On purpose

[Mark Knowles]

Hi, Mark:

As for Newton and alchemy, you must admit that it is equally likely that maybe he just wanted to turn lead into gold.  Or, maybe on a more personal level, be the one recognized as who finally did it.

And given that it just wasn’t possible, or even derivable, at the level of knowledge then - even for a mind such as his - this resulted in a lot of writing.

We will never know.  But in light of the general need for practicality of the arts at the time discussed by Koen these seem like more likely motivations to me than a pleasure or solely curiosity based motivation.  I wouldn’t let the now known futility of it all color your interpretation of why Newton studied alchemy.

Of course, it is possible that he was looking for financial gain or status from his research.

When you say "We will never know", he must have written something about his motivations. Of course, he may not have written the truth. But can we not compare Newton's motivations with those of more modern scientists?

I don't think the futility of it is a factor. I just mentioned alchemy as it is more comparable to the subject of the Voynich than Maths or Physics. It seems to me that the Voynich is something like a scientific text, albeit clearly flawed. And scientists are not solely motivated by financial reward in my opinion.

I am still dubious of the notion that the motivations of medieval people were so very different from ours today.