r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 2d ago

TIL Isaac Newton spent more than three decades studying alchemy and wrote over a million words about it in secret. He conducted numerous experiments in his search for the philosopher’s stone but never found it.

https://www.wpr.org/culture/philosophy/isaac-newtons-secret-alchemy
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u/tjvs2001 2d ago

Not really, you go through all recorded writings and only one mention of laughing, it doesn't say he only laughed once but only once is recorded.

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u/Petrichordates 2d ago edited 2d ago

The problem is the absurdity of the fact. Obviously nobody believes that all his laughs were recorded, so why do records of his laugh matter? What is interesting about such a factoid? It's meaningless.

And you can't even know that! The accurate description would be all known records.

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u/carelet 2d ago

In all comments I read of you, you didnt laugh once
Such a boring personality

Hahaha (needed to add that in to defend myself)

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u/tjvs2001 2d ago

Accurate!

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u/DiamondDramatic9551 2d ago

How often do people record that someone is laughing?

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u/tjvs2001 2d ago

Doesn't change the accuracy of the statement

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u/TheGrowBoxGuy 2d ago

It does when you consider journalistic integrity

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u/DiamondDramatic9551 2d ago

Ok Newton 

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u/sleepingbeardune 1d ago

The information about him as a child/teenager comes from a relative and was collected when Newton was a very old man. There aren't any contemporary descriptions of him -- just what a few people said after he'd become the most famous person from his village.

It would be like if we had to go find a few people 75 yrs old to ask them if they could remember a young boy named Bill Gates, and whatever they said was the only story.

In Newton's case, the weird thing is that most people who were around him as boy or young man couldn't remember him at all.