Think the philosopher’s stone is just Harry Potter lore? Newton didn’t
OK, Newton didn’t know about Harry Potter, but you know what I mean. A bunch of his papers were deemed “unfit to publish” upon his death in 1727 and remained so until 1936, when Sotheby’s auction house acquired and sold most of them to economist John Maynard Keynes. These included the papers on the Philosopher’s Stone (thought to turn lead into gold and possibly be an elixir of life) and his prediction about the end of the world.
