The idea of Christmas hasn’t excited me much since I was 14 or so.
Don’t get me wrong; I love getting together with family, having a great meal, and getting a couple of statutory holidays to boot.
It’s just I never had kids, so the excitement level leading up to the holidays for me is quite a slow burn, if it even burns at all.
Add in the fact I’ve been a lifelong member in good standing of the atheist club — the whole Jesus and Mary thing doesn’t elicit much more than a yawn from me, either.
So, what does a guy like me celebrate? Science!
Coincidentally, one of the most celebrated scientists and a pioneering mathematician behind, well, pretty much all things science and math at the time, Sir Isaac Newton, was born Dec. 25, 1642. He’s my guy this time of year.
Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that ruled science for centuries until Albert Einstein came along and presented his theory of relativity. Newton’s mathematical description of gravity helped to figure out planetary motion, ocean tides, and the trajectories of comets.
In his spare time, he also built the first practical reflecting telescope and came up with a theory of colour while observing that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. And in between all of that, he also managed to make the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound.
Busy man. And known for a lot more than just an apple landing on his head.
But he wasn’t satisfied with just that. Newton also introduced the idea of Newtonian fluid, worked on calculus — the bane of almost every teenager in high school — did stuff with the binomial theorem and non-integer exponents, roots of functions, classifying cubic plane curves, and a host of other extremely boring things that are way too dry to go into here.
Let’s just say he changed our world for the better more than almost anyone in history.
So, getting back to my original thought: Merry Newtonmas, everyone!
Yes, this is an actual thing.
The celebration of Newtonmas has been going on since at least 1890. Proof of this can be found in a copy of Nature, from that same year, and is titled A New Sect of Hero-Worshippers.
It reads, “At Christmas, 1890, or Newtonmas, 248, for the first time, the members of the Newtonkai, or Newton Association, met in the Physical Laboratory of the Imperial University, to hear each other talk, to distribute appropriate gifts, and to lengthen out the small hours with laughter and good cheer.”
Scientists hanging out, talking shop, and handing out gifts that were science related as well, such as a new box of glass microscope slides, Bunsen burners, and the latest in glass beaker design.
Now that’s my kind of party.
I would much rather worship Newton than anyone else, but that’s just me.
Everyone’s favourite astrophysicist of today, Neil deGrasse Tyson, posted on Twitter in 2014: “On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642.”
It became his most retweeted tweet ever, at that time, but apparently, for some people, it was viewed as anti-Christian.
He addressed this notion a short time later, saying, “Everybody knows that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th. I think fewer people know that Isaac Newton shares the same birthday. Christmas day in England — 1642. And perhaps even fewer people know that before he turned 30, Newton had discovered the laws of motion, the universal law of gravitation, and invented integral and differential calculus … If a person actually wanted to express anti-Christian sentiment, my guess is that alerting people of Isaac Newton’s birthday would appear nowhere on the list.”
Good point, Neil.
And in our household, with my wife born a Catholic, my devout atheism is never an issue, and vice versa, other than being a source of great sarcastic comedy, of course, which keeps us laughing as we always do.
In the end, it’s all about compromise.
She likes to decorate and listen to Christmas music, and I get to play my Twisted Sister heavy-metal Christmas album.
Happy holidays, dear readers.
Kevin Lamb is a Barrie-based photojournalist whose work often appears on BarrieToday.
