Section 2: Quicksilver, pages 70-146 Summary

At Trinity in 1663, Daniel and Isaac rarely attend classes, and Daniel has basically become Isaac's servant, assisting with his experiments. Though Isaac was accomplishing unimagined things in Natural Philosophy by 1664, their professors still planned to test Isaac and Daniel on Euclid, threatening to kick them out of Trinity if they failed. They are given scholarships after scoring indifferently on the exams, and "Daniel would continue to learn more from Isaac's idle musings than he would from the entire apparatus of the University" (p. 80). Daniel recalls the day in 1665 when he and Isaac walked along the River Cam on their way to the Stourbridge Fair, discussing fluxion. After a man at the fair died, Isaac was intrigued, but Daniel pulled him away, insisting upon returning to London because the Plague, a sign of the Apocalypse, had arrived. In...