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There. We said it.
So, you think you know Sir Isaac Newton? Some of the most fascinating tales of science and history lurk in the footnotes, down the tiny side avenues and rabbit holes that most traditional biographies only hint at. Rittenhouse passed out during a transit of Venus. Tycho had his nose shot off during a duel.
Of course, most science history books only tease us with these glimpses and asides in favor of the standard narrative of discovery. One recent book that breaks this trend is Isaac Newton: The Asshole Who Reinvented the Universe by Florian Freistetter out from Prometheus Books.
Sure, you learned Newton’s laws of motion in high school science class. You’ve heard the apocryphal tale of the apple. But did you know that, as the head of the Royal Mint, Newton also actively persecuted counterfeiters? Or that he was not only a staunch critic of his contemporaries, but a firm defender of his own work?
The book portrays Newton at his idiosyncratic best, an abrasive character with a drive to understand the inner workings of nature and the universe at all costs. Newton was fascinated with the nature of gravity and light, and once famously stuck a needle in his eye (don’t try this at home) in order to better understand the nature of sight and light perception. Though these early experiments may seem frivolous at best and dangerous at worst, Newton did give us the first functioning design for a reflecting telescope that now bears his name, the Newtonian reflector.
The book also delves into the controversy over the invention of calculus and Newton versus Leibniz. A product of his time, Newton’s efforts in early chemistry were also tied up with its arcane roots in alchemy and the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, a material said to have the ability to transmute any substance into gold. The ruling powers of the day so feared Newton’s reputation that the King of England actually issued an edict against any such transmutation, lest it collapse the national economy overnight.
Newton also dabbled in the occult, and analysis of the Bible in search of hidden meaning and the history of early humanity. Newton also used his studies in the chronology of the Bible to extrapolate the date for the apocalypse in 2060. This fascinating aside gives a glimpse into a time that may seem strange to us today, an era when science and magic were still intertwined. Kepler, for example still practiced astrology, and took an entire year off from his studies of planetary motion to defend his mother from charges of witchcraft.
And while these aspects of Newton’s life and works may seem strange, it also paints a picture of how science with true predictive power and the scientific method emerged. Sure, we all memorized Newton’s three laws of motion in high school, but he also set physics on the right track, a quest to unify the fundamental forces of nature that continues today.
Be sure to read�Isaac Newton: The Asshole Who Reinvented the Universe. You’ll never see Newton in the same light again.
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Review: Interplanetary Robots by Rod Pyle
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What’s up in space exploration? We just passed to 60 year mark for the Space Age late last year, with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union in October 1957. In 60 years, humanity has gone from having a tough time hitting the Moon, to sending spacecraft out of the solar system and in to intergalactic space.
We recently had a chance to read a fascinating new book that chronicles those heady early years of space exploration, along with a look at where we’re at now, and where we might be headed. We’re talking about Interplanetary Robots: True Stories of Space Exploration by Rod Pyle, out from Prometheus Books on January 15th, 2019.
A long-time journalist covering the spaceflight scene, Rod Pyle brings you-are-there tales from the robotic exploration of the planets, straight out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory press room to the printed page.
Even though I’ve read and reported lots on space exploration and the history of the Space Age, I learned a thing or two reading Interplanetary Robots. For example: The book goes deep into the Soviet Union’s early successes at Venus, as well as its long string of failures at Mars. Considering the technology of the day and how they were expected to function in largely unknown interplanetary environments running off of primitive clockwork computer programs, it’s amazing that they (occasionally) worked at all.
The book also intersperses looks back with looks ahead… from interstellar missions to clockwork rovers exploring the hell-scape of Venus, you’ll find these exotic and interesting future proposals in the book. Missions that never were also crop up, as NASA’s planetary program walks the continual tightrope of what it would like to do, versus what it can afford. For every mission that makes it to the launch pad, there are three more that die in the proposal stage.
I really like how Interplanetary Robots tells the tales of just how missions and mission planners overcame technical challenges to return in triumph. The story of how both Voyagers and the Grand Tour missions to the outer planets is retold, missions that are now with us for four decades and counting as they exit the solar system. I find it amusing that there’s nearly a point in every robotic mission where the question of �do we really need a camera?� is raised… but the legacy of nearly every mission is the photos that are returned afterwards, whether or not they had much to offer for scientific merit.
The book also tells the tale of the Galileo mission to Jupiter,with its stuck main antenna, which forced engineers to return data via the low gain antenna at an extremely slow data rate, something that would make ye ole dial-up modem look lightning fast.
Our one minor nitpick; the book is very JPL-centric, and gives other Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) scout class missions such as New Horizons and Mercury Messenger very light mention. Little mention is made of key European and Japanese Space Agency missions, beyond Huygens’ historic landing on Titan, leaving loopholes in the narrative. The author also seems to have a very optimistic view of the future of planetary space exploration, though lots of our eyes in the outer solar system are going dark in this and the coming decade, and plans for replacements such as Europa Clipper, a Titan Helicopter and a Uranus and/or Neptune Orbiter are all far off.
Still, a nuclear-powered helicopter plying the alien skies of Titan is still something we’d love to see. Overall, we enjoyed and would recommend Interplanetary Robots, for telling some great unknown tales of planetary exploration.
Editor’s note: After 11 plus years, we’re sun-setting Astroguyz as a blog. It has been a fun ride, but it’s time to move on. We’ve seen the platform grow from an occasional blog into a freelance writing career. Hey, we’re still surprised that folks actually pay us money for the words coming out of our head! Anyhow, we’ll still be reviewing books on Amazon, writing for Universe Today and Sky and Telescope, and anyone else who will have us. It’s been real!