Othering Newton’s Alchemy — why we do it and what it says about science today
Isaac Newton is one of those historical figures we revere as “a father of modern science”. He nerded out on puzzles; like the way light separates into colours through prisms and how objects are pulled towards the earth. As young nerd, I stanned the guy. I was surprised to learn that he worked harder on alchemy than on prisms or planets. Alchemy! Far from having an austere fixation on the scientific stuff, this guy wanted more than anything to be Rumpelstiltskin. How curious.
Most people react to this news like I did: “Oh I guess alchemy was his hobby”, or even, “how weird!”
Cometh surprise, cometh judgement.
My judgement is a kind of historical category error. Alchemy wasn’t a weird “other thing” to him at all. It was his main game. Today we read about Newton’s science in oleaginous detail in many places but his “occult studies” separately, and more rarely. But he didn’t have one pile of papers for alchemy and another, separate, pile for science. WE do. The distinction is ours, not his.
Do we do tidy away the unsightly work of all our scientific gods?
Yes. Aggressively so.
