# Isaac Newton a virgin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 29, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833 "2013-07-29T18:13:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833/21 "2013-08-01T02:16:24Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well, maybe so, but it is hardly a _spectator_ sport… Sure it is. Didn’t you ever watch Numb3rs? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833/22 "2013-08-01T05:28:49Z")
Huh. I knew about Newton but I’ve just seen that Leibniz also never married. That makes the whole calculus dispute a whole 'nother level of sad. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833/23 "2013-08-01T19:03:32Z")
Don’t forget that, for a large part of history, society has been set up in such a way as to make mathematicians, and engineers, for that matter, get the general impression that women are, as a species, gum-snapping, malaprop-spouting, vain bimbos. Just try to imagine Harriet Vane or Hermione Granger as a character in a 17th-century novel. (Heck, just look at the Greek philosophers who defend homosexuality on the grounds that, while reproducing the species is, of course, important, a man needs an _intelligent_ companion.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833/24 "2013-08-02T00:31:15Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > Don’t forget that, for a large part of history, society has been set up in such a way as to make mathematicians, and engineers, for that matter, get the general impression that women are, as a species, gum-snapping, malaprop-spouting, vain bimbos. Just try to imagine Harriet Vane or Hermione Granger as a character in a 17th-century novel. (Heck, just look at the Greek philosophers who defend homosexuality on the grounds that, while reproducing the species is, of course, important, a man needs an _intelligent_ companion.) Even if this were true (and I do not really concede it, there have been plenty of portrayals of both strong and/or intelligent women and stupid and/or weak men in historical literature, going back at least to Greek epic and drama), in why would it have impacted mathematicians or engineers any more than other types of men? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833/25 "2013-08-02T18:34:12Z")
“Intelligent” is not the same thing as “intellectual”. Indeed, to a sufficiently one-cultured male, even a giant like Jane Austen comes off as a blithering idiot. (The problem does, in fact, have two parts. Snow’s “Two Cultures” weigh down the male pan as much as the exclusion of women from certain careers tilts the balance upward on the opposite site.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-newton-a-virgin/664833.md?page=1)