Dmitri Levitin
Deifying Gravity
Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton
By Rob Iliffe
Oxford University Press 522pp £22.99
Albert Einstein famously quipped, ‘Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.’ In 1940 he had major difficulties, but they had nothing to do with mathematics. An acquaintance of his, the polymath and collector Abraham Yahuda, had four years earlier acquired a huge swathe of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts after their sale at Sotheby’s, and Einstein was now seeking a home for them. Alas, even the discoverer of the theory of relativity found there were limits to his powers of persuasion. Yale claimed that they lacked the space to house the papers, while Harvard reminded him that there was a war going on. Princeton, meanwhile, politely refused the material on the grounds that its content was not scientific.
The Princeton librarians’ assessment was correct. For the papers revealed that perhaps the greatest Western scientist before the 20th century – whose exposition of the theory of universal gravitation in his Principia (1687) had provided an explanatory framework not supplanted until Einstein’s own discoveries – had devoted immense energy and
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm