Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Staggering Genius of Isaac Newton

Genius — these days, we bandy the term about ever so freely. Every­one’s a genius, includ­ing this 2‑year-old wield­ing a pair of nail clip­pers. Then, Neil deGrasse Tyson comes along and reminds us what a genius real­ly looks like. Asked “Who is the Great­est Physi­cist in His­to­ry,” he responds, Isaac New­ton, with­out any hes­i­ta­tion. New­ton dis­cov­ered the laws of optics, prov­ing that white light is actu­al­ly made up of col­ors, the col­ors of the rain­bow. He mapped out his three laws of motion and the uni­ver­sal laws of grav­i­ta­tion. And then he invent­ed dif­fer­en­tial and inte­gral cal­cu­lus to explain why plan­ets orbit in an ellip­ti­cal fash­ion. Now get ready for the kick­er. This all hap­pened before New­town turned 26. That, my friends, is what genius looks like.

This clip comes from an extend­ed Big Think inter­view, which you can watch in full here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Sir Isaac Newton’s Papers & Anno­tat­ed Prin­cip­ia Go Dig­i­tal

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

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