Reading about Newton (who lived around that same time), he seems like a prototypical science geek, same as many geeks today. Robert Hooke too.

It seems like this particular type of individual is usually involved in creative work that pushes boundaries. But this is no surprise for anyone hanging around tech powerhouses like the Silicon Valley.

Newton's career is a splendid example of the truth being stranger than fiction - when he moved onto the Royal Mint not only did he introduce significant innovations (milled edges on coins) but also went undercover to gather evidence against counterfeiters and then also ran the prosections of accused in court:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint

I'd love to see a TV adaptation of the Baroque Cycle keeping Newton as one of the main characters (there must be material there for a 100 or so shows).

Newton has been romanticized a bit by the math/science community.

The man was amazing, but thinking of him in our context of modern science/geekery is misleading.

That's true - modern scientists or geeks probably wouldn't stick a needle down the side of their eye to see what happened to their vision:

http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/...

That... that makes me feel...

shudder

How about Robert Hooke drinking mercury. You know, for science.

http://www.strangescience.net/hooke.htm

> It may have been in response to the constant pressure from the society (and himself) that the experimentalist Hooke performed plenty of experiments on his own body. Many of his adventures in self-experimentation were dangerous; almost all of them were pretty disgusting. At various times, he medicated himself with botanical purgatives, botanical emetics, mercury, steel filings, tobacco, absinthe, and mineral water so foul that he found ammonium chloride preferable to it. Hooke obsessed over getting a good night's sleep and clearing out his lethargic digestive system. He often found his home remedies violently effective. He authored a recipe for turning pee into phosphorus salts, including an intermediate step of letting the effluvia sit "till it putrify and breed Worms."

And don't forget the occasional incredible intellectual flakiness - Newton has his Biblical theology & dating the apocalypse, we have fad diets...

And they were mostly white men, too!

For a group that has no photo or civil names, and where people ever mention their gender or race, I have the feeling HN is getting a lot of criticisms. But then again, saying that is missing the point that people who argue about those things tend to define discrimination as not mentioning those, while they generally base their career and speaking platform on their gender and race.

Yes, but not sure of your point. HN is diverse compared to 17th c. London coffeehouses.

The idea of a social coffee-house was developed in the Arab world: http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Coffeehouses-Beverage-Universit...