The law of the corrupted coin. The legend of the fallen apple was invented by Isaac Newton for his niece He was always a strange person

25.12.2019 at 14:06 · VeraSchegoleva · 60

Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in Lincolnshire, UK. This amazing man was a physicist, philosopher, inventor, alchemist and mathematician. Newton was the author of the book Philosophiae Naturalis Princiiaathematica, better known as Principia, in which he described the law of universal gravitation and laid the foundations of classical mechanics through the laws that bear his name.

Among his other scientific discoveries are works on the nature of light and optics (presented mainly in his work "Optics" and " Development of mathematical calculus“). Newton was the first to prove that the laws of nature governing the movement on and the laws governing the movement of celestial bodies are the same. He is often called the greatest scientist of all times and peoples, and his work is the culmination of the scientific revolution.

We bring to your attention a list of 10 interesting facts about Isaac Newton: a biography of the scientist and stories from his life and scientific activities. Great discoveries of a talented inventor.

10. Born prematurely

Isaac Newton was born on January 4 of the Gregorian calendar (which was introduced by England some time after other countries) about 13 weeks earlier than expected. As a child, he was too small, so he could not survive. He needed too much care, and for this reason he became a special person.

Being prone to illness, he spent most of his childhood at home, but this motivated him to develop his intellect and carry out his scientific research.

9. The anecdote about how the apple fell on Newton's head never actually happened.

We all know legend that Newton was lying under an apple tree when one of the fruits fell from the tree and hit him on the head, illuminating the scientist and motivating him to develop a theory about the force of gravity of the Earth. Such a story is just someone's fantasy and has nothing to do with what happened in reality.

Newton noted that he saw how an apple fell out of his window, but before that he had already considered the possibility of creating an element that carried out such an interaction between objects. The formulation of the law of universal gravitation could not be a random event, because it took a lot of time and effort to implement it.

8. The scientist stuttered

Perhaps this was due to his difficult childhood, but it is known for certain that Newton developed a stutter that accompanied him for most of his life. None of his contemporaries condemned him for this feature, and it did not affect his communication with people and position in society.

7. He believed in his exceptional mission

Newton was a very religious man, literally obsessed with biblical texts. There is a version that it was precisely because of his ardent faith in God that the scientist became a member of the Masonic society. He deeply studied the Gospel and wrote a lot on this subject. He even calculated the exact date of the death of Jesus Christ (April 3). According to Isaac and his analysis of the Bible, the Last Judgment will come in 2060. The scholar also thought that God had chosen him directly to interpret a religious book..

6. The dog ruined 20 years of work

This is half the truth, which cannot be verified with reliable sources. While some claim Newton had a dog, others say the animal came in through the window and dropped a lit candle that completely burned down his lab, destroying 20 years of research the scientist had stored in that room.

5. Came up with a way to counter counterfeiters

In Newton's time, the value of coins was equal to the amount of precious metal they contained. Because of this, there was an acute problem - scammers cut off small fragments of metal from the edges to make new coins from them.

The way out of this situation was found by Isaac Newton. His advice to the authorities was very simple - make small lines on the edges of the coins, because of which the cut edges will immediately catch the eye. This part of the coins is processed in the same way at the present time and is called edge.

4. He was an alchemist

Alchemy is a pseudo-science practiced mainly in the Eastern world and focuses on the purification and refinement of objects through various chemical processes.

Although Newton's name is associated with official science such as physics, at first, experimenting with nature, the Englishman tried to create gold from other materials, and although he wrote several books on the subject, none of them were published, since it was illegal at the time to create silver and gold using alchemy.

3. He died a virgin

Perhaps this is one of the least significant data compared to Newton's priceless scientific legacy, but there are suspicions that due to his strange habits, obsession with various ideas and eccentricity he has never had a romantic or sexual relationship with other women.

He did not marry and historians do not have any reliable data on any love affairs of Isaac Newton. Perhaps this is due to his ardent religiosity. It is also likely that his passion for science and the search for truth absorbed all the scientist's time, and there was no time or energy left for personal life.

In addition, historians and biographers have a theory that the scientist, because of his zealous attitude towards religion, considered carnal relations base, interfering with intellectual development. It is known that in his youth he had tender feelings for his childhood friend and neighbor, with whom he maintained warm relations until the end of his life and even sometimes helped her with money.

2. He has always been a strange person

There is an inevitable mystery in the great minds of history. We're trying to understand them so we can get an idea of ​​how they got so great. We think that if we understand them, we will be like them, but the truth is that we are far from that.

According to another eminent modern scientist, Carl Sagan, Newton “ concerned with petty matters such as knowledge, such as whether light is a substance or an accident“, but these are just small illustrations of the bizarre personality of a physicist. Isaac performed dangerous experiments on his own body to satisfy his curiosity, and his obsessions frightened those around him.

At the same time, the scientist had a very quarrelsome character. We will not delve into the full history of his many quarrels, but Newton managed to ruin relations with a whole galaxy of famous and respected contemporaries: from Leibniz to Robert Hooke. They say that it was through the efforts of the physicist that, after the death of the latter, his only lifetime portrait was destroyed, so to this day we do not know what this outstanding scientist looked like. Once Newton managed to enter into open conflict with King James II.

And here is what Isaac Newton himself thought of himself, who, judging by the inscription on his monument at Trinity College, “ surpassed the mind of all people living on Earth»: « I have no idea how the world perceives me, but to myself I imagine myself only a boy playing on the seashore, who amuses himself by sometimes finding a pebble more colorful than others, or an interesting shell, while the vast and vast ocean of truth spreads out in front of me, remaining undisturbed».

1. Member of the House of Lords

Being a member of the House of Lords for a long time of his life, Newton always attended its meetings, but during this time he never made a speech. The only time he took the floor, the scientist only asked to close the window so that there was no draft.

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Chapter Thirteen

About minting coins

Newton partly lost interest in the moon, for he became preoccupied with more earthly matters. Charles Montagu, his friend and former classmate from Cambridge, appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, received enormous opportunities for patronage. Why shouldn't Newton use them? It is only fair and natural for the most eminent mathematician of the age to play some part in the management of the national economy. And soon rumors spread that he might be given a position at the London Mint - rumors, from which he only brushed aside. But then, in the spring of 1696, Montagu did offer Newton the position of Keeper of the Mint. He instantly agreed and in the next month he moved from Cambridge to London - without any heartfelt farewell speeches. He probably left hastily, because after his death, the rooms of the college where he lived were shown to visitors "in kind, as if he still lives in them."

It seems that he was terribly tired of both Cambridge and colleagues. Although he retained the position of Trinity council member and Lucasian professor of mathematics for another five years, during this period he rarely returned to his university, each time for only three or four days. In the old days, he needed to work in solitude somewhere in the wilderness, away from the big city, but the days of concentrated intellectual pursuits are long gone. He never sought out the company of other scientists, but it seems that his mind was spurred on by meetings of the Royal Society of London. Even his fellow alchemists were easier to find in the capital than in the provinces: before Newton accepted a position at the Mint, he was visited by a mysterious “Londoner” who consulted on a certain “menstruum”, a liquid that dissolves all metals. Their conversations continued for two days. In other words, London attracted the ambitious Newton like a magnet.

Newton began work at the Mint at the height of the economic crisis that raged in the country. Last autumn he, along with other authorities of the time, wrote a short article entitled "On the Improvement of the English Coin." The problem was simple: there were too many hand-made silver coins in circulation, underweight, with a lower silver content, and the recent introduction of coins that were minted on machine tools did little to improve the situation. Approximately 95% of the money in circulation was counterfeit or containing insufficient amounts of silver. The authorities decided that a massive release of new coins was needed, while the old handmade coins should be completely withdrawn from circulation. This plan was not initiated by Newton, but it was Newton who was chosen to carry it out. Apparently, the post of keeper of the Mint was offered to the scientist as a sinecure. Montague assured: "There is not much to do, and you can do it when you can find time." But Newton, with his character, did everything with full dedication, strictly and purposefully. Montagu later admitted that he would not have been able to change the coins without his help.

Newton served at the Mint until the end of his life. His scientific activity, in fact, ended shortly after he left for London, but his nature and temperament remained the same. Having become the custodian of the Mint, he set to work with full consciousness of his responsibility and even made it his duty to get acquainted with the smallest details of the functioning of the institution entrusted to him, master all the then economic theories and learn the history of minting money. Moreover, he studied all sorts of royal decrees about the Mint issued over the past two centuries. Everything he touched in his work acquired order and regularity. That is why he became, among other things, also a good administrator, who knows firsthand all the facets of the work entrusted to him. In particular, as an alchemist, he understood metallurgical subtleties, and besides, he was very demanding of his subordinates. In his notebook, he noted: “Two rolling mills with 4 masters, 12 horses, 2 grooms, 3 carvers, 2 straighteners, 8 sorters, one nailer, three hardeners, two stampers, two presses with fourteen workers are capable of producing more than 3,000 pounds per day. coins." You can be sure that he told the straighteners and cutters what performance he expected from them.

Such a conscientious and energetic person would inevitably come into conflict with his superiors. The manager of the Mint was then Thomas Neal, whom Newton wrote of as "an indebted spender who managed to get his post through obscure pursuits." Neil was, in essence, a worthless careerist, an incompetent official who used his official position for personal enrichment. In this he did not differ from many other "public servants" of that time. But Newton himself was made from a different material. He has already managed to find order and certainty in the universal chaos, to say nothing of the small little world of the Mint! And so Newton began to gradually increase his powers of authority (as well as his salary), at the same time taking control of all the affairs that were conducted at the Mint and which were then carried out by about five hundred workers. Such was his nature: he liked to dominate and command.

The issue of new coins for the whole country was, of course, not very smooth. In the first months, even before the arrival of Newton, there were not enough coins, and the machines worked from four in the morning until midnight. Five months after he took office, these presses produced £150,000 worth of silver coins weekly. Newton's duties as custodian also included tracking down and capturing private coiners and counterfeiters. In fact, he became something of a detective, investigating the atrocities of the "spankers", as they were then called. It was a thankless job, often hampered by the courts' understandable reluctance to rely on paid informants. In one of his letters to the Treasury, he complained that "such denigration and humiliation of my agents and witnesses casts a shadow on me, making it difficult for me to act, because I have to restore the shaken confidence in me." He also complained about the slanderous intrigues of the "Newgate Coin Solicitors" - a subtle allusion to the company to which he was now forced to turn for professional support.

He became an exemplary detective, which is to be expected from a man who conducted successful research in the cosmic realms. He pursued prey relentlessly and ruthlessly. Together with his employees, he raided the homes of counterfeiters, interrogated them himself, and then visited them in the cells of Newgate Prison and in all sorts of other places. As another official remarked, "he considered all the information that we had previously burned whole boxes, and visited all the courts in the cases of these intruders." His official expenses included spending on "taverns and hiring carriages, as well as visiting prisons and other places of punishment for minters of illegal coinage." He recruited agents in eleven countries to track down the perpetrators, and himself became a justice of the peace in the counties around London to back up his own efforts.

Not surprisingly, the spankers began to complain about Newton; his excessive zeal and perseverance aroused in them a special disgust. One such counterfeiter was reported to have stated that "the keeper of the Mint is up in arms against the paddlers and, damn it, I should have been free [out of Newgate] a long time ago if it weren't for him." Another prisoner who got caught in Newton's net proclaimed: "The Keeper of the Mint is a real swindler, and if King James returned, he would definitely shoot this swindler." To which his cellmate replied: “Damn it, even though I don’t know him, now I’ll deal with this scoundrel if I can get to him.” William Chaloner, one of the most famous counterfeiters, claimed that he intended to "chase the old guardian dog for the rest of his life."

Newton was lucky: Chaloner was not destined for a long life, three months later he was "taken on a cart" to Tyburn - there the scaffold was waiting for him. Perhaps Newton was particularly pleased with this outcome, since before that Chaloner had informed a parliamentary commission that he knew a much more suitable method of coinage than Newton's, and even suggested that he, Chaloner, be appointed chief inspector of the Mint. The commission ordered Newton to study Chaloner's methods, to which Newton responded with a vehement refusal: this would mean giving the counterfeiter the secrets of the Mint. In the end, Newton won. Apparently, he pursued these minters as if they were a danger to him personally. But how could there be any doubt that he would resolutely and consistently carry out any work entrusted to him?

It's hard to imagine the author Principia Mathematica, the greatest scientist of his era, walking along the stone corridors of Newgate prison or listening to the confessions of those condemned to death (counterfeiting was punishable by hanging); it seems that these pictures are more for a novelist than for a biographer. But the life of an extraordinary person is often full of extraordinary contradictions. Or maybe there are no special contradictions here? The image of a secretive and maniacally purposeful thinker, an adept of alchemy, a man who had practically no friends, is not so far from the image of a detective zealously interrogating those who are about to be hanged on the gallows. And in that and in another period of Newton's life - the same intensity of thought, deep concentration on the task.

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ECONOMIC HISTORY

UDC 330.8+336.02 DOI: 10.24411/2071-6435-2018-10022

Isaac Newton as financial official

This article examines the activities of Isaac Newton as a government financial official, first as the Royal Warden of the Mint of England, and later as the Director of the Mint. It is shown that Newton reformed the monetary system of England in three directions: he successfully carried out the Great Recoining, proposed a bimetallic standard system instead of the silver standard that existed before him, and changed the nature of financial settlements within the country. Separately, Newton's activities as the crown's chief prosecutor for financial crimes are mentioned.

Newton saw the main threat to the finances of England in the issuance of money without a corrugated edge, which opened the way for the activity of counterfeiters. It is shown that in the year of his appointment to a position at the Mint (in 1696), Newton immediately insisted that all the cut silver coin be withdrawn from circulation and replaced with a new one, minted on machines according to innovative patterns using a very complex edging on the edge. such edging was very difficult to forge in underground workshops, so trimming became almost impossible. This measure contributed to the stabilization of the situation with silver money in England.

Key words: Newton, Mint, Bank of England, England, Treasury, pound sterling, currency theory, political economy, gold standard, silver standard, bimetallic standard, Montagu, Great Recoinage, coinage, metal money, coins

K. S. Sharov

Who is this Newton of yours? He is a tailor, spellcaster and worker at the Mint. His name is arrogance and deceit.

Jonathan Swift

Introduction

Isaac Newton is a man who managed to leave a good reputation and memory for centuries, not only in physical science and mathematics, although the majority still believes so. In addition, he was a chemist, historian, linguist, economist, jurist, a theologian of amazing depth, was an outstanding engineer, drew well, spoke fluent Latin and Greek, knew Hebrew well - Newton was a universal thinker like the great minds of the Renaissance. Just as he is little known from this side, about Newton

© K. S. Sharov, 2018

practically no one talks about him as a statesman. He did not just get a knighthood: for two terms he was a member of the House of Commons, 30 years of the Royal Warden (eng. the Warden), and later the head (eng. the Master) of the Mint of England (eng. the Royal Mint of England), as well as the Chief Prosecutor of the Crown for financial crimes.

The official exchange of documents between Isaac Newton and the Chamber of the Mint at the Treasury has been partly summarized in Bulletins of Treasury Documents. Some of them were published officially from time to time, for example, in the Report of September 21, 1717, during Newton's lifetime, in the documents of the House of Commons of March 8, 1813 and March 5, 1830, or informally, as, for example, in the books "Silver Pound by Dana Horton, Overstone's Collection of Treatises on Finance, London Political Economy Club's Selected Works on Finance, or Shaw's Selected Treatises and Papers. The Newtonian material relating to his work at the Mint, after his death in 1726, was inherited by his niece Catherine Barton and her husband John Conduitt, member of the House of Commons and Newton's successor as Director of the Mint.

The purpose of this work is to shed light on the activities of Isaac Newton as a financial official in England, who reformed the monetary system in three senses: the man who successfully carried out the Great Recoining, proposed the bimetallic standard system and changed the nature of financial settlements within the country.

Why did Newton end up at work at the Mint?

Many are really interested in the question, why did a scientist, philosopher and theologian work for a significant part of his life in a financial institution, and not in his laboratory? The explanation for this is as follows.

For a long time, Newton seems to have been completely ignored by the attention he deserves from both monarchs and their governments. As a student, Newton barely survived on bread and water, and his mother had to send him money for food. Let's not forget that at Trinity College he studied on the rights of a "scholarship" (English sizar), that is, the college paid for his education as an extremely talented and promising young man, who in return should not only receive excellent grades, but also do sometimes the most base work: wash floors, clean dishes, mow lawns and wait on rich students.

Returning to Cambridge from his native home in Lincolnshire after the outbreak of the plague of 1665-1667, Newton became a Fellow of Trinity College (Researcher Fellow), receiving £60 a year, free accommodation in a small house and a free board at the college. As a Luke-Sian professor of mathematics, he received £100 a year. Thus, before the death of his mother in 1679, Newton's income was not a very luxurious amount of 160 pounds sterling per annum, of which

was to pay a little more than 40% of taxes. Considering that the pound sterling has devalued by a factor of about 350 from 1670 to the present day, Newton's income in modern prices, net of taxes, was about £2,800 a month. Is it a lot or a little - let the reader decide for himself; if you consider that the college paid for accommodation and board, it seems to be not bad, but for "possessing a divine mind," as many contemporaries called him, probably not so much.

Monarchs and their governments did absolutely nothing to financially thank the great scientist. The only "favor" received by Newton from Charles II was permission to be a professor at Cambridge without the obligation to take holy orders. James II at one time even wanted to subject Newton to public disgrace, a kind of civil execution, and expel him from Cambridge University, along with a number of other Cambridge professors, for their opposition to the royal order to accept a Catholic monk into their ranks. In 1688, the Glorious Revolution triumphed, but despite the fact that Newton actively supported it, the new government still ignored him. Queen Mary did not want to get to know the Royal Society and its members, and King William spent too much time abroad, leading the British armies in the Nine Years' War. Although Huygens' brother, Constantine Huygens, tutor to King William, introduced Newton to him and praised him in every possible way, the presentation remained only a formality for many years.

A situation developed, which, alas, is not uncommon with talented people: the whole country praised Newton as "the greatest of geniuses", "the smartest of all living", "possessing a mind close to the divine", but the "greatest" himself had to lead a rather modest living in a small Cambridge house on an income of £160 a year, of which, as Newton himself noted, after paying taxes to the crown, sometimes more than half was spent on scientific equipment, chemicals and books. So, as we see, Newton sometimes had to live on 1-2 shillings a day, that is, in modern prices, about 500-1,000 pounds sterling a month. Newton received not a penny from the Royal Society; even his main work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, was published not at the expense of the Society, which, instead of Newton’s book, sponsored the publication of a new atlas of fish, but at the personal expense of the astronomer Edmond Halley, who received a significant inheritance from his father and a soap factory. In the end, to save money, Newton even refused the services of a housekeeper, giving this role to his niece Catherine Barton without any payment.

Newton was 54 years old, and although his classmates, much less gifted than he, were practically all already appointed to high positions in the church or public service, he still remained without any national gratitude.

At some point, John Locke, a close friend of Newton, managed to finish-

Xia Newton's appointment to the post of rector of King's College, Cambridge, but the college refused on the grounds that the rector of the college should be ordained a priest. Another good friend of Newton's, Charles Montagu, was also a Fellow of Trinity College and President of the Royal Society, and it was on his influence that Newton counted in his promotion to the honorary post. However, his hopes were dampened by a long delay. In one of his letters to Locke in early 1692, when Montagu, Lord Monmouth, and Locke were doing their best to secure some sort of public appointment for a scientist, Newton himself wrote that he was "entirely convinced that Montagu, by old resentment, , which I myself had long considered forgotten and gone into the past, acted deceitfully towards me.

Montagu, after his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1694, was finally able to resolve the issue. He had previously consulted Newton on the issue of recoining money and took the opportunity to advise King William to appoint Newton to the position of Superintendent of the Royal Mint in 1696. A letter to Montagu Newton, dated March 19, 1695, reveals the details of the appointment: “I am very glad that I can finally give you a good proof of my friendship and demonstrate the respect that the king has for your virtues. Mr. Overton, Superintendent of the Mint, was transferred to the position of one of the Commissioners of Customs, and the King promised me to make Mr. Newton Superintendent of the Mint. This position is the most suitable for you, it is one of the main persons in the Mint, and it is worth bearing in mind that the annual income will be five or six hundred, and that this position will not require much time and effort from you, you can spend as much strength as much as you want. I would like you to come urgently, and in the meantime I will take care of your appointment ... Let me meet you as soon as you arrive in the city so that I can take you to the palace to kiss the king's hand.

Some envious people said that Montagu was Newton's patronage because of a love affair that lasted for some time between Montagu and Newton's niece. We believe, with all the fairness of stating this fact, by the time of his appointment, Montagu had not maintained relations with Catherine Barton for a long time and, therefore, would hardly have helped Newton only from these considerations. It seems that the long-standing friendship of the two Cambridge students and a very close acquaintance played a role here, because Montagu was the president of the Royal Society in those years, and Newton was a member of it. In addition, Montagu was well aware of Newton's business qualities and his amazing efficiency.

Mint of His Royal Majesty William

Anyway, Montagu was accurate in that mint officials almost without exception in those years received a salary from the crown for nothing - the positions of senior officials of the Mint, including the position of the Crown.

the left caretaker, to which Newton was appointed, were considered sinecures. It seems that, in part because of this, the finances of England fell into a very deplorable state towards the end of the 17th century.

In those years, the Bank of England was an "immature chick" - it was created only in 1694 and was only engaged in subsidizing the crown to continue the war with France, and the real financial regulator was the Mint, which was located in the Royal Tower and was a division of the Treasury, or "Chamber of chessboard "(eng. the Exchequer), which was headed by Charles Montagu at the time of Newton's appointment. Almost all the functions of the central bank were then assigned to the Mint: maintaining the exchange rate of the national currency, regulating the amount of money in circulation, issuing new money, withdrawing old money from circulation, controlling inflation, cash settlements with banks.

In 1662, after previous attempts to introduce machine coinage in Britain had failed, Charles II issued a decree after the Restoration to equip the Mint with all the necessary machinery. Despite the introduction of new machine-minted coins, as well as old hand-made coins, they began to suffer greatly from counterfeiting and trimming. To combat this, some coins in Charles' time had the Latin text "Decus et tutamen" (Latin for decoration and protection) added along the edge.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament took control of the Crown Mint, which has since acted as an independent financial regulator of England, minting money on behalf of the government but not directly answerable to the monarch.

Newton: new position - new opportunities

Montagu was somewhat wrong about the salary of the Royal Warden of the Mint. A few months after his appointment, Newton, not so much from greed as from hurt ambition, wrote to the Treasury a petition to restore the supremacy of the Royal Warden, who for forty years since the era of Charles II was not the main official of the Mint. In addition to complaining that Newton was unable to make the necessary reforms to the Mint in his current position, he also lamented that his salary was only £400 a year, and now, unlike Cambridge, he had to pay for a house of about £50 on his own. pounds sterling a year as a government official to pay a 50 per cent income tax, and his fuel (coal) benefits from the state are only 3 pounds 12 shillings a year, and these amounts are not enough to support him in this position. Montagu immediately went to meet Newton, and by orders of the Lords of the Treasury of June 16, 1696, it was determined that Newton was to be paid the same salary as the director of the Mint, that is, 500 pounds sterling a year, however, what is much more important, was

a reservation was made that in addition to this amount, like the director, Newton could receive a certain percentage from each minted coin.

From that moment on, Newton begins a completely different era in financial terms. It should be noted that the biographers of the scientist give completely different figures for Newton's salary as director of the Mint, to the rank of which Newton was promoted in 1699. The amounts vary phenomenally: from £1,000 to £5,000 a year. Actually, this is an inaccuracy. Newton's salary as director was £500 a year (£250 in hand), and he received all amounts in excess of this for the number of coins minted on the machines as a percentage of their face value. Given letters and documents from the Newtonian archives, and the amount and denomination of money minted, it can be roughly estimated that Newton's income ranged from £700 to £7,000 a year, with an average of around £4,000 (before tax). In modern prices, this is 1 million 400 thousand pounds per year (which is approximately equal to the annual salary of the director of a transnational bank). It is surprising that the previous heads of the Mint did not beat out too much beyond the salary limits, which, probably, can only speak of their laziness. Newton understood quite clearly that, according to the order of the Treasury, the more he works, the more he earns.

At the same time, Newton not only had never been abroad in his life, but he also practically never moved away from the triangle London - Cambridge - Woolsthorpe (his native small town). So, having received financial freedom, he was finally able to engage in patronage on a large scale.

It is known that Newton did not refuse almost anyone, even when he was a poor student. Now, after his income became significant, he became a sponsor of the Royal Scientific Society, equipped with his own money the Royal Observatory, a huge library of the Royal Society, assisted all talented young scientists, issuing, as we would now say, private grants for conducting their philosophical, theological and scientific works, as well as the publishing of their works and the organization of laboratories throughout the country, which even surpassed the generosity of his friend and patron Montague. Among other things, he donated significant amounts to the Church of England, orphanages and organizations to help destitute widows. And it is absolutely amazing, he often gave money to complete strangers simply because they asked him.

Great Recoining

Although the post of Royal Warden, as well as Director of the Mint, were sinecures for previous occupiers, Newton took his appointment more than seriously, so that Montagu did not even suspect how wrong he was when, in a letter to Newton, quoted by me just above, he said that

The robot will not take much time and effort from him, only exactly as much as Newton will have after his scientific activity.

By the time of Newton's appointment, the pound as the national English currency had been seriously weakened due to wholesale pruning (cutting off part of the coin along the edge) and counterfeiting during the Nine Years' War. In England in those years, rampant financial fraud reigned. No pattern was applied to the edge of the coins, and only the lazy did not cut the edge of the coin. The slices of silver were then sold on the black market to counterfeiters or shady smugglers. The counterfeiters melted them down and "released" their fakes, and the smugglers sold silver bullion to the continent and sold it at a price below the market price to the French, their enemies with whom the war was going on. The situation was aggravated by the fact that by the end of the century there was a silver arbitrage: in England, silver cost less than in Paris and Amsterdam. Accordingly, the smuggling of this metal in bullion to the continent has only intensified over time. Newton estimated that a year after he took office, about 12% of all silver money in circulation in England was counterfeit, and of the remaining silver coin clipping on a national scale was about 48% of their total weight. Let's think about it: more than half of the money was stolen from their state by the people of England!

The Stuart government took certain steps to issue better coins even before Newton, but the issue of new silver money was so insignificant that the population simply boycotted it: new coins, which were more difficult to fake or cut, were quickly sold to the underground at a price slightly higher than face value (the seller of such money turned out to be in profit), and the underground workers, having melted the new coins into ingots, exported it to the continent, where they sold it in bulk very profitably for themselves.

In addition, a unique situation has developed, similar to which cannot be found in any country in any historical period: in England at the end of the 17th century, along with the coins of the Stuarts, cut old, old coins continued to be used. In domestic settlements, unique junk like the Plantagenet coins of the Hundred Years War, and sometimes even much older ones, could be used. What could not be found in the pockets and purses of that time! For calculations, coins were accepted that were issued at any time without limitation of the statute of limitations: a horse at the fair could be bought for the silver coinage of the head of the Viking empire, Knut the Great (XI century), and vegetables at the market for practically worn coins from the time of the Wessex king Alfred the Great (IX century) . Two-thirds of the silver coins in circulation in 1696 were pre-Elizabethian Tudor issues. Numismatists were not at all interested in such rarities, the market value of which, from the point of view of a sane person, should have been simply colossal already in Newton's time. And their cost was nominal. One shilling of the 9th century went for 1 shilling of the 17th century, and everything was terribly cut off and spoiled, the coins were not round.

gloomy, but completely incomprehensible shape after all the trimmings, bites, sharpening and saw cuts.

It is difficult for us now to assess the full scale of this disgrace. In order to at least slightly imagine the situation with the currency and settlements within the country in England at the end of the 17th century, let's draw an analogy. Let's imagine that now, in Russia in 2018, two-thirds of the money in circulation is the royal rubles of Alexander II, but also the coins of Alexei Mikhailovich, Ivan the Terrible, and sometimes the calculations are carried out with the silver of Vladimir Monomakh and from time to time - Rurik and prophetic Oleg.

On the one hand, this suggests that in England the inflation rate remained almost zero for many centuries, the pound did not devalue, and there were no official denominations for 1000 years of its existence. This makes the pound unique among all other national currencies, for which historical inflation was significant even in the absence of paper money. But, on the other hand, the situation of walking in England as a means of exchange and buying not just old, but ancient money, was, of course, abnormal. Not only did England lose almost all of the old coins, the historical and cultural value of which cannot be overestimated, as a result of this mess, an entire criminal industry also functioned, which threatened to completely destroy both the financial system of England and its international authority.

It is no exaggeration to say that the situation with silver money approached a real disaster due to the fraud and mismanagement of the Treasury during the Stuart Restoration, but was saved in many ways by Newton's personal intervention.

Newton was struck by the level of confusion and vacillation in the financial sector and saw the main threat to the country's economy in issuing money without a grooved edge. Already in 1696, he immediately insisted that all the cut silver coin be withdrawn from circulation and replaced with a new one, minted on machines according to innovative patterns using a very complex edging on the edge - such edging was very difficult to fake in underground workshops, so cutting became practically impossible - this was the beginning of the Great Silver Recoining of 1696, or simply the Great Recoining. Newton's chemical and mathematical knowledge, especially the skills of solid-state synthesis, proved to be very useful in carrying out it. The process of recoining began under the direct supervision of Newton in 1696 and dragged on for about two years.

Newton did a great job. By order of King William, actually drawn up by Newton, local mints were opened in Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Norwich and York to assist London in the work of the Great Recoinage. Between 1696 and 1699, the production of new silver money, highly secure against counterfeiting and cutting, amounted to £5,106,019 compared to £3,302,193.

sterling, minted over the previous 35 years, and about 95% of defective silver cash was withdrawn from circulation.

The old defective coin was exchanged by weight, and not by face value - otherwise, the state simply would not have enough funds to settle accounts with its population. Moreover, such an exchange was quite honest from the point of view of morality and religion: the more money a person cut off by robbing his state, the less he received in the end during the exchange. On June 10, 1696, an order from the Treasury was issued requiring all banks and tax collectors to accept defaced silver money at the rate of five shillings and eight pence per troy ounce of silver. At the same time, the population was ordered to hand over to officials all the historical rarities mentioned above within three years and receive modern money by weight in return. After the exchange, it was forbidden to conduct settlements within the country with money issued before the reign of Charles II, that is, coins from the Protectorate to King Arthur, or rather, the Saxon leaders, had to be handed over to representatives of the Mint, who had offices throughout the country. By the way, by this measure, Newton preserved at least some historical coins for posterity. The exchange ended with the end of the Great Recoinage in 1699.

Along with the exchange and recoining, Newton insisted on the introduction of a number of prohibitive legal measures: now it was forbidden to pay with official organizations, such as the post office or the transport system, with banks, with the church, and, most importantly, damaged money was forbidden to pay taxes to the treasury. Violators were entitled to extremely high fines and even imprisonment with criminal charges.

Of course, the business of counterfeiters and cutters continued further, after Newton's reform (there is no limit to human stupidity and greed, as Sir Isaac himself noted), but on a much smaller scale. Likewise, the money minted under the “Tsar Peas” occasionally, but came across in private settlements between people, however, all this was now done rarely and from case to case, and the vector of change in the thinking of the majority was outlined.

Therefore, despite many unflattering reviews about the Great Recoining, for example, by the historian and politician Macaulay, as well as by researchers in the theory of currency, for example, McCulloch or Shaw, and, surprisingly, even by researchers of Newton's work, such as Craig, we believe that the Great Recoining Newton was a real success, which removed the sword of Damocles hanging over the financial system of England.

Minting of copper money

Another concern of the Mint under Newton (in 1699 he became its director) was the minting of copper coins. From time to time in those years the question arose of the sufficiency or redundancy of the currency for small

transactions, since England did not have coins for very small transactions. This led to a delay in the development of agriculture and small enterprises: for example, in order to buy milk and bread, it was necessary to draw up a small wholesale lot for 1 silver penny.

The silver penny was the smallest coin until the reign of Edward I, with the exception of the halfpenny, which quickly fell into disuse in Saxon times. Edward became famous not only for his wars with the Scots, but also for the introduction of small coins into circulation. Then the minting of silver halfpence and farthing (& penny) was discontinued, for the latter - during the reign of Edward VI, and for the former - James I. In the time of King James, royal permission was given to mint copper farthings, but only in the reign of Charles II of Mint the court began the practical implementation of this idea, when copper, and later tin halfpenny and farthings, were put into circulation.

The copper penny was not minted until 1797 and was replaced by the bronze penny in 1860. Therefore, like the silver florin, first issued in 1849, it can be considered a relatively recent British coin.

Treasury policy prior to Newton regarding the issuance of small coin was inconsistent. When the tin coins proved unsatisfactory (they were very flexible and because of this they lost their minted image extremely quickly), in 1693 a license was issued to private individuals to issue a certain number of ingots for copper halfpences and farthings, which would subsequently be minted at the Mint by stencils. The license was interrupted by an act of Parliament already during the first year of issue, on the grounds that, from the point of view of the Parliamentary Commission on Financial Affairs, it was an excess coin for circulation. In 1701, already under Newton, the suspension of minting under this Act of Parliament expired, and the question arose of what to do next: to mint or not to mint a small coin, what kind and from what metal?

To put things in order on this issue, Newton removed from circulation all new tin coins and old copper coins, some of which were still antediluvian, handmade small change and dated to pre-Elizabethian times.

As a result of his analysis, Newton concluded that the country's copper requirements did not exceed £117,600. In 1702, Newton proposed the introduction of a copper grotto (4 pence), a penny, a halfpenny and a farthing, but practical work did not go. Newton did not want to issue bronze coins, especially the grotto, arguing that such a measure would be in the hands of counterfeiters, since it is much more difficult to check the quality of a bronze alloy than pure copper. He was also against pennies made of silver-copper alloy, as this would deplete the country's silver reserves. The only alternative left was the issuance of pure copper money, but the Mint's horse-drawn mills were not powerful enough to drop the heavy

pure copper cuttings and provide the necessary pressure in the press drives, since copper is harder and less malleable than silver and gold. The experiment, unfortunately, failed. As a result, after a series of unsuccessful attempts to modify the equipment, Newton succumbed to pressure from the Treasury and agreed to purchase copper ingots from private individuals (as we remember, this was a measure proposed under King William in 1693) with subsequent minting on the machines of the Mint for production of copper half-pennies and farthings. The process was launched in 1717 and continued until 1725. A total of 30,788 pounds 17 shillings 2d worth of copper coins were minted over the years.

Although Newton was unable to solve the practical problem of creating new mills - as we know, this became possible only after the invention of the steam engine at the end of the 18th century, he nevertheless developed the basic principles for issuing copper coins, which were successfully applied a hundred years later. .

Firstly, the nominal value of copper coins should not be equal to the cost of the contained metal, as in the case of silver and gold coins, but the cost of the metal plus the cost of production and, until the Treasury objects, the cost of their distribution to banks, post offices and other organizations. This principle fit into Newton's general scheme of issuing money with a cost of material below their face value - for this reason he proposed a test issue of paper money. In itself, this measure was revolutionary even for metallic money, in which copper was worth only half the face value. Here, in order to prevent the extreme depreciation of small things in the English colonies (since the cost of shipping by sea to America and the West Indies would have to be included in the denomination), Newton suggested importing copper ingots to America, then in America, private individuals were supposed to produce blanks, and local Mints on their equipment would then mint the coins themselves. Such a scenario would make it possible to reduce the drop in the cost of copper money when delivered to the colonies by 7-8 times.

Secondly, no alloy should be added to copper, as this would lower the market value of the copper itself, in addition to making the coins more counterfeitable. Copper should not be present in coins as bronze or brass as this would increase the cost of the authenticity test, but must be at least 95% pure in order for the coins to pass a simple test.

Thirdly, the issue of copper should not be too large and should be limited by the statistical needs of circulation, the introduction of copper coins should be gradual and stopped if there are signals of reissue.

Fourthly, settlements in copper should only be made in amounts not exceeding 6 pence, that is, 0.5 shillings.

Fifthly, the design on the coins had to be permanent in order to prevent an increase in the cost of copper money, since a change in the design of the design would inevitably lead to the design of new expensive stencils.

Irish Question

In Ireland, the need for small coin was even greater than in England, but the Mint in Dublin could not mint copper coin for the same reasons as in London, and it would be extremely disadvantageous for the crown to mint Irish change in England. Therefore, Newton gave tacit approval and in fact turned a blind eye to the fact that in 1722 the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of King George I, began to actively promote her protégé, the English industrialist William Wood living in Dublin, in order for him to be issued an exclusive patent for minting copper. . The king consulted with Newton, who, for one reason or another, approved (perhaps Newton partly wanted to improve the unkind relations with the king), the Voodoo patent was issued, and the minting process was started.

But here Newton's ill-wishers Archbishop King, Lord Abercorn and Lord Middleton intervened and raised a real scandal, the instigator and inspirer of which was the wit Jonathan Swift. He accused the king, Wood, Kendal and Newton of conspiracy and demanded that Parliament begin an investigation into the circumstances of the case, why Voodoo was given preferences, although he was not an Irishman, but an Englishman (the most curious thing is that Swift was also not an Irishman, but an Englishman, but when the opportunity came to oppose the British, he was always right there). Parliament directed that the Treasury conduct an analysis of Wood's coins and provide an official report. As a result of the analysis, Newton found that Wood's coins, taken at random for research, were all full-bodied, but the weight fluctuated greatly, without going down, however, below the required limit. The quality of the copper, as Newton established, was of the same quality as in the copper coins minted by hand in Dublin under Charles, James and William and Mary (under Queen Anne no copper coins were minted in Ireland), namely, the copper content of the coins not lower than 85%.

The 31 July 1724 issue of the Dublin newspaper The Postman printed Newton's report in full, but this did not exhaust the scandal, and Swift continued his attacks, poisoning the last years of Sir Isaac's life as much as possible. At the same time, the "wit" did not skimp on expressions, publicly called Newton swear words, accused him of corruption, and at the end he brought out in his "Gulliver's Travels" in the form of a mathematician from the flying kingdom of Laputa.

Conclusion

Of course, Isaac Newton did a lot for his country as a financial official. But was his work at the Mint ultimately beneficial to himself?

It seems that he began his 30-year activity at the Mint, guided primarily by considerations of personal gain - financial and career. But as a result, when he started working as an official, these

the tensions faded into the background almost immediately, and he showed himself to be an economically and financially savvy and far-sighted man, an economist no less than a scientist, theologian or philosopher. John Maynard Keynes called Newton "one of our greatest and most effective civil servants," which, let's not forget, is a reference from the man who managed Britain's finances during the First World War.

In 1701, Newton relinquished his Lucasian chair of mathematics, which he had held for half his life, in favor of his student William Whiston. But it would be extremely wrong to say that Newton, having become a civil servant, abandoned science. One can only wonder how he had enough time for everything: for mathematics, physics, chemistry, theology, historical reviews and analyses, for the creation of the theory of the bimetallic standard, for legal and political activities, for the duties of Chairman of the Royal Society - and that's all, as we would now say, in your free time.

The new job gave Newton, it seems, everything he wanted: being in demand by the country, political fame, excellent income, high position. He began, on average, to receive, taking into account the percentage of coinage, 25 times more than he had, being a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Only after arriving in London, he plunged headlong into the whirlwind of political and social life. No, he did not cease to be a genius of thought, but he became first of all a bureaucrat, and only then a thinker.

A year before his appointment, Newton complained to his friends about the poverty of his financial situation. Becoming an official, he turned into a rich man. But how did he, in the end, dispose of this money? Apart from the undeniably positive nobility and generosity he showed to so many, apart from the more than worthy dowry he collected for his niece Catherine when he married her to John Conduitt, he lost everything by investing a colossal amount of money - everything that he earned in the civil service for 20 years - to the South Seas Company. The company promised windfall profits and seemed to many Londoners the best investment ever made. The most interesting thing is that she was not an inflated financial pyramid, she promised income from trade in South America, but secretly traded in slaves and consolidated the UK national debt. Newton bought shares in the company in the summer of 1719 for £3,000, and in April 1720, at the height of the bubble, received £7,000 for them. Then he invested an additional 40,000 pounds on top of this money - everything that he had at that time - by buying shares at a high price, and six months later, when the bubble burst and all investors went bankrupt, he could not help out for his shares, which turned into ordinary pieces of paper , even 40 shillings. It was then that he said: "I can calculate the movements of celestial bodies, but not the madness of the crowd." In modern money, Newton lost about 15 million pounds.

He criticized the greed of the people, but he himself fell for her bait; he condemned

love of glory, but he himself fell a victim to it; he despised the opinion of the world and vanity, but, living in London, became a man of the world to the tips of his nails, spending huge sums on suits and wigs; he laughed at the desire of people for power, but his extensive correspondence shows that he was not only pleased, but fascinated by his new London position, when he could simply, without invitation, at any time come to his wonderful friend Queen Anne and receive from her everything she wanted (don't get me wrong). Newton was caught in the trap against which he had warned all his friends during his time at Cambridge.

At the end of his life, in 1725 and a year before his death, already after the ruin, Newton admitted that everything was a dream and falsehood, and the truth remained in the distant 1696 in his quiet and modest house in Cambridge, and maybe even in a meager mother's house in Lincolnshire. After all, Newton's "miraculous years" - anni mirabilis, as he put it - the time when he did more in science than ever afterwards - passed in this house, and not in the whirlwind and bustle of London life.

So did Newton himself end up being happy by his job as a finance official, a job that certainly brought happiness to all of England?

Literature

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2. Andrade E. N. C. Isaac Newton. New York, 1950. 458 p.

4. Challis C. E. A new history of the Royal Mint. Cambridge, 1992. 806 p.

24. The Cambridge Companion to Newton / Cohen, I. B., Smith G. E. (eds).- Cambridge, 2016. 530 p.

25. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. by H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall and L. Tilling. Published for the Royal Society. Cambridge, 1959-1977. $1120

29. Westfall R. S. The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Career // M. L. Righini Bonelli and W. R. Shea (eds). Reason, Experiment, and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution. London, 1975. Pp. 189-232.

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4. Challis C. E. A new history of the Royal Mint. Cambridge, 1992, p. 806.

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6. Craig J. Isaac Newton crime investigator // Nature. Vol. 182. 1958. Pp. 149-152.

7. Craig J. Newton at the Mint. Cambridge, 1946. 128 p.

8. Dry S. The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Manuscripts. Oxford, 2014. 238 p.

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15. Levenson Th. Newton and the Counetrfeiter: the Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist. London, 2011. 99 p.

16. Lynall G. Swift "s Caricatures of Newton: "Taylor", "Conjurer" and "Workman in the Mint" // H. Bloom (ed). Johnathan Swift "s Gulliver" s Travels New Edition. New York, 2009 pp. 101-117.

17. Manuel F. E. A portrait of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, Mass., 1968. 320 p.

18. Newton: Texts, Backgrounds, Commentaries / Cohen, I. B. and Westfall R. S. (eds). New York, 1995. 436 p.

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Original taken from sobiainnen in

Pleased with the level of readers of the analytical blog "Learn Sobyanin". Recently posted my article "Strategic planning in the USA: military power, breakthrough technologies and the dollar" in collaboration with M.M. Shibutov http://sobiainnen.livejournal.com/47897.html The article was republished in full on more than fifteen analytical resources and blogs - RELGA, Blog-book Octopus, IAC MSU, Central Asian Thick Journal, Center for Strategic Estimates and Forecasts, LJ Guralyuk, LJ Otyrba, LJ skalozub52, LJ "For the Eurasian Union!", LJ Mikhail Chernov and others.

Isaac Newton. Painting by William Blake, 1805

Two added very important meanings. I was pleased with the blogger Anatoly Aslanovich Otyrba http://otyrba.livejournal.com/191805.html (St. Petersburg economist, writes good articles in the scientific and Russian business press). In developing the idea of ​​the continuity of the US conceptual and strategic dominance in the financial sphere to the British Raj, he gave a link to the article by Julius Lvovich Mentsin "The Mint and the Universe", which is reproduced in full below. And the illustration of the blog-book Octopus http://www.peremeny.ru/books/osminog/5850, where the article was posted a day earlier than the blog of Anatoly Otyrba, accentuated THE SAME THOUGHT - by William Blake's painting "Isaac Newton" - "strategic Anglo-Saxon architect being" (Bretton-Wood 1944 - USA might, Isaac Newton - Rule, Britain!, Anglo-Saxon leadership continuity). This is truly the right saying at our East Faculty of Leningrad State University / St. Petersburg State University: "The world is not small - the layer is thin!".

I thank Anatoly Aslanovich Otyrba and Oleg Viktorovich Davydov, editor-in-chief of "Octopus", for valuable additions of meanings. I thanked Julius Lvovich Mentsin over the phone, but I would like to publicly thank you here again for this article and other similar articles, for example, on the role of Nicolaus Copernicus. Sincere thanks to all of you, dear fellow analysts, scientists! To all who supported this first of a series of articles on strategic planning in the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia, to which the United States refers as an active screenwriter and an influential force in the Caspian-Central Asian region.

According to the article by Yu.L. Mentsin. There is a rule in military strategy - "compromise is worse than defeat", because. defeat mobilizes and forces radical and total rearmament and restructuring of military affairs, while compromise consolidates the status quo insufficient for victory. Here the experience of Great Britain is extremely interesting - of the three proposals for financial reform, the most radical provisions were taken from the proposals of William Lound, Isaac Newton and John Locke (the second and third were called by the state from the world of science). The exchange of money cost the treasury of the British crown 2.7 million pounds, which was then almost one and a half of its annual income. The state decided not to shift the cost of minting new coins and exchanging money onto the shoulders of the population, and allowed everyone to enrich themselves. Moreover, in the future, Britain offered the banking houses of Europe a very favorable exchange rate for Europeans and unfavorable for Britain for the exchange of silver money for a golden guinea, which made it possible for European bankers and merchants who traded with colonies in Asia and America to enrich themselves. As a result of such a "unprofitable" operation, the UK economy solved its problems in a matter of years and became the undisputed leader in Europe in terms of attracting investments, living standards, and economic development rates. The trust of the population and the faith of external players in the success of Britain, as it turned out, are very expensive!

As I know, a number of Moscow and St. Petersburg think tanks and groups are now working on similar complex and super-efficient financial strategies that will allow the Eurasian Union to quickly solve the current difficult financial problems of Russia and its allies and become a world leader. God grant our colleagues success and attention of the highest Russian authorities in this work. For the rearmament of the Armed Forces, for the development of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, oh, how big money is needed. Yes, and to improve the standard of living of the population of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, other potential members of the Eurasian Union is also the most important task. And this also requires a lot of money.

In the photo: November 20, 2007, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and all the people of her country and the Commonwealth countries celebrate 60 years of marriage with Lord Philip Mountbatten.

Mentsin Yu.L. Mint and the Universe. Newton at the origins of the English "economic miracle". Great Recoining, or monetarism in English. Newton and Marx. Mystery of the golden guinea. The public debt of England and the industrial revolution. At the base of the English "financial pyramid". // Issues of the history of natural science and technology. 1997. No. 4.
http://krotov.info/history/17/1690/1696menz.html
Library of Priest Yakov Krotov.
MENTSIN Yuliy Lvovich, Ph.D. Phys.-Math. Sci., Senior Researcher, State Astronomical Institute. PC. Sternberg (GAISh) Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, head of the Museum of the History of the University Observatory and SAI.
Notes are embedded in the text and are enclosed in curly brackets.
Part 1 (under the cut). Newton at the origins of the English "economic miracle". Great Recoining, or monetarism in English.
http://sobiainnen.livejournal.com/49288.html

“It was in England that the decisive steps were taken. Everything there went naturally, as if by itself, and this is the most fascinating mystery that the world's first industrial revolution conceived, which marked the biggest gap in the history of modern times. So why England? "
F. Braudel. "The Dynamics of Capitalism".

In the XVIII century. England has gone from a relatively backward and poor country, whose economy was also undermined by revolutions, wars and unrest, to a powerful power with the most advanced and rapidly developing industry in the world.

The mystery of this "economic miracle" has long worried historians. But if earlier they saw the main reason for the English industrial revolution in technology - the invention and introduction of machines into production, then more and more attention has recently been paid to the analysis of the socio-political and demographic conditions that prevailed then in the country, the creation of a communications network in it, the situation in the world markets, etc. (see, for example, works -). At the same time, the financial system of England is of particular interest to researchers. Thus, it is emphasized that it was the creation of this system, which had amazing flexibility and reliability, that allowed British banks for many decades to operate with funds, the volume of which far exceeded the real possibilities of the national economy, and, thanks to this, to provide domestic entrepreneurs with significant loans at very moderate interest rates. In turn, it was precisely this generous crediting of production that made possible its radical modernization, including the massive introduction of expensive steam engines. (see about this, ,).

But how, in fact, did England manage to create this mechanism for financing the economy and then, for a long time, maintain its uninterrupted operation? In answering this question, in my opinion, it is important to analyze the event that became a kind of prologue to the English "financial revolution" - the monetary reform of 1695-97, during which all spoiled and false silver coins.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727), appointed Warden in 1696, and in 1699 Director (Master) of the Royal Mint, took an active part in the preparation and implementation of this reform, called the Great Recoinage. Newton held the post of Director without change until 1725, and at the same time, for his great services to the state, he was elevated to knighthood by Queen Anne until 1705. In his retirement, he secured the appointment of his son-in-law, John Conduit (1688-1737), the husband of Newton's niece C. Barton, to the post of Director, who by that time had already served as Deputy Director for several years. Thus, the succession of management was ensured, and we can rightfully speak of an almost 40-year "Newton's era" in the leadership of one of the most important financial institutions in England.

It should be noted that both Newton's participation in the monetary reform and his leadership of the Mint are among the least studied aspects of the scientist's multifaceted activities. This is partly due to the fact that the necessary archival documents remained unknown for a long time, and partly due to the lack of serious interest in this topic among researchers. In fact, Newton's biographers see in his activities as head of the Mint only work to solve administrative and economic problems. This work, emphasizes R. Westfall, demanded enormous dedication from Newton, but in its importance and complexity it was incommensurable with his scientific achievements. In addition, biographers are forced to state that as an administrator, Newton did not always behave with dignity, showing despotism, intolerance and cruelty, especially when fighting personal opponents.

(Archival documents related to Newton's management of the Mint were discovered only in the 20s of our century and were even exhibited in 1936 at an auction in London. However, their partial publication became possible only in the post-war years due to fears that the content contained in them, information about the procedures for the production of money can be used by German intelligence.This publication was carried out in a number of his works by the Director of the Mint J. Craig, and it is these works that are the fundamental source for modern researchers of Newton's work.)

In principle, there is no reason to doubt the conclusions of historians. Suffice it to recall how Newton behaved in disputes about scientific priority. At the same time, one should not forget the appalling state of anarchy in which the Mint was at the time of Newton's arrival. In an institution that was supposed to be distinguished by special discipline, drunkenness, fights and theft reigned, including the theft of coins, which the employees themselves then sold to counterfeiters. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the fight against corruption, theft and counterfeiting of money, Newton was forced to be firm, as well as to seek the expansion of his administrative and legal powers, including the creation of his own prison at the Mint and a police force investigating all kinds of financial crimes and violations throughout the country. . In fact, the Mint under Newton, together with the then established branches in a number of other cities, turned into a kind of empire, characterized by a degree of centralization and control that was achieved by Great Britain only by the middle of the 19th century. .

Newton's biographers are generally unanimous that, while reorganizing the Mint, he showed, especially in the first years of his work, amazing activity, which can hardly be explained by the scientist's industriousness alone. So, G.E. Christianson notes that the Mint became, in effect, Newton's "secular religion." But is it not possible in this case to assume that the solution of current problems, which has so disappointed historians with its routine, was subordinated, in Newton's eyes, to the task of achieving some special goal, apparently only guessed by him and a narrow circle of his like-minded friends. Analyzing the activities of Newton as head of the Mint, it is important to take into account the fact that the creation of the English financial system was inextricably linked with a radical rethinking of the role of money in the economic life of society.

So, for example, it was necessary to understand that the main goal of the state’s financial policy is not to fill the treasury at any cost, but to create conditions for the continuous improvement of lending mechanisms that make it possible to effectively involve more and more capital scattered in society in production. In other words, it was necessary to see money not only as a simple intermediary in trade operations, but also as a powerful research tool that allows you to detect and use concealment or social resources that are not yet available.

(The main reason for the amazing success of the English economy of the 18th century was precisely that, thanks to the creation of unprecedentedly powerful and mobile lending mechanisms, it, the economy, managed to use the “energy” of the movement of first European, and then world capital. More on this issue will be discussed below.)

To a certain extent, Newton's reconstruction of the Mint can be compared with Galileo's improvement of the telescope. In both cases, previously known devices turned into tools that help shape radically new worldviews and economies. If earlier the production of money was considered a purely auxiliary action, then under Newton it became, in fact, the dominant feature of the economic life of England. This reorientation of the British economy will be discussed in more detail below. At the same time, I will pay special attention to the analysis of the monetary reform of 1695-97, which served as a kind of model for the subsequent development of the financial system of England.

Great Recoining, or monetarism in English

Among the many diseases that tormented in the last decades of the XVII century. the economy of England, the most terrible, according to contemporaries, was the systematic deterioration of silver coins, which then made up the bulk of cash. The technical prerequisite for this damage was the imperfection of the minting of coins, most of which were made by hand. Their shape and size did not always correspond to the standard, and, in addition, they did not have the ribbed rim familiar to us, which made it possible to discreetly cut off some "surplus" from the coins and, after wiping the place of the cut with mud, put the damaged money back into circulation. The gallows was relied upon for this "operation", but the temptation to get a little rich was too great, so thousands of people, together with ordinary counterfeiters who flourished in such conditions, successfully depreciated the money in circulation.

In his History of England, Thomas Macaulay wrote that this massive defacement of coins, affecting the interests of almost all segments of the population, was a greater evil for the country than any treason. The continuous depreciation of money made normal business life impossible, because everyone was afraid of deceit, although at every opportunity he himself sought to pay with defective coins. Therefore, scandals and fights regularly broke out in the markets, in workshops and offices. As a result, trade curtailed, and production fell into decline. (Quoted by).

It cannot be said that the government was inactive in this situation. In addition to expanding the use of purely police measures in England, for the first time in the world, machine minting of high-quality coins with the prescribed silver content was established. However, these highly valued new coins could not force the old ones out of circulation. Everyone tried to pay off with old, defective coins. New coins were withdrawn from circulation, melted down into ingots, and, despite strict customs control, they were taken abroad in increasing quantities, including in England only damaged, depreciated money remained.

Since this problem could not be solved by gradual measures, to save the economy, it was necessary to somehow immediately replace all the cash in circulation. Generally speaking, in previous centuries such operations were carried out repeatedly. Getting into a similar situation, the government resorted to the withdrawal of all damaged money and their re-minting into new, full-fledged coins. However, it was not at all clear whether it would be possible to carry out such re-coining on the scale of the entire state at the end of the 17th century, given the degree of development of the money economy. In addition, the experience of previous recoins (the last one was carried out in England in the middle of the 16th century) was rather disappointing. Having only a short-term stabilizing effect, the exchange of money placed a heavy burden on the treasury and literally ruined the population, for whom old coins were exchanged for new ones by weight.

As a result, a person received an amount 1.5-2 times less than what he had before. Meanwhile, the amount of debts and taxes remained the same. As a rule, prices did not decrease either, because traders, especially small ones, preferred to reduce sales in response to a decrease in demand. Thus, only large creditors (especially banks) and state officials who received a fixed salary turned out to be the winners, and the impoverished population soon began to spoil the money again.

On the other hand, despite the possibility of failure, the reform could no longer be delayed. The position of England continued to deteriorate, which was also facilitated by the war with France that began in 1689. Prices and public debt skyrocketed, and the economy collapsed. The situation became especially critical in 1694-95. Mass bankruptcies began in the country, in some places panic arose. Under these conditions, the death of the constitutional monarchy that had been established in England as a result of the "glorious revolution" of 1688, and the secondary restoration of the House of Stuart, with mass repressions that would inevitably follow, became quite probable. The exchange of money became inevitable, so heated discussions began in parliament and government about the most acceptable ways to carry out the reform. It was necessary to find a solution that would, if possible, combine the interests of the treasury, the population, big capital and foreign, primarily Dutch, creditors of the state.

And so, in the search for such a solution, Isaac Newton played an important role, to whom the government of England specifically turned for advice. It should be emphasized that such a clear recognition of the authority of scientists in solving state issues was not accidental and was based on old traditions dating back to Francis Bacon. At the same time, interest in the work of scientists on the part of politicians and religious figures especially intensified during the Restoration era, when the continuous hostility between the king and parliament, as well as between various churches and confessions, caused a crisis of confidence in existing institutions and gave rise to an ideological vacuum in the country, for which it was necessary to fill it is necessary to find some fundamentally new and, at the same time, credible global benchmarks.

It is under these conditions that the philosophy of nature of scientists-mechanists, their methods of setting up experiments, the rules for conducting scientific discussions, etc., begin to be regarded as a long-awaited path to solving the most burning socio-political and religious problems, as a way out of the chaos in which in the XVII in. all of Europe plunged, including England, which survived the civil war and continued to be in a state of social tension.

(For more on the connections of natural science with socio-political problems in Europe and, in particular, in England in the 17th century, see.)

Newton's contemporaries perceived the scientific achievements of scientists not only and even not so much as a simple increase in positive knowledge about the laws of nature, but as proof of the ability of man to establish on Earth the same unshakable order that scientists had already discovered in the sky. It is not surprising, therefore, that many English statesmen of this era were seriously interested in science, and scientists (R. Boyle, E. Halley, J. Locke, I. Newton, etc.) were often appointed to high posts, introducing into the political life of the country characteristic of scientific research openness of discussion, depth of analysis, courage and novelty of approaches in solving problems.

One of the most striking examples of such a community of scientists and politicians was the monetary reform under consideration, the authors of which, in addition to Isaac Newton, were the philosopher, ideologist of parliamentarism, doctor, member of the Royal Society of London John Locke (1632-1704) and a student, and later a close friend of Newton, from 1695 Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Montagu (Lord Halifax) (1661-1715). The general, so to speak, political leadership in the development of the concept of reform was carried out by Locke's longtime friend, the head of the Whig party, since 1697 the Lord Chancellor of England, in 1699-1704. President of the Royal Society John Somers (1651-1716). The source material for discussions - they took place at parliamentary hearings and even in the press - was a project for an exchange of money, prepared on the instructions of Montagu by the secretary of the treasury, William Lowndes (Lowndes).

In order to better understand the significance of this project, as well as the essence of its subsequent changes, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the main problem of the reform was its enormous cost. Therefore, when drafting and discussing the draft, it was necessary first of all to decide at whose expense the reform would be carried out, and since all sections of society were interested in the normalization of monetary circulation, it would seem that every resident of the country who had money had to pay for the reform. In other words, the exchange of money should have been carried out in the same way as it was done in former times: the treasury assumed the costs of re-minting, and the population was exchanged for old coins for new ones by weight, i.e. at the real value of the delivered silver.

However, as noted above, the replacement of coins according to their weight ruined the population and, as a result, further undermined the economy of the state. That is why Lound proposed to exchange money not by weight, but by face value, which would cost the treasury, according to his calculations, 1.5 million pounds sterling. At the same time, in order to partially compensate for these huge, at that time, expenses, it was proposed to devalue the pound sterling by 20% at the same time (by reducing the silver content in it), and also to oblige the population to pay half the cost of coinage.

J. Locke spoke in discussions as a sharp opponent of devaluation, which could undermine the confidence of England's foreign creditors and cause serious damage to domestic banks. At the same time, Locke proposed to temporarily leave the damaged coins in circulation, reducing their value to the value of the silver actually contained in them. In turn, Newton considered devaluation inevitable, however, putting forward a radical proposal that the exchange should be carried out in the way Laund proposed, but not completely at the expense of the treasury. As for the inevitable rise in prices during devaluation, Newton suggested creating a special ministry to control them.

Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how the disputes over the ways of carrying out the reform proceeded. It is only known that the final project, which Montagu, as head of the treasury, successfully defended in Parliament, was not a compromise "golden mean", but a paradoxical symbiosis of the most radical proposals of Lound, Locke and Newton. So, the first was taken the idea of ​​a swift, in order to avoid further damage to the coins, the exchange of money at face value, the second - the rejection of devaluation in order to preserve the inviolability of the national monetary unit, and, finally, the idea of ​​exchanging money completely at the expense of the treasury was taken from Newton. Moreover, the latter was motivated by the fact that all the costs of exchanging money should be borne by the government, wittingly or unwittingly bringing the country to a crisis.

At the end of 1696, the Parliament of England adopted a package of laws that ordered citizens to hand over all the spoiled money they had to the treasury within a specified and very short period of time and after a while receive new, full-fledged coins in return (at face value!) At first, when exchanging money, there was an acute and extremely difficult for the economy shortage of cash, since the Mint could not cope with the sharply increased workload at all. However, after Newton took over the leadership in 1696, the production of money was rapidly increased almost tenfold.

(This result was achieved just by putting things in order and modernizing some technological processes, and thanks to a significant expansion of the production capacities of the Mint, including the creation of its branches in a number of cities (the branch in Essex was led by astronomer E. Halley), the construction of mobile machines for minting money, etc.)

By the end of 1697, the cash shortage, which literally paralyzed trade, was eliminated and the business life of England resumed in full. At the same time, the treasury, collecting taxes from the ever-increasing trade turnover, was able to fully compensate for the losses incurred during the exchange of money within a few years. Thus, the reform, carried out in the interests of the ordinary population and business circles, turned out to be beneficial for the government as well.

To avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that the exchange of money on such a grandiose scale could not do without excesses and abuses. So, some banks close to government circles profited from this operation, and a considerable number of people did not have time or could not exchange their money on time and, as a result, suffered losses, although, it must be admitted, when exchanging money by weight, these losses were would be much more. On the other hand, it is important to remember that the authors of the reform were sober and state-minded people. Therefore, the exchange of money at face value was not a manifestation of their altruism or the desire to make amends for the miscalculations of the government. Rather, we are dealing with the birth of a fundamentally new and unusually bold financial policy aimed at stimulating the national economy.

The exchange of money cost the treasury 2.7 million pounds, which was then almost one and a half of its annual income. Of course, before there were wise rulers who understood that for the sake of the prosperity of the state, one should not ruin one's people with exorbitant requisitions. However, the promotion of the project according to which the devastated treasury had to pay the population a huge amount of money to save itself, required a truly "Copernican revolution" in ideas about the role of money in the economic life of the state.

(The government of England had to borrow funds for the reform from large bankers and merchants who sought to normalize the country's monetary circulation, as well as from the Netherlands (England's main creditor and trading partner), interested in the stability of the pound sterling.)

In order to better understand the courage and unusualness of the Great Recoining, it makes sense to recall some, much later episodes of Russian history. Thus, it is well known that the main drawback of the manifesto on the abolition of serfdom in Russia was the introduction of a ransom for land. In an effort to shift the costs of emancipating the peasants onto themselves, the Russian government obliged the former serfs to pay huge (due to the accumulation of interest) and literally ruining their taxes ("redemption"), which were canceled only after the revolution of 1905. Meanwhile, already at the end of 60 -s. 19th century Prominent Russian economist V.V. Bervi-Flerovsky, in his articles, urged the government of Alexander II to at least reduce the redemption payments, explaining in detail that soon, due to the growth in consumption and the revitalization of the business life of the peasants now crushed by taxes, the treasury will receive much more than what it initially loses. To the authorities, however, such a proposal seemed so wild that its author was declared mentally ill. Subsequently, Bervi-Flerovsky left Russia forever.

In the mid 70s. of the last century D.I. Mendeleev put forward a proposal to free the Russian oil fields from excise duties. Based on a deep study of domestic and foreign experience, Mendeleev explained to the Minister of Finance M.Kh. Reitern that these excises (their value was only 300,000 rubles a year) are stifling the nascent industry. The rejection of them will be rewarded by the rapid development of the oil fields and will result in multimillion-dollar incomes. Reitern originally referred to these proposals as "professor daydreams". However, later he nevertheless listened to the advice of a scientist and canceled the excise tax, which gave impetus to the rapid development of the oil refining industry and soon allowed Russia to abandon the import of American kerosene.

Apparently, the decision of the Minister of Finance to follow the recommendations of Mendeleev was largely influenced by the modest amount of excise tax and, therefore, a small degree of risk. In those cases, when it comes to large-scale projects affecting the economy as a whole, any proposals to limit the revenues of the treasury in the name of the future prosperity of the country are perceived by statesmen as another "dreams" that are completely unrealizable in real life.

(In one of his speeches, Yegor Gaidar explained to the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR that full compensation to citizens of their depreciated deposits would require an amount equal to 6 quarterly budgets of the country. The magnitude of this figure made a huge impression on the deputies. Meanwhile, the treasury income for 6 quarters is equal to one and a half Thus we are dealing with a sum equal in magnitude (on a relative scale, of course) to that which the British had to pay in the course of the reform of the late seventeenth century.)

In principle, such a reaction can be understood. Indeed, any attempt to follow the advice of theorists in an undermined financial system will inevitably lead to the formation of budget "holes", which can be plugged either by printing unsecured money or by means of huge foreign loans. At the same time, in both the first and second (albeit to a lesser extent) cases, we will get an outbreak of inflation, which will quickly nullify all efforts to improve the economy.

When analyzing the problems faced by the authors of the Great Recoinage project, it is important to take into account that the threat of inflation exists even when the economy uses metal money instead of paper money. So, in the XVI century. due to the huge influx of silver from South America, prices for basic products rose on average in Europe by 3-4 times. At the same time, the economy of Spain - the main colonial power of that time - was literally ruined by this flow of silver, turning warriors, peasants, artisans into adventurers, idlers and spendthrifts, whose easily obtained money enriched not their own country, but Dutch merchants.

It is clear that a similar final (albeit on a smaller scale) was possible in England. Of course, the issuance of full-fledged money to the population, instead of spoiled ones, could intensify trade and, as a result, increase tax revenues to the treasury. However, the purchasing power of the collected silver was significantly lower. After all, if prices did not fall when demand fell after the exchange of money (by weight!) in the middle of the 16th century, then what could prevent prices from rising when effective demand increased?

In the best case, merchants could simply keep the previous denominations of prices or even lower them somewhat, but if full-weight coins were used, this would still mean a fall in the value of silver on the domestic market. In turn, the result of such a fall could be an outflow of silver abroad, which would undoubtedly worsen the already difficult external economic situation of England, which at that time was at war with France. Thus, it is understandable why the initial drafts of reform were much more moderate and uncompromising in nature, and Newton also proposed, as a temporary measure due to the ongoing war, the introduction of state price controls.

Nevertheless, in the end, a risky and burdensome option for the treasury was adopted for the exchange of money, which, it would seem, should only worsen the economic situation of the country. Therefore, although we do not know what prompted the authors of the reform to take this step, we have the right to raise the question: why, in fact, the Great Recoinage not only did not ruin the English economy, but also became the starting point for its heyday?

January 4, 1643 was born Isaac Newton - English physicist, mathematician and astronomer, one of the creators of classical physics.

Newton is the author of the fundamental work "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", in which he outlined the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of mechanics, which became the basis of classical mechanics. He developed differential and integral calculus, color theory and many other mathematical and physical theories.

Isaac Newton was born in the village of Woolsthorpe (Lincolnshire), the son of a wealthy farmer. The fact of being born on Christmas Day was considered by Newton to be a special sign of fate. As a child, Newton, according to contemporaries, was silent, withdrawn, loved to read and make technical toys: sun and water clocks, a windmill ...

At the age of 18, Newton came to Cambridge. According to the statute, he was given an examination in Latin, after which he was informed that he was accepted to Trinity College, Cambridge University. More than 30 years of Newton's life are connected with this educational institution. Here, since 1663, he listened to the lectures of Isaac Barrow, a prominent mathematician, future friend and teacher. Here he made the first significant mathematical discovery: "" Binomial expansion for an arbitrary rational exponent "".

The scientific support and inspirers of Newton were physicists: Galileo, Descartes and Kepler. Newton completed their works by uniting them into a universal system of the world. In Newton's student notebook there is a program phrase: "In philosophy there can be no sovereign, except for truth ... We must erect monuments of gold to Kepler, Galileo, Descartes and write on each:" "Plato is a friend, Aristotle is a friend, but the main friend - true"".

Having carried out a number of ingenious optical experiments, he proved that white is a mixture of colors of the spectrum. But his most significant discovery during these years was the law of universal gravitation. There is a well-known legend that Newton discovered the law of gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree branch. For the first time, "Newton's apple" was briefly mentioned by Newton's biographer William Stukeley (the book "Memoirs of the Life of Newton", 1752): "" After dinner, warm weather set in, we went out into the garden and drank tea in the shade of apple trees. He (Newton) told me that the idea of ​​gravity came to him when he was sitting under a tree in the same way. He was in a contemplative mood when suddenly an apple fell from a branch. "Why do apples always fall perpendicular to the ground?" he thought.

The legend became popular thanks to Voltaire. Newton's discoveries were published 20-40 years later than they were made. He did not pursue fame, he wrote: ""I do not see anything desirable in fame, even if I were able to deserve it. This would probably increase the number of my acquaintances, but this is exactly what I try to avoid the most "". He did not publish his first scientific work (October 1666), which outlined the basics of analysis, it was found only 300 years later.

The end of the 1670s was sad for Newton. In May 1677, 47-year-old Barrow died unexpectedly. In the winter of the same year, a strong fire broke out in Newton's house, and part of the manuscript archive burned down. In 1679, Anna's mother fell seriously ill. Newton, leaving all his affairs, came to her, took an active part in caring for the patient, but his mother's condition quickly worsened, and she died. Mother and Barrow were among the few people who brightened up his loneliness.

In 1687, his work "Principles of Mathematics" was published. The level of this work was incomparable with the work of his predecessors. It lacks Aristotelian or Cartesian metaphysics, with its vague reasoning and vaguely formulated criteria. Newton's method - creating a model of the phenomenon. This approach, initiated by Galileo, meant the end of the old physics. Qualitative description of nature gave way to quantitative. On this basis, three laws of mechanics were formulated.

In 1704, the monograph "Optics" was published, which determined the development of this science until the beginning of the 19th century. Newton was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. For the first time in English history, a knighthood was awarded for scientific merit. In the same years, a collection of his mathematical works "Universal Arithmetic" was published. The numerical methods presented in it marked the birth of a new discipline - numerical analysis. A new era in physics and mathematics is associated with Newton's work. He completed what Galileo had begun - the creation of theoretical physics.

In parallel with the research that laid the foundation for the current scientific (physical and mathematical) tradition, Newton, like many of his colleagues, devoted a lot of time to alchemy, as well as theology. Books on alchemy made up a tenth of his library. However, he did not publish any works on chemistry or alchemy.

In 1725, Newton's health began to noticeably deteriorate, and he moved to Kensington near London, where he died at night, in his sleep, on March 31, 1727. By decree of the king, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. The inscription on Newton's tomb reads: "Here lies Sir Isaac Newton, who, with an almost divine power of reason, was the first to explain, by means of his mathematical method, the motion and shape of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the oceans. He was the one who investigated the differences in light rays and the various properties of colors resulting from them, which no one had previously suspected. Diligent, cunning and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity and Holy Scripture, he affirmed with his philosophy the greatness of the almighty creator, and by his temper he propagated the simplicity required by the gospel. Let mortals rejoice that such an adornment of the human race existed."

"Evening Moscow" offers readers five interesting facts from the life of a brilliant scientist.

1. Isaac Newton, as you know, was a member of the House of Lords, and attended the meetings of the House in the most regular way. However, for many years he did not utter a word at the meetings. Everyone froze when, finally, the great scientist suddenly asked for the floor. Everyone expected to hear a grandiose speech, but Newton in deathly silence proclaimed: "Gentlemen, I ask you to close the window, otherwise I may catch a cold!"

2. In the last years of his life, Isaac Newton took up theology seriously and, under great secrecy, wrote his own book, which he spoke of as his greatest and most important work. He believed that this work could decisively change people's lives. Who knows what this book would have been, but Newton's beloved dog, which knocked over the lamp, caused a fire. As a result, in addition to the house itself and all the property, the manuscript burned down.

3. In Newton's time, the value of coins was equivalent to the amount of metal they contained. In this regard, there was a problem - scammers cut off small pieces of metal from the edges in order to make new coins from them. The solution to the problem was proposed by Isaac Newton. His idea was very simple - to cut small lines on the edges of the coin, because of which the beveled edges would be immediately noticeable. This part on the coins is drawn up in this way to this day and is called the edge.

4. Isaac Newton was interested in many aspects not only of physics, but also of other sciences, and was not afraid to conduct some experiments on himself. He checked his guess that we see the world around us due to the pressure of light on the retina of the eye: he cut out a thin curved probe from ivory, launched it into his eye and pressed it on the back of the eyeball. The resulting color flashes and circles confirmed his hypothesis.