“Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!”

— Douglas Adams , book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
Context: "Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a..."
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." …
"You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."

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English writer and humorist 1952–2001

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“When I was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the 1950s, Sir Isaac Newton's presence was still almost palpable.”

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Source: Reinventing Gravity (2008), Chapter 1, The Greeks To Newton, p. 24

“It is to Sir Isaac Newton's Application of Geometry to Philosophy, that we owe the routing of this Army of Goths and Vandals in the philosophical World;”

John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744) French-born British natural philosopher and clergyman

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Context: It is to Sir Isaac Newton's Application of Geometry to Philosophy, that we owe the routing of this Army of Goths and Vandals in the philosophical World; which he has enriched with more and greater Discoveries, than all the Philosophers that went before him: And has laid such Foundations for future Acquisitions, that even after his Death, his Works still promote natural Knowledge. Before Sir Isaac, we had but wild Guesses at the Cause of the Motion of the Comets and Planets round the Sun', but now he has clearly deduced them from the universal Laws of Attraction (the Existence of which he has proved beyond Contradiction) and has shewn, that the seeming Irregularities of the Moon, which Astronomers were unable to express in Numbers, are but the just Consequences of the Actions of the Sun and Earth upon it, according to their different Positions. His Principles clear up all Difficulties of the various Phænomena of the Tides; and the true Figure of the Earth is now plainly shewn to be a flatted Spheroid higher at the Equator than the Poles, notwithstanding many Assertions and Conjectures to the contrary.

“Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, "By thinking about it all the time.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, "I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

2005 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2005.html
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“When Sir A. Fountaine was at Berlin with Leibnitz in 1701, and at supper with the Queen of Prussia, she asked Leibnitz his opinion of Sir Isaac Newton. Leibnitz said that taking mathematicians from the beginning of the world to the time when Sir Isaac lived, what he had done was much the better half; and added that he had consulted all the learned in Europe upon some difficult points without having any satisfaction, and that when he applied to Sir Isaac, he wrote him in answer by the first post, to do so and so, and then he would find it.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Anecdote (1701) from John Conduitt's manuscript, as quoted by Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) Vol.2 https://books.google.com/books?id=Bp8RAAAAYAAJ

“OUR ORDINATION:

Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 – 1747
About the times of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“The prejudice for Sir Isaac has been so great, that it has destroyed the intent of his undertaking, and his books have been a means of hindering that knowledge they were intended to promote. It is a notion every child imbibes almost with his mother's milk, that Sir Isaac Newton has carried philosophy to the highest pitch it is capable of being carried, and established a system of physics upon the solid basis of mathematical demonstration.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne, written anonymously in his A Fair, Candid, and Impartial Statement of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Hutchinson (1753)

“There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Expanding Mental Universe", Saturday Evening Post (July 1959)
1950s

“Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for each reaction there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction. This can be useful in rocketry.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

“Ever since Sir Isaac Newton's times, scientists have worked in the same sort of way:
They show a great respect for experiment and observation,
They don't cherry pick data,
They take a skeptical approach to what they do.
And then scientists work together to get a consensus as to what should be believed
And that generates very reliable knowledge and that reliable knowledge drives innovation”

Paul Nurse (1949) Nobel prize winning British biochemist

Newsnight 30th March 2011
Source: BBC iplayer, 37 mins online http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0101g7l/Newsnight_30_03_2011/

“Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!”

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