Newton’s role in the history of physics is hard to underestimate. We use the adjective “Newtonian” to refer to whole chunks of the field, and we mark his work as a turning point in the evolution of the discipline. However, we tend to forget that Newton owed the initial launch of his stellar trajectory to the years he spent in quarantine during college. Newton enrolled in the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College in 1661, when he was eighteen years old. Going to college at all was an extremely rare privilege in Newton’s day, but he did not display obvious signs of singular genius at first. Then came the Great Plague of London in 1665. In the 17th century, as now, quarantine was the first line of defense. Cambridge shut down and dispersed the students and faculty to help them avoid the fate of London’s residents, who were succumbing to the bubonic plague at a peak rate of about 8,000 per week. Newton packed up his books and went home to his family farm—the one with the legendary apple tree.
In the two years of quarantine and isolation that followed, Newton took what we might call a deep dive into physics as it was known. He had the time and undivided attention to understand the foundations of knowledge that came before him and to begin building his new theories of calculus, light, color, and gravity. When he returned to Cambridge in 1667, Newton was quickly elected a minor fellow. He followed this up the next year with the construction of the first reflecting telescope. By 1668, he had received his Master of Arts degree and taken over as Cambridge’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. That meteoric start was still just the beginning of what Newton would ultimately achieve. Things would probably have played out very differently if Newton had spent his quarantine years reading adventure novels or some other 17th-century equivalent of Netflix bingeing.
Clearly, Newton’s quarantine was an example of historical serendipity that handed an ideally timed retreat to an unusual genius. It also helped that his family’s land and money were sufficient to support him through this period. We might not have Newton’s latent genius, or the ability to devote ourselves as single-mindedly as he did, but the ongoing restrictions of COVID-19 still present an opportunity. Retreats from “normal” life, whether voluntary or forced, are difficult for the same reason they are valuable. Rather than just walking the established paths without thinking too hard, we are forced to examine what we are doing and where we are headed in detail. Perhaps this is the year when you will buckle down and finish your thesis, or work on that new research idea that you never really had time for before. Personally, quarantine forced me to embrace telepresence and a wholesale shift from the paradigm of giving in-person career seminars, which I clung to stubbornly, to webinars. That change is both an adaptation to current circumstance and a pre-adaptation to “the future that has already happened,” to borrow a favorite phrase from Peter Drucker. Between pandemics, increasing political isolationism, global warming, “flight-shaming,” and potential carbon taxes, the stage is set for travel to become more difficult and expensive as the years go by.
Most scientists already build their careers outside of academia, and the acceleration of that trend is also part of the future that has already happened. COVID-19 has brought to the surface many anachronisms that the academic world has successfully ignored for a long time and has stoked multiple threats to its business model. Witness the throngs of students sent home from campus who are willing and able to learn online, but unwilling to pay traditional full tuition for the experience. Does every university need its own professor teaching introductory physics, or could the best five or six in the country teach everyone online with local TA support? Simultaneously, increasing pressure on discretionary federal spending, which includes basically all US research grants, was already locked in years ago, before the current pandemic and economic distress. Future career success for scientists will hinge on flexibility and adaptability like never before.
Today’s quarantine—or semi-quarantine, depending on where you are—is the perfect time to build your dynamic career skill set. Take up a classic work on dealing with people or discover how the FBI can help level up your soft skills. Brush up on managing your own finances so that you have more options than just taking the highest-paid job you can find. Make sure you know how to network and put together a solid resume to keep opportunities coming your way. Following in Newton’s footsteps and leveraging quarantine to hone your science and career skills can’t guarantee his level of achievement, but it will set you up for future success.