Making of Genius In Times Of Pandemic

“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”~Nikola Tesla

Quote from Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

The will of life

Students all around the world,left campus, cities were cleared, your favorite restuarant got closed, toilet paper and hand sanitizer became more difficult to find compared to finding love on valentine’s day,amidst the rise of infection due to the infamous covid 19. Many, not sure how to go about their new lifestyle with no interaction with friends or classmates ,confined to their childhood bedroom where a world of loneliness,silence and boredom awaits them.

But this idea of self isolation,which is now religiously practiced throughout the world to combat the rise of corona virus, is not new and has been in practice as early as when the ancient Greeks turned to quarantine to contain a scourge.

But today in this article we will be talking about a plague which changed the whole course of science and human history as whole

We are talking about the Great plague of London which infected the cities of Britain. Starting in 1665, many students were laid off as a means of controlling the plague.

Great Plague of London

And one of the students was Isaac Newton who if you don’t know played a major role in phsyics and was later termed a the Father of Classical Physics, which again if you did not know is a pretty big deal..

Portrait of Sir Issac Newton

As described in Gale Christianson’s Isaac Newton, a few months after aquiring his under graduate certificate, the young 23 year old,shy, introverted nerd resided to his family farm of Woolsthrope Manor, which not only provided him safe passage from the deadly carries of the plague but also something more magical,which in today’s world is rare….. Silence. This time of self isolation provided Newton a peaceful, quiet, tranquil environment which allowed him to reach the depths of his imagination with uninterrupted long periods of deep learning and concentration. This period later would be known as annus mirabilis~(the year of miracles).

Woolsthrope Manor

Newton’s law of Quarantine

In 1665, “social distancing” orders emptied campuses throughout England, as the bubonic plague raged, killing 100,000 people (roughly one-quarter of London’s population), in just 18 months. A 24-year-old student from Trinity College discovered the following :

Differential calculus Intergal calculus Theory of gravitation Explored optics

Illustration showing the discovery spectrum and optics

The famous story of Newton’s head being bonked by an apple which led to his inspiration and discovery of Gravitation also happened during this period

Illustration of Newton and his apple

If this is not considered productive(not the apple one),I don’t know what is then. He discovered something that would survive in coming ages that include:the Industrial Revolution ,Two World wars,a Cold war, T-Series vs PewDiePie, Donald Trump becoming a president and many more mile stones in human history and still students have to study when and how Newton generated a feasible product which would transcend in the future,which would not only help mankind in understanding the vast complexity of nature and universe,but also make people who took Maths and physics as their main subjects, to curse him. Now that takes some dedication.

Away from university life, and unbounded by curriculum constraints and professor’s whims, Newton dove into discovery. According to The Washington Post: “Without his professors to guide him, Newton apparently thrived.” At home, he built bookshelves and created a small office for himself, filling a blank notebook with his ideas and calculations.

Newton biographer, James Gleick writes: “The plague year was his transfiguration. Solitary and almost incommunicado, he became the world’s paramount mathematician.” Newton himself would say about this forced time away from university life: ‘For in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention & minded Mathematics & Philosophy more than at any time since.’”

And the past recceds

As every beginning as it’s end similarly The great plague also ended and as all the daily activities started resuming and so did Newton he went back to Trinity College to gain his fellowship and ultimately became a professor.

In these times of disaster and global threat, there is much to despair about but this could also be your time of peak performance,a time to reflection. Self discovery, self improvement and so much more.

Newton’s Apple tree

The mirror

And somewhere in Lincolnshire, England ,the same Apple tree lies in rest outside the Woolsthrope Manor, standing as a symbol of innovation and self discovery in times of disaster.so I hope that you find your own Apple tree a place of peace and tranquility, where you can take a deep breath and invest in yourself and maybe who knows you might be the next greatest YOU.

Thank you for reading this article, and the reader who is reading this.Yes! you, i hope you are healthy and doing well. Hopefully after reading my dumb article, you are inspired and will try to do some productive work in future. Thank you again🎉🎉

Things that you can try until this pandemic undermines: