Charles Damon Newton (May 25, 1861 Birdsall, Allegany County, New York – October 30, 1930 Geneseo, Livingston County, New York) was an American lawyer and politician.
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The Common Character Trait of Geniuses | James Gleick
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Newton's Discovery-Sir Isaac Newton
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Anti-Semitism in Newton (MA) Public Schools (Charles Jacobs)
Transcription
I'm tempted to say smart, creative people have no particularly different set of character traits than the rest of us except for being smart and creative, and those being character traits. Then, on the other hand, I wrote a biography of Richard Feynman and a biography of Isaac Newton. Now, there are two great scientific geniuses whose characters were in some superficial ways completely different. Isaac Newton was solitary, antisocial, I think unpleasant, bitter, fought with his friends as much as with his enemies. Richard Feynman was gregarious, funny, a great dancer, loved women. Isaac Newton, I believe, never had sex. Richard Feynman, I believe, had plenty. So you can't generalize there. On the other hand, they were both, as I tried to get in their heads, understand their minds, the nature of their genius, I sort of felt I was seeing things that they had in common, and they were things that had to do with aloneness. Newton was much more obviously alone than Feynman, but Feynman didn't particularly work well with others. He was known as a great teacher, but he wasn't a great teacher, I don't think, one on one. I think he was a great lecturer. I think he was a great communicator. But when it came time to make the great discoveries of science, he was alone in his head. Now, when I say he, I mean both Feynman and Newton, and this applies, also, I think, to the geniuses that I write about in The Information, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Ada Byron. They all had the ability to concentrate with a sort of intensity that is hard for mortals like me to grasp, a kind of passion for abstraction that doesn't lend itself to easy communication, I don't think.
Life
He was the son of Daniel Newton and Polly A. Brundage Newton. On August 10, 1887, he married Nellie E. Durfee.
He was a member of the New York State Senate (43rd D.) from 1915 to 1918, sitting in the 138th, 139th, 140th and 141st New York State Legislatures.
He was New York Attorney General from 1919 to 1922, elected on the Republican ticket at the New York state election, 1918, and re-elected at the New York state election, 1920.
Sources
- [1] Political Graveyard