Leaving Cambridge for London, Newton threw himself into the Great Recoinage, personally interrogating and prosecuting counterfeiters with the same obsessive rigor he had once applied to physics, sending dozens of forgers to the gallows during his tenure overseeing England's currency.
By the mid-1690s, Isaac Newton had already published the Principia and revolutionized humanity's understanding of motion and gravitation, but he was restless at Cambridge and eager for a role with real worldly power and income. Friends secured him the wardenship of the Royal Mint, a position often treated as a comfortable sinecure for well-connected men.
Newton did not treat it that way. England's silver coinage was in crisis, debased by decades of clipping and counterfeiting that had driven good coin out of circulation. Newton drove the Great Recoinage forward, personally analyzing the metallurgy and logistics of striking millions of new coins.
More surprisingly, he became a relentless criminal investigator, donning disguises to gather evidence in London's taverns and slums, personally examining hundreds of witnesses and suspects. He sent at least 28 counterfeiters to their deaths on the gallows, pursuing some cases with an obsessiveness that alarmed colleagues. He was later promoted to Master of the Mint, a post he held until his death in 1727, proving that the man who mapped the cosmos was equally relentless chasing forgers through London's underworld.
Key people: Isaac Newton