If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants
The famous 2-pound-coin/Oa*is-album quote, written in a letter to Mister Robert Hooke by Sir Isaac Newton ‘ but it hasn’t escaped the attention of some historians that this could well have been meant as a bitter dig at Hooke who was short of stature both physically and socially. In later correspondence with someone else, Newton refers to an un-named antagonist as a “dwarf”.
The two had many disputes, the time generally was rife with them, but the more famous is in connection with gravity ‘ specifically priority over who had the idea that the force of gravity acts as an inverse square of the distance. It is well established that Mister Hooke had posited the law in a publication on his observations concerning the “comets” of 1664/5. There are even letters emploring Sir Isaac to prove with his clever-clever maths that such a law was consistent with the known behaviour of comets, planets and so on. But, Hooke’s grumpy behaviour later on got Isaac removing any credit to Hooke from his m/s of the Principia. Frankly who can blame RH for some grumpiness when you’ve got the “posh kid who’s good at maths” making wise-cracks about your height.
Yes, I am reading The Curious Life of Robert Hooke by Lisa Jardine. It’s amazing the stuff I’d forgotten since revising for my “History of the Scientific Revolution” paper in my finals.