"My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success." Isaac Newtown by James GleickThanks to our monthly supporters
Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author, widely recognized as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of all time and among the most influential scientists. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His start in life was fraught with illness and according to his mother, at birth, he could have fit inside a quart mug.
He was born especially tiny but grew into a massive intellect that still looms large.
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
Isaac Newtown by James Gleick
"My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success." Isaac Newtown by James GleickThanks to our monthly supporters
The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 199. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, Meer. Good
morning, Mike. We have such an exciting individual to jump into as episode 199. Don't we today? We do
indeed. He may stem. Do I remember it right from the 16 hundreds mark?
Nearly he was certainly in the 18th century. There we go, which is the 17 hundreds. So you weren't far off needless to say it was quite a few years, decades, hundreds of years ago, we are digging into sir Isaac Newton today, a man who's pretty prolific and unarguably. One of the greatest scientists, physicists, astrologists of any time, Mike, in fact, and the teachings that he has within the science realm have informed a lot of the direction that we go on throughout all of our scientific understandings, but there's quite a lot.
You and I, and our listeners can learn about Sara Newton with a moonshot lens as
well. Yeah. Even if you're not a scientist, there's so much to learn from how he did it. So the work was. Instrumental in shaping how we think about science and physics. His productivity rate was ridiculous. He was off the charts when it comes to producing his work.
I think there is so much to learn from this man.
There is so much to learn that fits nicely into the realm of individuals and moonshot, legends that you and I, our listeners and members dive into each week. Isn't there. Mike, I think we've got a real chance to learn from not only a heavyweight within the scientific realm, but also the realm of productivity focus as well as just doing the hard work.
Let's try thinking differently because he thought differently about a lot of profound things. Like I E he invented calculus. This is off the charts and he did it in his twenties. It's. It's crazy. There's so much to learn from someone like, sir, Isaac Newton. It is just such a treat to study him much in the same way that we recently did.
Einstein mark. There's just so much in not only what Isaac Newton thought, but how he did it, how he made all of these breakthroughs, right?
Yeah. I think that's exactly the lens that we should look at. We're digging out our scientific instruments. Mike, we've got our microscopes magnifying glasses, but the lens that we're gonna look through today is exactly that it's the, how it's the, how.
Of an individual who has such a plethora of impressive successes, how he was able to get out and do that work. And that's really the lesson that we can glean from these individuals like Einstein, as well as Isaac Newton. Isn't it. Even though you and I, we might not be creating our own former calculus.
We may not be looking up into the stars and identifying new consolation or creating the laws of motion like Isaac Newton did, but. We can certainly learn a lot when it comes to how he went out and did that hard work and got the got the successes,
Yeah, successes, basically shaped the way people live for centuries since.
So mark, now that we have built up the what and the how of sir, Isaac Newton, where should we kick off this adventure?
I think if we haven't made the case as to why, sir, Isaac Newton is an individual that belongs within our moonshot library. We are gonna hear initially from Neil Degrass Tyson, a very well known astrophysicist author and scientific communicator.
He's gonna tell us why. So Isaac Newton is his man,
Isaac Newton. Just look at you read his writings. Hair stands up on, I don't have hair there, but if I did, it would stand up on the back of my neck. you read his writing. The man was connected to the universe in ways that I've never seen another human being connected.
It's spooky actually. He discovers the laws of optics figures out that white light is composed of colors. That's freaky right there. If you take your colors of the rainbow, put them back together yet white light, again, that freaked out the artists of the day. how does that work? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue violet gives you white.
The laws of optics. He discovers the laws of motion and the universal law of gravitation. Then a friend of his says why do these orbits of the planets? Why are they in the shape of an ellipse sort of flattened circle? Why aren't they some other shape? And he said, I can't, I don't know.
I'll get back to you. So it goes, home comes back a couple months later here. Here's why they're actually con sections of a cone that you cut. And they said how did you find this out? How did you determine this? I had to invent integral and differential calculus to determine this.
Then he turned 26.
Then he turned 26. We've got people slogging through calculus in college just to learn what it is that Eisen Newton invented on a dare practically. So that's my man, Isaac.
Mom man, Isaac Newton. Listen, I think what we just heard there is to think about what Newton created before the age of 26 and how many of us struggle into our 36 46 is just to even understand what he created.
That really sets the tone for what's to come doesn't it?
Yeah, exactly. We are going into the realm of some of the greatest mind that there ever has been by the age of 26, the optics motion, gravity, the understanding of the planets. This is pretty mind altering stuff, Mike, but the thing that's already standing out to me that we heard from Neil Degrass Tyson, as he reliving the successes and the accomplishments of Newton is the fact that he just went away.
He gave it some time. He needed to create a brand new way of thinking in order to answer a question. And I think that's a little bit of a tease as to what we are gonna start to learn about Isaac today. Isn't it? Which is if you have a problem. Good. , yeah. Starting get a little bit. Yeah, exactly.
I'm, son's gonna even a vibe of some of our other moonshots already, which is to encourage us when we are stuck in a problem such as whether it's a physical one or a mentor one while the planet's going around in a certain way to go out and find the answer. A way to give that answer is what we all trying to do.
Isn't it, whether it's the rotations of planets or not. I think that's just a really great demonstration in coming at things with the hard work that it sometimes takes
to deliver results. Yeah. And whether it's Einstein who said, oh, I just worked on one problem for harder and longer than anybody else.
What you can start to see is there is a little bit of a pattern here, right? That these people such as Einstein and Newton, who've made enormous breakthroughs, like huge paradigm shift often are very clearly able to attribute. That success, those breakthroughs too hard work to focus, lack of distraction.
And just think about how much we desire the chance for deep work for removal of notifications in incoming bombardments. Yes. And we just want to apply our mind. It really is quite exciting to think. If. Can work deeply and with focus like them, who knows what each and every one of us could do. And I think the answer to that question is one of the things you could do is become a member of the Moonshot's podcast.
Unlock that potential mark, wouldn't you say?
Yeah. I think individuals who in three or 400 years time will be reverted and discussed just as much as sir. Isaac Newton are our Patreon members. Mike. So as tradition dictates living now in the realms of sir Isaac Newton, And Einstein are our members.
So drum roll, please. D please. Welcome Bob Niles, John Terry Nile Marlin, Ken, and Dimar Marja con Rodrigo and Yasin. Lisa Sid, Maria and Paul Burke, cowman, David and Joe crystal Ivo, Christian, hurricane brain and Sam Kelly, Barbara, Bob, Andre, Matthew, Eric, Abby. And Haie Joshua, Chris Kobe, Damien, Deborah Gavin Lasse and Steve Craig, Lauren, Javier and Daniel, Andrew, Ravi Everett.
And Karen. Welcome again, members. Thank you for joining the moonshots family and helping us keep the lights.
Absolutely. The lights are on and shining and we are going to shine them now onto the putting Sippa mathematic art, perhaps Newton's single greatest contribution, but we are going to learn the habits, the rituals behind what it took to pro produce something so profound.
So let's have a listen to now a spread of different modern professors actually commenting on prince peer. Gee, this is a real mouthful, Princip peer thing, Mathematica, and let's see what we can unlock about the greatest. Of so Isaac Newton over a
decade later, Newton's secret work in alchemy is put on hold when the famous scientist Edmond, Hallie reignites Newton's interest in mainstream science.
Hallie had been in the coffee shops talking about a theory on gravity and the orbit of planets. Robert hook claimed he had already proved this theory, but after months of waiting to see it, Hallie was still empty handed. So he turned
to Newton. Instead,
Edmond Hallie comes to visit him and asks him if he can prove that there's a relationship between the known IIX orbits of planets and an inverse square law.
And you can says he can and he says he has a proof. According to one story, he rustles around his papers for a bit and comes back and says, I'm sorry, I can't find it. But three months later, Hallie at the Royal society receives this extraordinary. Which is only about 11 pages long, but in that two or three month period Newton had drawn up the basics.
If you like of modern physics in 10 or 11 pages,
Hallie encourages Newton to release these pages officially to turn them into a book to show the world. What he's done is flattery results in Newton publishing this theory of gravitation, as well as other laws describing how the world works in his greatest scientific manuscript print appear Mathematica in
is just a book. But what a book et is one of the great books, it's one of the finest scientific works ever published. And it's one of the most culturally important books ever to hit a printing press. Ultimately, I think people rightly look back to Newton's ProPipe Mathematica as the foundation of modern science.
The foundation of modern science, Mike, we are really in that realm of the, one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Aren't we, and this is a book that was published in the 17th century.
Crazy. Crazy. And did you hear that he's hanging out with Hallie, who you may know from Haley's comment and they're discussing some serious physics and gravity and science and, what was interesting is Newton didn't have the answer, but he said, you know what?
Let me come back to you. So in three months time, he comes back with 11 pages, which happened to form the underlying principles of modern science. How about that for some productivity, mark
I think for me the biggest takeaway I'm getting from this introduction to the Principe Mathematica is Newton's mindset.
It's a pretty intimidating question. Mike, if I turn to you and said, Hey, Mike do you have any idea why the planets do this? Can you go and tell me, and instead of you turning around and saying, oh, I, I can't do it. Or I would just guess, or you'd just guess it. Yeah. Whereas what Newton does, he is not refusing the opportunity to have a go, to try and answer one of the biggest questions that there was totally unanswered at the time he goes away and.
Diligently works hard. He obviously has a foundation by this point in his life of studying, he'll probably have an awareness, but the biggest thing for me is this original thought, this original thinking that he was able to create, it really reminds me of Adam Grant and the work that he has around creativity and original thinkers, instead of being maybe forced into a realm of, republishing or reworking other people's work.
And just having a guess, like you say, he's able to go away for a period of time and then come back with not only the answer, but also a, essentially a language calculus in order to help others understand it too. This is not only a level in application of Mo putting your mind towards difficult questions, but it's also just creating.
From scratch, isn't it?
Yeah. And when we talk about manuscript in today's language, we might talk about notes. We might talk about sketching, an outline drafting a few bullet points. But I think what we are seeing is that Newton was prepared to take a question and to go away and really work on it.
Not guess, or not say, oh, geez, I don't know, but break it down and do the work. And I think that one of the things we can all take from this is when we face big, exciting, yet somewhat challenging questions. Start, get out the notebooks, start, get out the notes app on your phone. Start writing it down, create a body of work that you can continually and.
I think daily come back to if it's a big enough problem, it deserves your daily attention. And we'll talk about how Newton worked on a day to day, best basis. We'll talk about his habits and so forth, but right now, to me the power of what we are getting into is to write. It down and work upon it.
It's very nice to entertain ideas in your mind, but if you wanna really crack a big problem, you've gotta write it down. You've gotta have the manuscript as Newton would call it. You've gotta have the Google doc as we might call it. Now you must share it. And what's really interesting is to see his interaction with Howie here, they're talking, they're sharing and discussing, and that's another big moonshots thing.
Share your ideas, collaborate on your ideas, write it down. It's you know, it's nice to talk with someone about it, you and I both know mark that once you say, okay, let's dive into the document. Once those words are said, that's when everybody's digging in refining editing, improving brainstorming.
And I think. In our rush, we can sometimes chat about ideas. And I think you, you stay only on the surface level and you leave yourself exposed to missing things. If you don't write stuff down, what do you think,
mark? Yeah I think the biggest piece to go back to the idea where you were first discussing around the app, pieing yourself writing it down even before you get to the collaboration piece is the benefit of that compound interest.
So if you and I ha were in this position for Isaac Newton, trying to answer some of the biggest questions, or if you and I were collaborating on a project, maybe we've got a week. Maybe we've got a month. Something that we've talked about on the show before is just getting it started. Isn't it. It's putting it down, like you say, in a Google sheet or a document and just building out maybe a bit of a skeleton.
Or a table of contents or just the foundations that you might start to think about. And gradually for me, at least the benefit that I have given time is the ability to sleep on it, to let the idea percolate in the back of my mind. And if I can write it down, if I can document it and keep track of even just the small builds that I have on an idea, or maybe it's an approach, maybe it's something physical, then it's gonna be better over time because it's had that compound interest where it's getting a little bit better every day.
It's similar to James clear and what we know about the habits. I think if you can create a habit. Probably like Isaac Newton had where he was revisiting it certain times of day. And repeatedly being in that realm of thinking about it, it does get better. Doesn't it. Then when you interject a colleague or a mentor to then work on it with you and to give you feedback, to give you a little bit of guidance, suddenly that compound interest is even.
More substantial because you're getting that creative feedback and reviewing loop so that it does get better. But I think it all starts with just that daily, almost practice of putting something down on paper and learning it, build in your mind until it, until you find the answer.
And I think the pressure to transition from what's in your mind to getting it out on a piece of paper, or let's say writing a blog post, or making a video or a podcast, when you have to make that transition.
What I notice is it helps your thinking get better because once you are like, okay, how do I explain this to people who are not in my brain? So I have to set some context and make some arguments and explain some forces at play here. Therefore, I think we should do X, Y, and Z. I think that actually makes the idea better, the pressure or the, just the practice of transitioning from your own mind, in your own inner dialogue, to having a dialogue with others actually makes the original thought better.
Doesn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. You've gotta be considerate of your audience. And again, I think this is speaking to the let's call it the production of what we were just hearing with Principe Mathematica was in order to, in order for Newton to communicate the ideas or the thoughts that he had discovered he had to create essentially a language to communicate it, that the calculus piece.
And again, that's just a. Demonstration of the way that he was approaching the delivery of this work, because let's face it. We're not all Isaac Newton . And I could come to you Mike and say, Hey, look, I've cracked the best moonshot show ever, but then I wouldn't be able to communicate it to you. What worth is that?
And it, you've gotta be conscious of communicating it over the line don't you.
And this really brings us to this overall practice of continuous learning, iterative learning and what we've seen, the parallels between Newton and Einstein are really powerful, but an actual fact, it's another big moonshot theme, which is this continuous and iterative learning.
You're never done. There's always more refinement work. There's more adjacent practices to learn and to absorb it, to discover. And I think isn't that the beauty of working on something big, something that really matters. Is my, you are never done. There's always more isn't there.
Yeah, you are never done.
And this is something that even an individual from the 17th, 18th century, Mike can teach us. So this next clip we've got is a couple of very modern day thinkers, Dr. Maggie Poko and Thomas Vening, who are digging into one of the iterations of sir Isaac Newton's, Princip, Mathematica, maybe version two.
And I think this is a great demonstration into the art, the practice and the benefits of always improving.
This is a kind of dream manuscript for a scientific manuscript. Newton is one of the greatest scientists, and this is Newton. Writing about his greatest work, the Bri IIA it's seven years after he wrote the Bri IIA.
He's thinking about doing a second edition and he realizes there are corrections he needs to make. There are sections. He needs to expand on this second edition that he was thinking about at this time, never saw the light of day and this manuscript was totally unknown. So it's OB in obscurity for 300 years.
And then suddenly here it is, we can show it to the world. And it's quite
dynamic. There's lots of crossing outs and additional words it's like traveling through time, can always hear the pen scratching over the surface and get that feeling of his thoughts being projected onto the page.
It's exactly. And that's what I love about a manuscript like this, because you've got one of the great minds of history thinking things through in front of our. It. So it feels almost
like hallowed ground. What Newton did with pre Kiper has set the way we do science today. He was coming up with ways of understanding it mathematically, but he was also making telescopes so he could get the data and verify his mathematics that is effective, the scientific method.
And he was doing both sides. This is an amazing object, but where did it come from?
We know it started out with David Gregory as young Scottish scientist. David Gregory was one of the earliest people to understand just how important the Bri was. He started making notes on it in the months after it was published, he was able to start corresponding with Newton and say, what about this?
I don't understand this section. Is there a typo here? Is there something you need to explain there? This particular manuscript comes out of a six day visit of Gregory. To Newton in Cambridge in 60 94. So it's very nice. Cause you can place it exactly time and place down here. These are the bits in David Gregory's handwriting.
And I think David Gregory has drawn these diagrams. You can just get this little glimpse of the two of them in a chamber together. Trinity college working away could be gripped by the fascination of this whole new understanding of the universe. The pink
Kippie was such a step forward. So groundbreaking to had to have additional notes on it by the offer just seems yes.
A, a gem
paper is so fragile. It doesn't take much for it to be destroyed, even being able to follow the trailer paper down the years is very difficult. It's not like a great painting when everybody knows where it's been. Yeah. And so they're like kind of fragile boats and sailing down the stream of history.
Suddenly there it is in front of us and it's survived all this time. Yes. I just love that. It's I find it so inspiring. How does the work of Newum? How does the PPIA. Have an effect on your own work. Yes. So
The pre CIA is the basis for effectively all we do, it's his, the, that do allow us to travel into space.
So land probes on Mars, the telescopes that we use are now mirror based, which he came up with.
Wow, you can really, as they were talking, you really get this visualization of two guys collaborating on some of the most important stuff in history. I know, but what's so great is we can do that as well. Like we can create a document, mark it up, we can get into something, we can roll up our sleeves and really work on it together.
And this brings us to this iterative process called the scientific method, which is also the basis of Eric Reese's work in lean startup, which is. Really powerful because we're seeing basically lean startup in the late 16
hundreds. Aren't we mark isn't that such a huge build and reveal, the same frameworks for thinking the same frameworks for focus, you could say as well as validation and verification are exactly the same that we are following now as we are building or refining our businesses back to how somebody like Sarah Isaac Newton was answering questions on gravity, on optics and motion.
The interesting thing here is, and we'll have a copy of this in the show notes on moonshots.io is we'll show you what the complete scientific method looks like, but it basically goes from an observation of a, or a question where you go away and do some work on it, and then you draw up a thing called a hypothesis.
Which is, something that you can go and test, you get some data, you look at the data results, and then you might ask a new question and then the loop continues again and again, and just like any good idea or business or product or service. The more times you go through this loop, the better it gets.
And for me, one of the most powerful things that I introduce to my work is this idea of the hypothesis. So I've been absolutely in my career, a victim of wishful thinking, and that is really. The idea strikes me and I go, oh, geez, that sounds good. And then I just go off and do it. Whereas the scientific methods like whoa, Mike, hold your horses.
Let's draw up a hypothesis. Let's go test that objectively. Let's see if that actually bears out or whether there's a nuance or whether I'm just totally incorrect and you do that through the data, and then you draw up new questions, go through that enough. And it's really powerful, but I love to start my work, particularly when I'm working with clients is to say, okay, Let's actually write up the hypothesis.
And my experience has been when you use this scientific method or lean startup some fast forward 400 years and it's lean startup, but it is amazing to me how much clarity comes even by just getting everyone to agree on what is our hypothesis. And invariably, you'll find that we weren't actually all on the same page.
I think one of the biggest drawbacks with being forced to work remotely for so long was probably that Mike, wouldn't you say the idea that teams were gradually falling out of sync and they were getting into less. Scientific feedback methods as well as reviewing of work methods. And I'm referring of course, to working remotely for me, at least I think it did start to slow down and the idea of focus and knowing that we were all on the same page becomes more difficult unless you put in the practices.
Like we were just saying with a continual loop of questioning of noticing of having a hypothesis and analyzing the results in order to feedback version two or 1.5 and. This is, I think such a key takeaway in how you stay on the same page with others. That alignment piece is so substantial, even though S Isaac Newton, would've been working solo as maybe a lot of us do with our own businesses and entrepreneurs.
The truth is still having the ability to go back to an individual or colleague partner, a friend, or a colleague, and being able to question it and get feedback, and then go out and test it with maybe some users, maybe those users are just your partner or your colleague. The point is you can go out and exactly as you've just said, Mike, question your assumption.
And validate that is in case. And in fact the truth, because I'm a bit like you, Mike, I'm a little bit biased to my own thoughts and sometimes I'll be thinking, no, I know I'm right. So this is the recommendation, but you've really gotta pause and go back and question, okay, am I going about this the right way?
Have I checked the data? Have I looked at how customers are interacting with my product or my marketing in order to make amends and maybe improve
it? Yeah. So like a really basic example of a lean hypothesis or a hypothesis in general. And then let's get into it a bit. Mark, let let's actually really go to the heart of the scientific method.
So let's assume a little bit that you've been going out into the world. You've researched a topic, what's a hypothesis. So an example would be, and I'll stay away from business for a moment. Students who eat breakfast will perform better. On a math exam, then students who do not eat breakfast that's a hypothesis.
And you can test that. You can test the students bit. You can te test the eat breakfast bit, and then you have a look at the exam results and you do an AB comparison. Now what's really good about that is when you frame them in a very testable way, you can deconstruct them and get the elements really independent.
And you might find that it's not math, but it's English. You might find it's a particular type of student. That's all the, all of the goodies that come to us when we, are doing this scientific method now. Let's fast forward 400 years from the big questions of Newton. And Hallie, you might have a lean hypothesis specifically around a product or a service.
And what you tend to do there is you say, Hey students, young students, maybe math students need to perform as best as possible in their maths exams. Currently they cram really late get poor sleep and they skip breakfast. We propose to provide a service that makes getting breakfast on the go really easy.
So students can perform better in their exams, will measure success by the ability to. One get positive feedback from the meal and the nutrition to get better results in the math exam. And overall better student success as measured in an eight hour or in a particular type of metric that is a lean hypothesis.
So you could pull all of that apart and you could pretest. This is where we take the thinking of Newton and put a little bit of Eric Reese. Lean's startup, modern scientific method on it is you can pretest all of these things before actually building the product service or company to do and this helps us go from guessing to knowing, and this is exactly what Newton was doing.
400 years ago. He would go away. And calculate the models. If the data didn't exist, he would use his telescope to create the data, to measure the data so he could run his experiments and his hypothesis. I think the most crazy thing that we're experiencing right now, Mar is that what Newton was doing 400 years ago, the best entrepreneurs, the best thinkers do today.
It's the scientific method. It is testing your ideas before putting them in stone. It's testing your entrepreneurial ideas before launching your business. How cool is that?
What a slam dunk from sir? Isaac Newton. This is why he belongs in the moonshots library mic because he is transcending, three, 400 years into the.
Of the same mindset and behaviors that these individuals that you and I learn out loud from every week, he's still demonstrating those behaviors, those patterns, that compound interest of preparation. But most importantly, this idea of validation is such a huge takeaway. And I don't think it's necessarily something I really understood about Isaac's method until the opportunity of digging
into it.
I'm already like, oh, wow. I didn't quite realize how many things he contributed to our world and of modern science, but also how great is this that he used this evidence based approach, which we can all use to. So in the spirit of this mark, I've got an hypothesis that I think you myself and all of our members and listeners can test.
Are you ready? I'm ready. If a person goes into Spotify and becomes a subscriber to the Moonshot's master series, they will receive Luna powered. Good karma. What do you think?
The question is Mike, whether you are able to validate this. Oh, now how
much you do that, mark? What do you think?
I suppose the first question really is actually to go out and gather the data first, Mike, you've got this hypothesis, so let's hold our horses and let's encourage us to dig out our telescopes and look up into the stars and find that data.
So for all of our listeners, if you are thinking, what a mic mark talking about here, what is this master series? I encourage you to open up Spotify type in to the search bar, moonshots master series, and you'll be able to see trailers as well as a link to become a paid subscriber for the moonshots master series, where we dig in once a month into a very.
Entrepreneurial growth areas and themes and concepts, Mike, including happiness, including managing people, leadership skills, personal development skills that help us become that best version of ourselves. And it really is as simple as opening up Spotify typing in just a couple of words and striving.
Via the URL in the about section and Mike, this will help you. And I gather that important data to validate your
hypothesis. Absolutely. And look while you're there, you can give us a thumbs up a rating, or if you're an apple podcast, go and give us a review, or if you're on stitch share or winner the millions of other podcasting platforms.
So jump into your Spotify or head over to moonshot. AO, there is a world of moonshots awaiting you test the hypothesis that there is Luna powered, good karma out there in the world for you and get your hands on that master series. Mark, we are ripping through the universe of sizing noon. We are on AGL signal, inter gala universal trip adventure, and we have not done yet.
I feel like we've built this big platform of. How you use the scientific method, how you work review, iterate, build upon. And what's really cool is that even though Isaac Newton was famously not great with people, he was collaborating with Haley. He was collaborating with David Gregory. Now we could turn to another thing that we have learned, not only from him and Einstein can't we can go to the second big aha that we can take from the world of Isaac Newton.
That's right. We've got a great, just like we were breaking down these examples and trying to put it into a bit of practice, Mike putting on our, so Isaac Newton weeks and trying to imagine ourselves living a life a little bit like Newton, we've actually got a great clip from it is Shuk who did exactly this Mike, he spent a day living the routine of sir Isaac Newton to specifically learn about deadlines and accountability.
So let's hear from it is SHA talk to us about targets and deadlines. This
challenge completely beat out. My expectations goes to show that whatever perceived ideas you had about your plans half the times, they're not realistic enough. And if you wanna get a realistic idea, the only way you can do that is by actually testing it out by doing it.
Now, I'm not sure if sir, Isaac Newton's work ethic followed the same kind of deadline and accountability. There's frankly not much known about his work ethic, except for the hours he worked and how he worked. But he consistently worked 18 hours a day and clearly accomplished a lot. And that's cool that I did that for one day.
I'm not sure how close I am to por Isaac Newton and his routine, but I really wanted to use deadlines to see as a measure of how much I can accomplish within a given day, especially a particular 18 hour timeframe. Now, despite being behind the deadline, I'm pretty freaking pleased that I was able to pull off two complete polished.
All in one day. Now from this experiment, I've learned that deadlines in combination with accountability does wonders. It kicks your procrastination in the butt. When you know that you have a deadline, which is real, and when it has consequences, it works like a charm. Secondly, because of deadlines and accountability, all my fears about not being able to focus, wanting to rest, seek pleasure, all those didn't bother me at all.
Thirdly, I realized that you can never know how realistic your plan is until if you actually test it out by doing it and see how much time it actually takes to do something. Also, the fourth realization is that it's safe. You say you can pull off 18 hours of work. As long as there's a deadline attached for somebody like me, who has barely ever pulled off all nighter, I was actually pretty happy and pretty proud that I was able to do that.
But if you don't believe me, ask the college students who pull off Allnighters all the time, they'll tell you that working 88 hours a. Sometimes is not a big deal doing it consistently is however, another challenge.
Bit of background here during lockdown on which lock do you remember which lockdown it was mark historically?
Was it the, which was it a plague? Was it the black plague that actually made him housebound for several
years? So Isaac Newton was housebound for the great plague mark. Yeah. So not only did he accomplish all these incredible achievements, he also just had. Live through this tiny little thing called the great play at hit Europe,
Which just to put things in perspective with our recent COVID Del I believe historically it was like one third of the world's population died.
So pretty epic. My point here though, is he was able to turn, that quarantine into something, he was there for two or three years. This is where he famously had the apple drop moment that we all know about. But isn't it interesting, there are definitely, our advisory here is that it is not a sustainable way of working, 18 hours a day Newton famously did for a lot of his career and it has all sorts of health side effects.
But when the time comes to go deep and do the work, it is more than possible. And there are times I experience all the time, mark, where I just need to unleash yes, I can consistently chip away at something, but I feel like there are moments where in fact I will do and have to do an 18 hour day to, to really break the back of a big piece of work and assignment.
And it's not just because it's due, but I also feel like it's because I am ready to break it apart. Like it's if I stop the switching costs and then ramping back up again, I just don't wanna lose the momentum. And so I think here, what we are seeing is this idea of focus and deep work, but sometimes being prepared to go above and beyond in service to your work.
And I think that is a huge lesson to take from Newton. What do
you think, Matt? Yeah I like where you are going with the reference to flow with Mihi. See cheek sent Mihi where I think you're, we are hearing from Isaac with regards to the time he spent let's call it in isolation to use the modern term of reference spent in isolation during the years of the great plague, which even Isaac said was some of the most fruitful discoveries he ever had because he was able to be absent from others and do that deep work.
And I think it's actually like you were just saying, getting into a flow. Set of mind and being able to work on something diligently, maybe without distractions, as we are all experiencing day to day, and being able to get into that deep work of Cal Newport and getting the work done is exactly what we are hearing from this little case study from it SHA he's challenging himself to work diligently for a set period of time.
He's diving in, he's giving in a go and that certainly benefited Newton. Newton's a great case study here for that achievements that come from being focused from. Stepping away from distractions, maybe even being diligent with your own time and setting those deadlines. Giving yourself a target to work through and towards so that you don't, fall into that.
I dunno about you might, but I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking, oh I really need to start this thing. Maybe today isn't the right day. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. and the truth is any day would probably work if I set the right boundaries around my distractions. Yes. Around my day of time, allocation of time, how long I'm gonna give myself to do it because you can.
And I think what, that's, what we're hearing here almost encourage or direct your focus towards achieving some kind of objective or vision. And yeah it comes from getting yourself, at least for me into a set. Where a set moment where I'm either at my desk, maybe I'm standing, so that's gonna help me keep focused.
, I've closed the blinds. I've turned on all of the, do not disturb modes. The dog's been walked, I've got a cup of hot water, whatever it is, then I can get into that frame of mind. Yeah. And that flow state is just so valuable. Doesn't it? So
let's build on that in two ways. Like for me, I think there's like your daily habit routine that gives you a fighting chance.
And then there's those moments where you go above and beyond as far as daily routine, the one thing you can do to give yourself a fighting chance of, really producing, I think. Starts with getting up early. If there was anything that helped getting up early, it's getting to bed early . Yeah,
exactly.
I think I was very much victim of, staying up late another episode on Netflix. And that catches up with you because apart from not being able to wake up early, you're always if you track your sleep with any sort of biometrics, you'll becomes painfully aware of how early in fact you do need to get to bed.
Technically let's just assume that we're all somewhere on the average of needing eight hours sleep. If you wanna be up at six, you need to get into bed and be wait for this to be asleep. At 10. So therefore knowing myself a little bit, I need to be in bed by nine 30, quarter to 10, if I wanna be in bed asleep at 10.
So I can wake at six. That's just the kind of painful reality of how scarce time really is.
Isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's for me, my time of best focus or at, I can't remember the name for Mike circadian rhythm is when you're going to sleep. Isn't it?
No. Circadian rhythm is broader.
Still. It is knowing when you should sleep naturally and wa naturally and feel at your best. It's not just your bedtime, but the broader thing, but you're right.
Yeah. And for me, I think when I do get into a great pattern for sleeping, I do feel incredibly more focused for the days after. Ah, because there's no deficit.
Yes. Remember the days of having to do lots of international travel and so on. I do believe that my productivity and focus would've gone down from a lack of sleep because my body is always in that sort of deficit mode. And I think that can be helpful because it can drive. As we've learned in previous shows, it can drive more of a flow mindset if you are in a bit of a deficit from either food or otherwise.
But for me, yeah, with regards to sleep, it's all about getting up early because then I can. Wake up naturally. , I'm not forced into emails as soon as I wake up, if I'm waking up early and by early, I'm saying, there are days Mike during the week. I'll wake up at five maybe to not necessarily copy Robin Sharma with the 5:00 AM club, but in order to try and maximize that day, it's quite rare.
I'm gonna be honest with you, but when I do have to force myself up at that time. It's pretty liberating. It is. It's quite an exciting, an energetic time of the day, actually. And by the time, eight or nine rolls in, you think, oh, I've accomplished so much.
The interesting thing there is like those mornings where it's still dark and everyone else is asleep, but you are up, they ju you just feel like you're ahead of the game.
you do? Don't you, you just got like this big head start, so let's just bring it home by talking a little bit about those moments where you have to go deep and maybe go above and beyond. Even. I think that if you have practiced the first thing, which is great sleeping PA up early in the morning, I think the next thing you can do is you can target those moments where you're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go big on getting this huge piece of work done.
And, one of the things you can do is you can say to friends and family, Hey, I'm gonna work till 10 at night on this night. So I'm gonna try and get in an extra four hours into my Workday or five hours into my Workday. Often, those, all nighters are thrust upon us because it's the night before, but it totally changes the game when you determine it when you're like no, I wanna have this finished in a couple of weeks.
So this week on Thursday, I'm gonna work up until 10. Then I'll get through Friday. And if I've bit short on sleep, I can catch up over the weekend. That is you taking control of your circumstances rather than getting to the day before everything's due and game. I think I'm gonna have to work through the whole night, which I have done many a time.
And so I'm by no means, Mark's saying I'm perfect here, but I think you changed the game when you deploy your resources at your will rather than circumstances forcing you to,
right? Yeah. I do agree with that for sure. If I'm making the conscious decision and taking ownership, And I feel empowered with that decision.
Hey, it's really good that I'm doing this work and that's okay. I've come to terms with it. I'm pleased my work ethic as well as the output will be far greater than if I'm thinking, oh, I really don't wanna have to do it. And it really it's just mindset.
Isn't it. There are sometimes where I dedicate a few hours on the weekend just to get that work done because maybe I don't want to do, I don't wanna break the sleep routine during the work week, so I will get ahead of things on the weekend, those little tactical catchups or get in fronts work really well.
Okay, mark. So I think let's just pause here. We have grabbed this idea of huge sessions of deep work, a huge theme in not only Newton, but Einstein as well. And putting on top of that, how they thought, and in particular, what Newton's saying is the scientific method, questions, hypothesis tested with real data reflection, go again and again.
And that's why in the matter of wait for it three short months. He produced 11 pages that defined physics and modern science. That's all there for the taking and Newton did this with a similar pattern to a guy called Einstein. Didn't he?
Yeah, that's right. I think there's such a wealth of information and habits we can learn from both of these incredibly classic and important thinkers.
And the truth is Mike. We found a bit of a slam dunk on this outro clip from none other than Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Again, who quite Handly for you and I, as well as our listeners and members is about to help us compare Einstein versus Newton.
Isaac Newton, my man. Okay. No, you're a fan. Just to be clear.
he's my man, cuz he like discovered the laws of optics and the laws of motion and the laws of gravity and like practically on a dare. He. Invents integral and differential calculus. Then he turned 26. Okay. so are we done here with that? Are we, do I have agreement here? All right. So he comes up with his laws of motion and laws of gravity, and they applied to everything he had ever seen or measured.
Although the fastest anyone had ever moved might have been a galloping horse in his day, but it explained the moon going around the earth and the earth going around the sun. And it would later explain Jupiter's moons going around Jupiter. So it wasn't just a law of things that went around the sun. It appeared to be universal in the literal use of that term, as opposed to how that word is used.
So often in our culture, miss universe. She's MIS earthed, please. All right. okay.
So what we later learned as our. Methods and tools become more and more precise. I have to slip something in. Can I slip something? Okay. So watch what happens. So we apply Newton's laws and we apply them to oh, William Hersel discovers planet Uranus by accident. Okay. Uranus says the planet just beyond Saturn.
So by accident, and this is after Newton's laws are gravity are published. So now we're tracking the orbit of Uranus. You said, now this is not following Newton's laws. It's got some deviation. So maybe we found the limits, the distance limit over which Newton's laws would apply. That'd be interesting.
. But other people said the Newton was so badass, it must work. Okay. Even there. So instead of suggesting that his law was failing, clever, people said maybe his law applies, but there's yet another planet out there that we've yet to discover whose gravity is tugging on it. And we did not include that in our calculations.
So let's do the math and ask where must there be a planet of what mass to create the deviation that we measure. And those calculations were done and they were published and it observatory in Germany got hold of those calculations. And they looked in the exact spot of the sky that the calculation said Neptune was waiting to be discovered right there.
It was a triumph of Newton's laws. and so this gives us confidence. We're not just pulling this out, we calculate this and the observations, show it. So now watch what happens. We have better and better measurements. And we find out Newton's law is failing. Mercury orbit is not following what it should.
That's the closest planet to the sun. We've been down that path before just throw in another planet that we can't see and that'll fix it. so thus was introduced planet Vulcan. This would be a planet, very close to the sun. So closer to be hard to see it would be lost in the glare. And so there was the hunt for Vulcan.
No one found it, but we knew it had to be there. Cause that's the same problem. As the discovery of Neptune, Einstein comes along, comes up with his theory of motion and his theory of gravity, the special and general theory of relativity out of those two theories, which. Are corrections to Newton's laws in these extreme regimes.
If you're near the sun has very strong gravity. If you're moving around and that's strong force of gravity, Newton's laws begin to fail and no one knew this and you look at Einstein's laws and he says, mercury orbit will not follow Newton's laws. It'll follow this other path, find out. And it exactly explained the deviations of mercury.
And so people say, oh, see scientists. We thought this was right. And now we all huddle around this thing. That's right. No, that is not how it works. Since 19, since 1600 onward. The way it works is if you have an experimentally determined result and it's verified and double checked and triple checked.
That will not later be shown to be false. What you can find is a deeper understanding of the world that Enclos that understanding. And that's what happened with Einstein's theories of motion and gravity. If you put in low speeds and low gravity in the equations, they've become Newton's equations.
So Newton's universe is a subset and accurately describes subset of a larger universe that Einstein has described. And even with Einstein, his equations, can't take us to the center of a black hole, the singularity that's there, the singularity at the beginning of the universe, we know now that his theories fail, they blow up on the page.
So we have a whole frontier of science, the strength theorists you've heard of them, the strength theorists they're. We got top people working on this to try to extend Einstein's laws into an even bigger regime. That can then explain everything that's in our universe, not most things.
How cool is that to think that Einstein could come along and build upon what Newton had done, both who had that scientific method?
Some 200 years later, I think that is so exciting to hear two of our favorite moonshots classics and how their work could spend 400 years and come together. And to further how we see science, physics, gravity. I mean that one's a bit of a brain melter, isn't it? Matt?
Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I really like that clip apart from educating me a little bit on the scientific method, as well as some of the discoveries we have around Vulcan, which is a hypo theorized planet, which I didn't know about either.
I think the key lessons that I'm appreciating from that clip is that fact of Einstein coming along much later appear. He was probably influenced perhaps inspired by the work of, in of Isaac Newton. And we can understand that the science scientists share. Knowledge, they repeatedly can get better and build upon their own knowledge and skills through working together, looking at the work of others.
And this idea of community improvement, I think, is what I'm really hearing from that. It's that verification and validation perhaps done by your peers, by a colleague, by somebody else. And that's, what's improving the work. And I love this idea that we all have the ability to improve on the work that others have, if we're equally open to receiving feedback.
And being helped along the way. Oh yeah. I think that's the key lesson for me here. It's not that necessarily, obviously Isaac Newton did all the work himself. He went out, he had that break and in the great plague and was able to find focus. But what's interesting for me is these items, these ideas, these concepts.
I never finished. They continually build and the interest, again, compounds as each new thinker, new way of work, new scientific ideas. They can build upon them and validate and verify them continually. And I love this idea of constantly evolving
knowledge. Yeah. It's somewhat ironic that even Newton who was famously antisocial did share his work.
Yes, exactly. With Hallie and others, but also by codifying that work, writing it down, it gave Einstein something to build upon and, look at the outcome. It's really amazing. It's so funny to think that we can go back and study someone from 400 years ago and discover all these things.
What's the one thing that stood out for you.
Oh, it's a good question, Mike. I think for me, it really comes down to the hacks and the habits, or forcing yourself into a moment of trying to get the work done. So I love the little clip that we heard with somebody living a life of Isaac Newton for 18 hours a day.
I think this idea of focus of preparation as well as just application of hard work in order to try and strive towards your goal really aligns with what I've been learning recently on the moonshot show. What about you? What's the key lesson or takeaway that you are. Inputting into your brain post Isaac Newton.
He wrote the prince Sipe Mathematica and blew everyone's brains with this work. But what was really cool was to listen to those two historian and scientific types, Maggie and Thomas, who actually had version 2.2, 2.0 of that document. The fact that he was working on a next iteration, like he wasn't satisfied.
He was like no, I got another version coming. Yeah, I think we should all be writing our own manuscripts. I think it's such a great way to capture thinking and it's never done. Continue to revise to edit, refine to iterate is this idea is of continuously working on something. I love.
Fantastic. Amazing.
As you've already said that we can still learn from these thinkers over 400 years later. Mike, the moonshot show will just keep on going indefinitely. Won't it? Yeah. Go further back in
time. it makes me think. All right. We're gonna have to build a long list of future episodes to get 400 years out.
Mark. Awesome. Thank you so much for stepping back in the time machine and ironically bringing us right back to today and thank you to you, our listeners and our members, too. It has been wonderful to share this journey into episode 199 with the work and the thinking and the habits of Isaac Newton.
Where did this begin? It really did begin with my man as Neil deGrasse, Tyson would say, Mr. Sir, Isaac Newton and his epic work of the Principe Mathematica to which he didn't just guess the answer. He went away for three months and he came back with 11 day 11 pages, which defined not only modern physics, but science itself.
And he's always improving because he had version two on the way as well. And how did he do all this deadlines and accountability? He got things done. He locked the door, he got rid of distractions and he worked. And by sharing that work with the world, he not only transformed and really brought magic to the 17 hundreds.
He laid the foundation for Einstein to do his work, to take his Newtonian physics one step further. So there you have it. It is about collaboration, hard work and focus and to share your work. So whilst we have definitely been in the historical time machine, we have learned things that we can do today.
We are learning out loud together. We are becoming the best versions of ourselves, and that's what we are all about here in the time machine, the moonshots podcast, that's a wrap.