Isaac
Newton
was
in
his
early
20s
when
the
Great
of
London
hit
.
He
wasn't
a
"
Sir
"
yet
,
didn't
have
that
big
formal
wig
.
He
was
just
another
student
at
Trinity
College
,
Cambridge
.
It
would
be
another
200
years
before
discovered
the
bacteria
that
causes
plague
,
but
even
without
knowing
exactly
why
,
folks
back
then
still
practiced
some
of
the
same
things
we
do
to
avoid
illness
.
In
1665
,
it
was
a
version
of
"
social
"
?
a
public
health
tool
making
a
comeback
this
week
as
governments
,
schools
and
many
businesses
,
including
The
Washington
Post
,
send
people
home
to
try
to
slow
the
spread
of
the
novel
coronavirus
.
Cambridge
sent
students
to
continue
their
studies
.
For
Newton
,
that
meant
Woolsthorpe
Manor
,
the
family
estate
about
60
miles
northwest
of
Cambridge
.
Without
his
professors
to
guide
him
,
Newton
apparently
thrived
.
The
-
plus
he
spent
away
was
later
referred
to
as
his
annus
mirabilis
,
the
"
year
of
wonders
.
"
First
,
he
continued
to
work
on
problems
he
had
begun
at
Cambridge
;
the
papers
he
wrote
on
this
became
early
calculus
.
Next
,
he
acquired
a
few
prisms
and
experimented
with
them
in
his
,
even
going
so
far
as
to
bore
a
in
his
shutters
so
only
a
small
beam
could
come
through
.
From
this
sprung
his
theories
on
optics
.
And
right
outside
his
window
at
Woolsthorpe
,
there
was
an
apple
tree
.
That
apple
tree
.
The
story
of
how
Newton
sat
under
the
,
was
bonked
on
the
head
by
an
apple
and
suddenly
understood
theories
of
gravity
and
motion
,
is
largely
apocryphal
.
But
according
to
his
assistant
,
John
Conduitt
,
there's
an
element
of
truth
.
Here's
how
Conduitt
later
explained
it
:
"
?
Whilst
he
was
musing
in
a
garden
it
came
into
his
thought
that
the
same
power
of
gravity
(
which
made
an
apple
fall
from
the
tree
to
the
ground
)
was
not
limited
to
a
certain
distance
from
the
earth
but
must
extend
much
farther
than
was
usually
thought
.
?
Why
not
as
high
as
the
?
'
said
he
to
himself
.
.
"
In
London
,
a
quarter
of
the
population
would
die
of
plague
from
1665
to
1666
.
It
was
one
of
the
last
major
outbreaks
in
the
400
years
that
the
Black
Death
ravaged
Europe
.
Newton
returned
to
Cambridge
in
1667
,
theories
in
hand
.
Within
six
months
,
he
was
made
a
fellow
;
two
years
later
,
a
.
So
if
you're
working
or
studying
from
home
over
the
next
few
weeks
,
perhaps
remember
the
example
Newton
set
.
Having
time
to
muse
and
experiment
in
unstructured
comfort
proved
life
-
changing
for
him
?
and
no
one
remembers
whether
he
made
it
out
of
his
before
noon
.
Crear