Factoid corner
William Shatner was a (non-flying) Karamazov Brother.
Isaac Newton fought crime.
As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task. Disguised as an habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.
Zachary Taylor's adventures beyond the grave:
Shortly after breaking ground for the Washington Monument on July 4, 1850, President Zachary Taylor, a hero of the Mexican War, fell ill. When he died suddenly a few days later, the cause was listed as gastroenteritis--inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Some historians suspected that Taylor's death may have had other causes, and in 1991 one convinced Taylor's descendants that the president might have suffered arsenic poisoning. As a result, Taylor's remains were exhumed from a cemetery in Louisville and Kentucky's medical examiner brought samples of hair and fingernail tissue to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for study.
Re: Isaac Newton - Have you read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle? Newton is a key character, and his investigation of counterfeiting (as I recall, it has been a while) figured strongly in the plot. I realize it is a fictionalized account, but I assumed Stephenson based it on something.
Posted by Doug G.
on
April 30 2009 01:18
When I read that bit in Wikipedia, I thought "I should blog that", also, "This is probably old hat for anyone who's read the Baroque Cycle."
I've read the first part of the first book. Someday I'll take another stab at it.
Posted by Zed
on
April 30 2009 07:36
lol, I should have figured.
Personally, I'd recommend you use the time to read Anathem instead. But you've probably already read that already as well. :) Though to get to the part I'm thinking of, where Newton is running around thinking madly about gold, is quite late in the Cycle as I recall.
Posted by Doug G.
on
May 2 2009 02:37