Isaac Newton

by James Gleick. (2003) Published by Vintage. 191 pages. Reviewed 26 May 2008

I always feel a little cheated by James Gleick’s books, which seem heavy on biographical data and low on the science Gleick is supposedly so good at describing. Still, I really enjoyed this book, especially because it did such a good job at showing how Newton was frustrated early on with his attempts to come to grips with physical problems using written language as a tool. Gleick does a great job at showing what a muddle the state of thinking and especially the terminology in regards to physics was at the outset of Newton’s career, and there’s a sense of real excitement when Newton finally takes charge of the language in writing his Principia and selects the amazing handful of concepts (mass, force, velocity) that are still so useful to us now in understanding the world. Also, it was really enlightening to learn about the way Newton’s vast output of private writings was neglected after his death all the way into the 20th Century. This explains a lot about why there are so many questions that still linger about a man you’d expect to be better understood. I do wish that Gleick had lingered as long over Newton’s geometrical demonstrations as he did over the feud with Robert Hooke. Still, I think Gleick’s writing has improved incredibly since he wrote Chaos, and I learned a lot about Newton’s world and thinking process from this book.