It was the niftiest favor a plague ever did. Newton was a 24-year-old
student at Cambridge when the plague struck in 1666, and Cambridge
closed and sent everyone home. In that "annus mirabilis" back at the
family farm in Woolsthorpe (Lincolnshire), Newton solved all the
revolutionary problems in physics and mathematics that eventually earned
him his fame. It was during this year that the apple fell on his head --
apparently a true story -- and made him wonder if the force that drew
the apple to the ground was the same force that kept the Moon orbiting
the Earth.
Daniel Defoe was only about six years old when he witnessed the same
Great Plague and the Great Fire in London. Fifty-five years later he
wrote "A Journal of the Plague Year," a novel (he is often credited with
inventing the form in English) in the form of a first-person memoir by a
survivor. It's really spectacular and gripping, and even better, it's
on-line at
http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Defoe/plagueyear/
Where else in Canada in Gould's years could he have found an adequate
recording studio and piano? Vancouver? Montreal? Which begs the
question: Did Gould speak French?
Elmer the Newton Freak
-----Original Message-----
From: Houpt, Fred <fred.houpt@RBC.COM <mailto:fred.houpt@RBC.COM>>
To: F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu <mailto:F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu>
<F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu <mailto:F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu>>
Date: Friday, April 25, 2003 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: Gould & SARS
That's actually quite a good question since in today's news we read
of the World Health Organization putting a warning on Toronto for
all world travelers. One is reminded of the black death that
surfaced during the days of Sir Isaac Newton who promptly removed
himself (I think from London) and went to the countryside to weather
out the plague. No doubt our peripatetic Gould would have scrambled
headlong into the old Cadillac and stormed up to Wah Wah or Georgian
Bay.
Kind regards,
Fred Houpt