It's a credit to how good Isaac Newton was at physics and math that people rarely mention that time he threatened to burn his mother's house down, or the equally baffling time he stuck a number of needles into his own eyeballs to see what would happen. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Yes, when Newton wasn't revolutionizing our notions of motion and gravity, he was, by today's standards, a bit of a weird dude. As well as dedicating a lot of his spare time to the study of alchemy – a medieval belief that metals could be turned into gold – Newton had a keen interest in the occult and the Biblical apocalypse.

In fact, in a few private pieces of speculation likely not meant to be seen publicly, Newton went about attem

See Full Page