At sixteen or seventeen, he paid two pence for a tiny blank notebook which is now one of the most prized possessions of New York’s Morgan Library and Museum. Only five inches by three, and containing a hundred and sixteen pages within soft covers, this is as cheap and utilitarian as any notebook could be. And Newton, unlike Smith, wasted no space: ink fills the pages. This notebook was heavily used, and reading it gives us a priceless insight into the young Newton’s mind. He started writing into it from both ends at once, flipping it as he did so, so the second half of the book appears upside
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