Essays and Biographies (Book Reviews).

The serious biographer of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is immediately confronted by a number of significant obstacles challenging his intellect, his empathy, and his historical skills. With his own prodigious intellect, Newton pursued a broad range of areas, mathematics, mechanics, optics, alchemy and theology, making such enormous contributions to the first three that he completely redirected these sciences. He was not a particularly pleasant person as can be judged from his incidental--but characteristic--remark, 'I am safest in people that are afraid of me' (p. 845); and there are major gaps in the documentation of his life. Richard S. Westfall in his most recent biography of Newton, Never at rest, has successfully overcome these obstacles, and has written the first biography that fully captures the man and his works in his own time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]