Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we cover Sir Isaac Newton, the human scientist from Earth's history who surprisingly appears multiple times in Star Trek.
Isaac Newton is of course known for his series of great discoveries in the fields of science and mathematics. In addition to inventing calculus, he set the foundation for our understanding of physics by coming up with three fundamental laws of motion and mechanics. Of course, such an important figure of history would be referenced numerous times in a show like Star Trek, but perhaps more surprisingly, this character appears twice in live form as well.
The first appearance for Newton is a holodeck recreation in the TNG episode Descent. In this episode, Data wishes to see how three of Earth's greatest scientists would interact with one another in the great equalizing game of poker. Thus, we see Newton flipping cards with Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein in this fun diversion from the main plot of that episode. At one point, Data even offends Newton.
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That would not be the last we would see the writers of Trek mess with that story of the apple and Newton. In the Voyager episode Death Wish, Newton again appears as part of a panel, but this time, it's the real Newton who has been dragged through time by Q to testify about another continuum member Quinn's important assistance provided to humans through history. Newton appears alongside a famous Woodstock musician and Will Riker.
According to Q, Quinn had met Newton under the tree on the day of that fateful apple falling, and Quinn had jostled the tree when he got up from the conversation, which led the apple to fall on Newton's head and the first law of motion to be developed. Furthermore, Q indicates that had Quinn not interacted with Newton that day, the famous scientist would have instead died in a debtor's prison for being a suspect in several prostitute murders. And who knows where humanity and the Federation would be in that timeline?
When Newton is not appearing onscreen to rewrite our understanding of his history, we see references to him come up in many other episodes. This includes a monument unveiling in the Voyager episode Future's End, a key piece of dialogue in a Dixon Hill holodeck mystery in the TNG episode The Big Goodbye, and multiple references to needing the guidance of a man like Newton by Archer's Enterprise crew in episodes Anomaly and The Forge. So while his onscreen appearances might have been a bit silly, his contributions to the foundations of what made space travel possible are always there in the background being honored in Star Trek.
Isaac Newton was played by John Neville in TNG and by Peter Dennis in Voyager. Neville's acting career exploded in late life, after starring in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in 1988 at the age of 63. He can be seen in the Fifth Element and The X Files movie. Dennis appeared in movies like Shrek and Sideways in recent years. Both these men died about 10 years ago, so if Newton is to hit the screen again, it will be yet a third actor to do so.
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