I might have accidentally caused the toilet paper shortage in America.
It started like this: One of my cousins living in London shared a photo of grocery store shelves that were completely empty on our family’s WhatsApp group. And then my other cousin in New Zealand did exactly the same.
If there is not enough toilet paper at both the top part and the bottom part of the world, then I rather need to make a plan in my part of the world as well, I told myself. As such I frequented the shops to buy toilet paper.
That’s rather a tall story! Don’t exaggerate so much. You didn’t cause the whole shortage. That is what my mother would have said if I told her this story.
But just consider for a moment if my story was actually true, and multiply it a few million times. No wonder that the shortage of toilet paper is acute all around the world.
Two famous people that were clearly not on the same WhatsApp group is Isaac Newton and Gottlieb Leibnitz. Without the one knowing about the other one, they simultaneously developed Calculus. With different sums, but basically the same idea. Afterwards the two would argue terribly about whose idea it was first.
How and where Newton developed his version of Calculus is quite interesting in this time of crisis relating to the coronavirus.
In 1665 a bubonic plague epidemic broke out in London. The Black Death, as it was also known, appeared for the first time in China in 1331. Over a period of more than 300 years it flared up through a series of cycles whereafter it would flatten again and claimed the lives of millions. It was spread by fleas that were especially common on rats.
When it once again flared up in 1665, people were instructed to leave London. Some distance away from London was the University of Cambridge, which was also temporarily closed. One of the students that was affected by this decision is Isaac Newton, then 23 years old.
He had just completed his B degree at the university, but due to the bubonic plague outbreak he had to retreat to his hometown, which was located approximately 100 km from Cambridge.
Admittedly, and if the story is true, he simply sat beneath apple trees some days and watched on as apples fell to the ground. But during these two years at home he mostly worked hard on his three big theories that would make him famous – how planets move, light and colour.
The falling apples did however apparently help to accelerate his insight. But he also needed a way to better understand something big and complex by means of breaking it up into thousands of smaller pieces. That’s where Calculus enters the picture.
At this stage I am hoping that there are geniuses on all seven continents busy developing an antidote for the coronavirus. We can fight at a later stage on who should be awarded the Nobel Prize for it.
The outbreak of the bubonic plague in Newton’s lifetime was the last one. Even though it would’ve helped a great deal today, we do not know for sure how the disease was finally conquered.
One story is that the Great Fire of 1666 in London destroyed it. Unfortunately though, it is not true.
Nowadays the majority of historians are in agreement that proper quarantine measures and better personal hygiene finally dealt a death blow to the disease.
Thus: wash your hands and keep other people at a distance.
And be grateful for WhatsApp groups that enable one to at least keep some form of contact with your family across the globe. Even if it causes toilet paper shortages.
