10 interesting Facts of Newton U don't know

Regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time, Isaac Newton’s contributions to the field of physics are unparalleled. His book, the Principia Mathematica, is still one of the most important and relevant scientific works in history, even now, 300 years after it was first published. Even so, Isaac Newton was more than just the work he produced; he was a man with many dimensions and eccentricities.

1. One genius dies, another one is born. Isaac Newton was born in 1642, the same year that Galileo Galile died.

2. He could have been a farmer. Newton was born to a farming family so the initial plan was for him to take over the farm when he was old enough. Newton tried, but given his lack of interest in the field, was a very poor farmer. Eventually, his uncle managed to convince his mother to let him go to college.

3. He was Master of the Royal Mint. Newton took this job very seriously and personally pursued counterfeiters. Back then counterfeiting was considered high treason and punishable by death. Newton apprehended multiple counterfeiters, his most famous case being that of William Chaloner.

4.He was an alchemist. Probably the weirdest fact about Newton is that he was a firm believer in alchemy. One of his greatest ambitions was to find the philosopher’s stone – the secret to turning common metals into gold.

5. The “apple tree” story never happened. We all know the famous story of how Newton was resting under a tree when an apple fell on his head, creating a famous “Eureka” moment and leading to his laws of gravitation. However, that is all apocryphal. By Newton’s own admission, he merely saw an apple fall from a tree while walking through the garden, although some believe this story to be a myth, as well.

6.The tree is real, though. In fact, as soon as the story became popular, a debate raged over which apple tree was the real one. Nowadays descendants of the original tree can be found at Cambridge. A piece of the original apple tree was even loaned by the Royal Society to NASA who took it into space.

7. He was also a politician. Newton served as a Member of Parliament representing Cambridge on two separate occasions. However, like farming, he had no interest in this. Several accounts mention the fact that Newton only said one thing while in Parliament, asking for a window to be closed.

8. He had an arch rival. The man’s name was Robert Hooke and the two got into a serious dispute over Newton’s laws of gravitation. Hooke, an accomplished and respected scientist in his own right, claimed that he came up with them first and Newton stole his work. This began a rivalry between the two men that lasted well after Hooke’s death. By then, Newton became the President of the Royal Society and used his position to his advantage in order to obscure Hooke as much as possible. One story says that Newton even had all portraits of Hooke destroyed.

9. But he did have high-brow friends. Despite his feud with Hooke, Newton was also friends with many other influential scientists of his time. Examples include Christopher Wren, one of the most successful architects of all time, and Edmond Halley (of Halley’s Comet fame) who paid for the publication of Newton’s Principia Mathematica.

10. Newton has the most valuable tooth. One of his teeth was sold in 1816 at auction for approx $3,600. In today’s terms that’s about $35,000, prompting Guinness World Records to declare it the most valuable tooth in the world.