Perhaps even more impressive than her re-creation of Newton's world, however, is her re-creation of the man himself-or rather, the boy who became the man-without embellishing the historical record with speculation and conjecture. This immersive experience is enhanced by historical documents that are reproduced throughout the text, along with several appendices of additional information. Losure faithfully hews to this worldview, communicating the sense of awe and wonder about the natural world that Newton must have felt.
Newton, Keyes reasoned, "was not the first of the age of reasonâ¦He was the last of the magicians." Indeed, Newton grew up in a world where it was very difficult to tell where one field of study ended and another began, a world where alchemy and "chymistry" (as it was then spelled) seemed to be related disciplines. In 1936, economist John Maynard Keyes bought a set of Isaac Newton's manuscripts at auction only to discover that many of the pages had nothing to do with science, but rather alchemy.
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