Thus it was written in the epistle of [log in to unmask],
>
> Newton was as unpleasant a person as you're likely to meet, and was so unliked
> in his native England that his fame only became well known because of Voltaire
> in France.

In definite support of Wirt and Hawking and as a partial explanation as to how
both comments can be true at the same time, let me quote Aldous Huxley:

If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the
price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was
incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things.
As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb.

Ted
--
Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Serv, Southern Adventist University
          ==========================================================
No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
                         -- Whitehead, Alfred North
[A reference to the death of Archimedes.]