QI | Who Was Isaac Newton's Greatest Enemy? 

It’s astonishing to hear Fry mispronounce a word, but “gill,” when used as a unit of measure and not part of a fish, is pronounced as though it were spelt “jill.” I know this because we used to be given a gill of milk in school…

Bill Bailey does one of the best drunk person impersonations ever lol

I remember this question, poor Robert Hooke. I’m glad he got the portraits and recognition after.

One of the things Hooke turned his attention to is still in widespread use today. Drive a car? The universal/CV joints were perfected by Hooke...so that he could adjust his microscope without looking up from the eyepiece.

In mechanical engineering, Hooke is just as famous as Newton, and in physics Newton even got epically corrected (let's say updated for fairness). Still, the 17th century scientists and engineers in England, France and Germany, Italians even earlier than 17th century, are not sufficiently recognized for making the world what it is today. They continued where the ancient Greeks stopped. I wonder where and when we will stop developing technology like ancient Greece did? Are we at a tipping point?

Arguably, Sir Isaac Newton's greatest enemy was himself.

I had a science teacher who called Newton a bastard for this kinda thing. Appearnalty Newton belittled people constantly and she thought he was a dick. Can't say I disagree

i thought women were his greatest enemy.

Easy. You get the Uncle to stop irritating her.

I'm really surprised that nobody suggested their mother's sister getting drunk at a wedding... then I remembered that the British don't pronounce aunt like Americans do.

Hook's Law, as my physics teacher declared, is the worst law.

"He looks like he's had a few gills himself"

Ah, Robert Hooke, I made sure he was the first reference in my PhD thesis 😀

Fun fact: in materials science and structural design we use Hooke's Law all the time, but in a form he would himself never have recognized. Stress and strain were invented only long after his death.

I like Sarah's musical chairs quip.

Now I want to get extremely drunk with Bill Bailey.

Robert Hook was a sickly young boy, that grew up to be a small adult, that had to beg to be sponsored at university because his family was poor, and was called 'a dwarf who but stands on the shoulders of giants' by Newton.

It is saddening to learn that the greatest of the great scientists of the past worked so hard to portray the other scientist poorly.

As I recall, Newton was pretty terrible to Gottfried Leibniz, too.

Oh, the incomparable Bill Bailey - what an act!