By now you’ve probably heard the original quarantine-genius story: Isaac Newton, having
fled the plague, revolutionized mathematics and reinvented physics. In a pandemic-afflicted year like 2020, it’s natural to hope for some parallel silver lining. Maybe another prodigy’s ideas are being given the time and space to gestate, and who knows what wonders await.
The dour among us might point out that such parallels can only go so far. In Newton’s era, quarantine meant a profound isolation, with little but an
apple tree to keep one company. Before Zoom, focus may have been more easily achieved.
But even more important, science itself has changed entirely since then. Until around a century ago, an isolated thinker had a chance of touching off a sweeping intellectual upheaval. Now the biggest questions — even the theoretical ones — tend to give way only under the assault of global teams of scholars.
