Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 15, 2024

Money is the root of all evil. But it also makes the (human) world go ’round. And is equal to time. Pretty potent stuff.

“. . . if the “Sir” means anything."

“Sir” means the Brits have a tradition-bound society that doesn’t consider a person truly accomplished until they are dubbed by royalty.

Or if he comes up with fig filled cookies … ?

Most who worked in fields of scientific research will tell you that science has become a money game. You will get all kinds of budget to get obese westerners slim, quickly and effortlessly, but you have to rely on charities to cure cancer.

Newton made a lot of money. He was, after all, Warden and Master of the Royal Mint.

Nice ref to third law

It is Caulfield’s nature to put up a proposition in order to shoot down the reply. Not exactly at the Socratic level yet, but he’ll get there.

The many sides of capitalism.

Yet another mis-application of the 3rd law for absolutely no good purpose.

Naw, we do not seem to appreciate those guys who save us money on our auto insurance.

No. Newton would be diagnosed and drugged as a child, to normalize his behavior.

Saved us some money, or made us some money. Which is in fact exactly why Newton was appreciated in his time — his discoveries were worth a lot of money, or else battlefield advantage, which ends up coming to the same thing in the end. We tend to think of the great scientists and philosophers of the past as brilliant minds just cogitating in the purity of exploration, but for the most part, they were actually hired by wealthy people and governments to make their advancements. Newton’s laws of gravitation (and calculus) were spurred on by his work on ballistics for artillery targeting. His Newtonian reflector telescope, still the most popular large telescope design today, is vastly cheaper and more reliable to manufacture than refractors. Oh, and he literally saved money — while working for the Royal Mint, he introduced several innovations to coin design that are still in use today (including the knurled edges that prevent clipping of coin edges). I could go on, but it isn’t just today that we cherish people for saving us money. We’ve always cherished people who help us do things better or more efficiently, and with good reason.

Well, you aren’t going to find the next Newton on social media…

You know that’s what he got knighted for. He was Master of the Mint and was among those responsible for putting England on the gold standard.

Newton was a Christian as were many other scientists of his day. They sought to understand how the world was ordered because they believe in an orderly God who ordered the world. Most of the approved authorities on science today won’t even entertain the idea of the supernatural.

just look what he did with figs

Science just needs to give me thinner phones and bigger TVs and shut up about everything else.

What would “someone like Newton” even mean today? The world is so different.

These days it seems Most people have the attention span of a fig newton.

I often say “if something doesn’t make sense, Look at who is making bags of money or gaining power, and often both”.

These days, our respect for such a person doesn’t depend on him saving us a lot of money, so much as accumulating massive amounts of it for himself. We elevate the likes of Musk, Bezos, Gates, Ellison, Zuckerberg, et al. to “genius” status when I doubt seriously if any of them are half a brain-lobe-adjacent to Newton. Or Lin-Manuel Miranda, for that matter.

All of this discussion makes me realize how little I know about Sir Isaac!

Happy Ides of March!

Newton invented the cat door. But also calculus.

The scientist, or team, that devises the first fusion reactor will truly be worshipped, and rewarded.