I've been reading James Gleick's biography Isaac Newton for the past couple days. I'm enjoying it well enough, if not as much as the much longer Genius, his previous biography of Richard Feynman; Feynman was, of course, colorful as hell, slyly pyrotechnic both in word and deed, a biographer's dream. The monkish, reclusive, devout Newton is himself naturally very fascinating, but as a literary figure, doesn't quite offer the same wealth of anecdotal material. But it's a minor deal, given Newton's simply stupefying output of ideas and calculations over his lifetime. Lest anyone need brushing up, here's a (wildly abbreviated) list of some things he did:

--Well, he invented calculus. "Heigh ho, I've got murderous gout; might as well invent a new mathematical system."

--He described the laws of motion. By comparison, I maintain (by which I mean, someone helps me) a website called "Izzle Pfaff." It's close, but I think he edges me.

--He figured out (and named) gravity. Not incidentally, while doing this, he happened to whip the hot piss out of perpetual rival Robert Hooke (the microscope guy) and managed not to get laughed out of town for gravity's apparent "action at a distance," which made people queasy all the way up until our own century.

--As a happy corollary to that, he fucked around a bit explaining planetary movement and the tides. Oh, he also defined certain essential qualities of mass, time and space. Uh, and invented his own reflecting telescope. Oh, and was an alchemical wizard. Unfortunately, he also nearly poisoned himself handling (and tasting) mercury, so that at least wins me some points. I've never done that. Sheesh, Newton! That was kind of a boner!

--He explained betting odds to Samuel Pepys; he corresponded with John Locke in secret about his very heretical biblical treatises (he hated the idea of the Trinity--kind of a big deal) that could easily have gotten him jailed; he made a virtual errand boy out of comet-lad Edmond Halley, who wrote the adulatory introduction to Principia and then cheerfully flogged it to anyone who would listen, which hardly mattered, since only a very few people could understand the fucking thing in the first place.

--And my personal favorite, when worried about the double-bind of understanding the human senses when those are exactly what we employ to, well, understand things, he took a large, blunt needlelike thing and shoved it into the corner of his eyeball socket and started gingerly pressing the tip around. By comparison, I once considered going to a laser show, but we had, as I recall, run out of pot.

Isaac Newton, ladies and gentlemen. Titanic genius, but he didn't play well with others, couldn't keep from eating the paste, and liked to poke himself in the eyes. It's sad to tarnish such a reputation, but that's the kind of hard-hitting reportage my tens of readers have come to expect from Izzle Pfaff.

Tomorrow: Michael Medved: Tortured Genius? Or Literary Colossus?