Like Da Vinci before him, Sir Isaac Newton was a polymath with plenty of claims to fame. He explained gravity. He developed calculus. He invented the cat flap. But Newton's not-so-public interests are just as fascinating. He studied alchemy and theology, as evidenced in his voluminous unpublished papers. Three pages of Newton's notes about his research of Egyptian pyramids are up for auction by Sotheby’s.
Newton studied the pyramids in the 1680s, during a period of self-imposed scholarly exile at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, away from his base at Cambridge University, following criticism of his work by his rival Robert Hooke of the Royal Society.
Newton was trying to uncover the unit of measurement used by those constructing the pyramids. He thought it was likely that the ancient Egyptians had been able to measure the Earth and that, by unlocking the cubit of the Great Pyramid, he too would be able to measure the circumference of the Earth.
He hoped that would lead him to other ancient measures, allowing him to uncover the architecture and dimensions of the Temple of Solomon – the setting of the apocalypse – and interpret the Bible’s hidden meanings.
Read about Newton's obsession with Egyptian pyramids at the Guardian. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Ricardo Liberato)