Isaac Newton

Every science classroom covers the same Isaac Newton. The three laws of motion. The Principia. The apple. What almost nobody covers is what Newton did for the last thirty years of his life. He ran the Royal Mint. He rebuilt England's currency during a national crisis. He personally investigated and prosecuted counterfeiters - conducting more than a hundred cross-examinations, building networks of informants across London's criminal underworld, and sending men to the gallows. His most famous case was a prolonged, high-stakes pursuit of William Chaloner, the most notorious counterfeiter in England, who made the fatal mistake of publicly accusing Newton of incompetence. This is not a different Newton. It is the same exacting, rigorous, intolerant-of-error mind that produced the laws of motion - applied to an entirely different kind of problem.