Who knew that one of mankind’s greatest scientists also worked as a gumshoe on London’s mean streets, or that this same absent-minded professor helped England fix its monetary policy from an office in the Tower of London? Thomas Levenson brings all sorts of surprises to light in his own sleuthing of a little known but significant episode in British history involving Sir Isaac Newton -- subject of his recent book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist.
"Try to imagine Stephen Hawking or Frank Wilczek suddenly put in a position where they have to police the mean streets of London or Boston. That’s Isaac Newton."
--Tom Levenson
Talk by the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies (From MIT World)