well-to-do gentlemen—who, because of their prosperity, could treat others badly, as Isaac Newton did, with impunity. Today, the life of a natural scientist is dominated by sponsorship, project proposals, research grants, raising external funds,16 and job applications. If you can't promote yourself or your work, you don't have much chance. Vacant positions at universities are rare and those who make too many enemies are generally left empty-handed. If you want funding for research, you have to stick to strict guidelines and can't simply do what you feel like. But a certain uncompromising approach to your colleagues is needed.
When natural sciences were still novel enough that you could write papers stretching to pages about goats’ hairstyles or the correct ordering of melons, it was easier to be a lone wolf. People knew very little about the world and there was plenty that could be researched. Nowadays, the natural sciences have become so specialized that it's practically impossible to make any progress alone. In almost every discipline, the important breakthroughs are now only made within the framework of major international collaborations involving hundreds or thousands of people. Discoveries like that of the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the detection of gravitational waves at the LIGO observatory, or the mapping of cosmic background radiation with the Planck satellite could never have been accomplished by uncooperative mavericks like Newton.
And yet: a tiny bit of inconsiderateness (or perhaps it would be better to say courage and self-confidence) wouldn't do young scientists today any harm. Even a team needs people who are prepared to go against the majority opinion if necessary. Natural sciences aren't democratic and the majority isn't always right. If you don't dare to present your own opinion, you might miss the chance for a major breakthrough. Universities are becoming more and more like a regimented system for education, where quickly gaining your degree is the main thing, not developing independent thought. Even those with PhDs all too often merely accept assignments from their professors, rather than carrying out independent research, as they really should. If you don't quickly learn to stand up for your own opinions, you'll never have the chance to tread a scientific path and come up with your own scientific results.
You can and should, therefore, be a little inconsiderate of others, if you want to forge ahead in the world of science. You don't need to go over the top like Isaac Newton did. For all his genius, he would probably be mainly viewed today as a troublemaker.
When we consider the current working conditions for young scientists, we can see that it's probably best to take the older Isaac Newton as a role model. A well-paid official post in a financial administration, and one that allows you to print your own money—definitely not a bad career move….