Diamond was, according to legend, Sir Isaac Newton's favourite dog, who, by upsetting a candle, set fire to manuscripts containing his notes on experiments conducted over the course of twenty years. According to one account, Newton is said to have exclaimed: "O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done."Alfred Rupert Hall, ''Isaac Newton: Eighteenth Century Perspectives'', Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 175. . The story is largely apocryphal: according to another account, Newton simply left a window open when he went to church, and the candle was knocked over by a gust of wind. Some historians claim that Newton never owned pets. The story of "Newton's Mischief" has been reproduced over the centuries as early as 1833 in "The Life of Sir Isaac Newton" by

David Brewster Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA Scot FSSA MICE (11 December 178110 February 1868) was a British scientist, inventor, author, and academic administrator. In science he is principally remembered for his experimental work in physical optics ...

and later in ''

St. Nicholas Magazine ''St. Nicholas Magazine'' was a popular monthly American children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by th ...

''. In 1816 Walter Scott used the story in the third of his '' Waverley Novels'', ''

The Antiquary ''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...

'' (volume 2, chapter 1). This pet of Newton's was also mentioned in Thomas Carlyle's book '' The French Revolution: A History'', employed in discussing the deathbed of Louis XV. Carlyle writes "To the eye of History many things, in that sick room of Louis, are now visible, which to the courtiers there present were invisible. For indeed it has been well said, 'in every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.' To Newton and to Newton's dog Diamond, what a different pair of Universes; while the painting on the optical retina of both was, most likely, the same!" Nevertheless, Diamond is the subject of several anecdotes concerning Newton. In another tale, Newton is said to have claimed that the dog discovered two theorems in a single morning. He added, however, that "one had a mistake and the other had a pathological exception."Historical Canines
" Shepherd Software. Retrieved September 16, 2007.

Notes

{{Urban legends Individual dogs Urban legends Isaac Newton Dogs in human culture

See also

Notes