At Cambridge Newton was the very model of an absent-minded professor. His amanuensis, Humphrey Newton (no relative), wrote that he never knew Newton "to take any recreation or pastime either in riding out to take the air,walking, rowing or any other exercise whatever, thinking all hours lost that were not spent in his studies". He often worked until two or three o’clock in the morning, ate sparingly and some times forgot to eat altogether. When reminded that he had not eaten, he would go to the table and "eat a bite or two standing". Newton rarely dined in the college hall; when he did, he was apt to appear "with shoes down at heels, stockings untied, surplice on, and his head scarcely combed". It was said that he often delivered his lectures to an empty hall, apparently with as much satisfaction as if the room had been full of students.
在剑桥，牛顿是个十分典型的健忘教授。他的抄写员汉弗莱·牛顿(并非他的亲戚）曾写道，他从未听说牛顿"参加过什么娱乐、休闲活动，比如骑马兜风、散散步、划船或者任何其他体育锻炼，他认为不是花在研究上的时光都是白白浪费掉的"。牛顿常常工作到清晨两三点钟，吃得很少，有时压根儿忘记吃饭。别人提醒他还未吃饭，他便走到桌子旁边"站着吃一两口"。牛顿很少去学院的食堂就餐，难得去了，又往往见他"着一双后跟磨掉的鞋子，穿一双没有系好的袜子，披着白外套，头也几乎没梳理过"。据说，他常常对着空无一人的大厅演讲，神情显然像是厅里坐满了学生一般得意。
After the controversy, Newton withdrew from the public eye as a scientist. He served the University as its representative in Parliament and worked away in private at chemistry and alchemy, theology, physics and mathematics. He became acquainted with Leibnitz, but refused to give his great contemporary any exact information about his discoveries in mathematics. Today it is generally agreed that the calculus was discovered more or less independently by both Newton and Leibnitz, but the two men and their partisans quarreled acrimoniously over priority, and Newton accused Leibnitz of plagiarism. Newton conceived a jealous proprietary interest in every subject he studied, and almost every achievement of his creative life was accompanied by some quarrel.
那场争论结束后，作为科学家的牛顿从公众的视线中消失了。他代表剑桥大学担任议会议员，不过私下还在继续研究化学和炼金术、神学、物理以 及数学。他结识了莱布尼兹，但不肯向这位伟大的同时代人透露自己在数学方面一些发现的确切信息。今天人们普遍认为，微积分是牛顿和莱布尼兹各自基本上独立发现的，但是这两个人及其支持者曾为谁的发现居前激烈争吵，牛顿还指控莱布尼兹剽窃。牛顿将他研究的每门学科都视为己有，提防被人占去 一份；他创造性生涯中差不多每取得一项成就便会随着发生一些争吵。
来源:可可英语 http://www.kekenet.com/daxue/201612/467718.shtml
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