NOVA: Newton's Dark Secrets (2005)

Buy This Item NOVA: Newton's Dark Secrets (2005)  List Price: $19.95  Available from Amazon  $14.99  on 12-6-2008     Features Actors: Scott Handy, Chris Oxley Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen Language: English Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Number of discs: 1 Rating: Studio: WGBH Boston DVD Release Date: February 28, 2006 Run Time: 56 minutes Average Customer Review:   10 Reviews 5 star:  (9) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0) See all 10 customer reviews...   (10 customer reviews) Reader Reviews I saw this episode of NOVA when it was originally aired and I thought it was pretty enjoyable. I think its odd that of all the eminent men of science, Newton seems to have the least "air time" when it comes to these docu-dramas. Especially since Newton's orignal work is far greater then Einstein's (who didn't even develop any of the mathematics or even all of the methods he employed for his relativity theory), as well being more technically difficult to accomplish for the time. Compared to the multitude of shows dedicated to Einstein (NOVA's "E=MC^2 , World's most famous equation" being the latest), I'd say this is defintilly a superior production. The theme is supposed to be Newton's inquiries into alchemy and other eccentric pursuits, but really it focuses on his life in general. The actor that played Newton was very belivable (well, to be accurate, it's how I would picture Newton, whether thats close to reality or not...). I've read parts of "Never at Rest," what is hailed as the definitive biography of Newton and the from what I've read (and what was actually mentiond in this production) there seems to be no contradictions. It even mentions that the Principia is written entirely in the analytic geometry of Descartes (rather then the Calculus). The facaulty they have interviewed for this production are very entertaining. Espeically the one MIT professor, Walter Lewin behaves so eccentricly that he seems like the cliche Physics professor of popular culture. An issue I noticed that they have ignored completly, is the spat that Newton had with Leibniz on who discovered Calculus first. From my understanding this was a really ugly part of Newton's history (he used his academic position to sort of attack Leibniz credebility). But at least as pure mathematics is concerned, Leibniz is really the more important of the two . We have inherited the "infetesimal" (which later was formalizd more by Cauchy and the rest) as well as most of our notation (and the name "Calculus") from Leibniz. In any event, the show seems to merely state the "facts" and does not (thankfully) speculate needlessely on Newton's peronal life (Allegations of homosexuality have been prevelent in several modern biographies of Newton, which seems to be somewhat unfounded). I also enjoyed the background music, it really set the mood for alot of the scenes (which were not annoyingly flashly like the "E=MC^2" production). I did notice that some of the background music was recycled from NOVA's much earlier production "The Proof" (about Andrew Wiles). In conclusion, I'd give this production an A+, it presents relevent facts on Newton's life, and ties in his occult ideas pretty well with the continutiy of his more well known discoveries, and has very enjoyable aesthetics, acting, and organization. All in all, I hope there are more of these docu-dramas on Newton in the future, as this is certainly an individual whose importance is central in the history of the West (and humankind).  Comments (2) | Permalink |  function showYesNoCommunityResponse(uId,result,value) { var msgLayer = getElement("thanks" + uId); if ( result == "SUCCESS" ) { msgLayer.innerHTML = "Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."; } else { showVoteErrorResponse(msgLayer,result,value); } } (Report this)

NOVA: Newton's Dark Secrets (2005) List Price: $19.95 Available from Amazon Price: $14.99 Updated on 12-6-2008.

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