Newton, the Last Shaman
This video isn't just about Newton, his great public contributions, and his more secret activities. It also reflects on knowledge. The shaman is "the one who knows." Who is the shaman in our society today? Who will be able to be one in the future?
Isaac Newton Jr. (1642-1726) was born in a village in eastern England, three months after his father died. From the age of 12 to 17, he was educated at King's School in Grantham, where he learned Latin and Greek… and mathematics. Had he followed his mother's wishes, he would have become a farmer after that period. But his tutor, Henry Stokes, persuaded her to let young Newton continue his studies. In 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. There, the teachings of Aristotle were studied, although Newton was also interested in Descartes and Galileo, thinkers closer to his time and his mechanistic worldview. In his personal notebook, an inquisitive evolution is evident, leading him to write:
Amicus Plato amicus Aristotle magis amica veritas
“Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth.”
The renowned economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), the father of macroeconomics and business cycles, spoke of Isaac Newton as “The Last Magician”:
“Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual heritage rather less than 10,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, a posthumous child born with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonderchild to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage.” —John Maynard Keynes, "Newton, the Man"
One could say that Newton was the last Magician because he held all the knowledge of the world known to humankind in his mind. But that is history.
References
The word Shaman comes from the Tungusic term Šaman, a peculiar language spoken in Siberia, China, and Mongolia, and literally means "the one who knows."
"John Maynard Keynes: Newton, the Man." Maths History. Archived from the original on June 17, 2019. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
https://web.archive.org/web/201906270...
"The Chemistry of Isaac Newton." Indiana University, Bloomington. Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016. https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/
Newton's Papers
https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collection...
If you liked this video, SUBSCRIBE to the channel: TECNOSFERA Science Outreach Channel. Science, Technology and Society. Technological Evolution / tecnosfera
This video was made, filmed, and edited with energy 100% Renewable by:
Pedro Gomez-Romero, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Research Professor and science communicator at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Group Leader of the NEO-Energy group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) (CSIC-BIST) in Cerdanyola (Barcelona), Spain.
#science #communication #technology #scientists #experiments @tecnosfera
Acknowledgments:
ICN2: https://www.icn2.cat
CSIC: https://www.csic.es