If he had been exposed as a necromancer (a person who communicates with the spirits of the dead), it would have not only destroyed his career, but he may have faced execution as well. He was, of course, aware that becoming involved with occult studies and practices such as alchemy was dangerous. As I say in the book, Newton held the conviction that all knowledge was relevant and open to exploration. MW: I would say it was a central feature of Newton’s life. What sort of impact did this have on his life? SC: In your critically acclaimed book, Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer, you deal very heavily with Newton’s interest in mysticism and the occult. When the royalties came through for that, I left teaching and have been a professional author ever since. The big break was writing the biography of Stephen Hawking with John Gribbin. I then became a lecturer and wrote when I could. I had serious ambitions to go on after I left the band, but I changed course and started to do some popular science writing. I became involved in music at school and played in various university groups at King’s College in London, where I studied Chemistry. The fact is, I always wanted to be a writer, and I was writing my earliest (unpublishable) fiction when I was touring with the Thompson Twins. Michael White: I’m often asked this question, and my pat answer is that it is not as extreme as going from a pop group to being Prime Minister of Britain as Tony Blair did. Simply Charly: How does a former member of one of the most successful bands of the early 1980s-The Thompson Twins-transform himself into a globally best-selling author with a predilection for writing popular science books on Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking? How and when did you reverse course? A former member of the now-disbanded British New Wave pop group, Thompson Twins, Michael White is a bestselling author of 38 books, including Isaac Newton: the Last Sorcerer, an account of not only Newton’s scientific achievements, but also his hidden pursuit of alchemy, as well as his cruel personality.

He laid foundations and made significant contributions to classical mechanics, optics, calculus, as well as laws of motion and universal gravitation. One of his books, Principia, in which he outlined mathematical principles relating to natural philosophy and his system of the world, is considered to be the most significant publication in the history of science.

An English physicist, mathematician, and covert alchemist, Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was the greatest scientific mind of his era.

Isaac Newton by Michael White