Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest ScientistIn 1695, Isaac Newton--already renowned as the greatest mind of his age--made a surprising career change. He left quiet Cambridge, where he had lived for thirty years and made his earth-shattering discoveries, and moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty’s Mint.Newton was preceded to the city by a genius of another kind, the budding criminal William Chaloner. Thanks to his preternatural skills as a counterfeiter, Chaloner was rapidly rising in London’s highly competitive underworld, at a time when organized law enforcement was all but unknown and money in the modern sense was just coming into being. Then he crossed paths with the formidable new warden. In the courts and streets of London--and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by the ideas Newton himself had set in motion--the two played out an epic game of cat and mouse. |
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Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's ... Thomas Levenson No preview available - 2010 |
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alchemical Bank of England Boyle Boyle's Cambridge cash Chaloner's clipping coinage coiners coins Correspondence counterfeiting court coyning crime criminal currency Davis death deposition document early Edmond Halley English face Fatio de Duillier force gold gravity guineas Guzman Redivivus Halley History Holloway Humphrey Newton Ibid investigation Isaac Newton John Conduitt John Craig John Locke jury Keynes King knew later least letter Locke's London loner mathematical matter ment metal mills Ming-hsun Mint's months motion Neale Never at Rest Newgate Newton to John Newton wrote Nicholas Fatio offered Old Bailey paper Parliament Pepys pistoles plate Principia prison produced recoinage Recoinage of 1696 reported Richard Westfall Robert Boyle Robert Hooke Royal Mint Royal Society Samuel Pepys shillings silver testimony Thomas Carter Thomas Holloway tion told took trade Treasury trial Trinity turned Vernon Warden weeks William Chaloner William Stukeley witnesses