"in 1963 Newton suffered a severe mental illness accompanied by delusions, deep melancholy and fear of persecution. He complained that he could not sleep and he said that he lacked his former consistency of mind. He lashed out with wild accusations in a shocking letter to his friends Samuel Pepys and John Locke. Pepys was informed that there friendship was over and Newton could no longer see him no more. Locke was charged with trying to entangle him with women and with being a hobbyist(a follower of Hobbs)"
Out of everything I read about Newton this was one of the few things that stuck out the most to me from the reading. Mostly because of Hallie and Max`s project on the mental illnesses of famous mathematicians that it is said to believe that them being so smart is what brought on the mental illnesses. When I read the quote above I instantly connected it to the other four mathematicians that had illnesses the same as Newton.
I also remember the video that we watching in Margaret's class about the man who was trying to figure out pi , He was schizophrenic i believe, he heard voices in his head and he believed there was a chip in his head that was turning him crazy, but in the end he figured it was just because he was too smart and the numbers were ruining his brain. In the quote above when Newton told John Locke that he was "trying to entangle him" it made me think of the Pi movie where his brain is just so smart and there is something always going on in there that there is no room for normal reality so he eventually will have some sort of mental illness.
My questions is there a way that we can do some sort of test on there brain where we can find out wither or not they turn crazy from being to smart?
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