We all remember Newton for his groundbreaking work on gravity, laws of motion calculus ,right?

But did you know he spent only half his life on these pursuits?

And , what about the other half?

Well, He spent the other half, in search of a mythical stone. The Philosopher’s stone.

The smartest man of his time really thought, there was a way to turn any object to gold.

Therefore, he decided to spend half of his life , to this search for philosopher’s stone. He really thought, there is a way to do it and he can figure out the way.

But, Just so it turned out that, philosopher’s stone is not possible.

And not only that, when his dead-body was discovered . it was saturated with mercury. Mercury was used as one of the main ingredients in the experiments for creating philosopher’s stone.
So, this search for finding philosopher’s stone actually killed him.

And therefore in hindsight, this makes Newton look very dumb. Right ?

Not really.
A child-like curiosity . An intense desire to solve mysteries of nature. Big leap of faiths to connect distant dots.

The same traits that made him a towering figure in physics , also made him an occult alchemist.

Just that, his stint in physics was successful and his stint in alchemy was not.

So what is the difference between genius and a madman?
It is … success.

Creating something extra-ordinary, will always require irrational effort and a leap of faith.

But, if you succeed- you will be celebrated as a genius, a revolutionary .
If you fail- you will be vilified as a mad, a terrorist , a degenerate.