>Newton spent as much time on alchemy as he did physics

I don't think that was an act of unbrilliance. It just didn't happen to work out.

> It just didn't happen to work out.

Nobody is privy to the full content of Newton's mind and his mental processes. One could also argue that his metaphysical preoccupations positively influenced his scientific accomplishments. Heck, at a meta level, is not Newtonian Physics intellectual 'Gold' end result of processing the 'Lead' in his head? That's alchemy.

I mean splitting and fusing atomic nuclei is something that happens all the time. Hard to claim he was wrong, just a few orders of magnitude off on the energy required to do it.

He also tried his hand at investing, without much success:

https://www.businessinsider.com/isaac-newton-lost-a-fortune-...

Newton also lost huge sums of money investing poorly. Which is quite literally the same thing as now.

Was it really alchemy or proto-chemistry? After all Newton lived in time when chemistry was only starting to be defined. And it took quite a while to come up with proper ideas.