The human mind?s ability to create new things (innovation) is illustrated here by young Newton?s discoveries and inventions and also by old Russell?s social actions.

Isaac Newton was born on 26th December 1642 in Lincolnshire, England. By extraordinary coincidence, that was the year Galileo died. Newton is recognised as one of the most influential scientists who ever lived. His accomplishments in mathematics and physics laid the foundations for modern science. Most of his major discoveries (e.g. gravitation) were made when Isaac was still a young man.

Newton was educated at Cambridge University where he also worked (from 1661 to 1696, i.e. from the age of 19 to his early fifties). Newton invented integral calculus and (jointly with Leibnitz) differential calculus. He proposed a formula for finding the velocity of sound in a gas and made discoveries concerning the composition of white light and the colours of the rainbow (Newton?s Disc now known to all students of physics and thanks to our book on constructing low-cost equipment for science teaching, known by many primary school pupils in Mauritius!)

He defined the laws of motion. In astronomy, he defined universal gravitation, which he used to predict precisely the motion of planets around the sun. Galileo having invented the telescope, Newton, using his discoveries in optics, constructed the first reflecting telescope. It is fascinating to think that this young man of the 17th century left us with a unified system of laws that explained a wide range of physical phenomena. His main book is Principia, the casual reading of which is not recommended.

Newton?s life is a good illustration of a young mind at work, although not a child prodigy like Mozart composing his first piece at the age of 8! He is one of the forerunners of experimental science, of applied science and of the pedagogy of the so-called ?discovery method? of science teaching. His example must be an encouragement to all young people that success, innovation and even invention can be theirs. You might object by stating that advances in science and technology now require well-equipped research labs costing millions and doctoral research fellows. True, but only to some extent. In the field of IT, for example, the younger the mind, the better for innovation!

Bertrand Russell was born on 18th May 1872. His parents were Viscount Amberley and Katherine, daughter of Baron Stanley of Alderley. In 1890 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, obtaining a First Class with distinction in philosophy. During World War I Russell became a full-time political agitator, campaigning for peace and against conscription. He was twice arrested, the second time to receive a sentence of six months in prison. In 1916, as a result of his antiwar campaigning, Russell was dismissed by Trinity College. Although Trinity offered to rehire him after the war, he preferred instead to pursue a career as a philosopher, journalist and freelance writer.

Gradually he abandoned his ?inherited liberalism? to become a die-hard socialist. Russell summarized his personal philosophy by saying, ?Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.? The last-named made him, very late in life (from the age of 77 to his death at 97) one of the key leaders of nuclear disarmament, the signatory of the Russell-Einstein Peace Manifesto and a founder of the Ban-the-Bomb Campaign.

In 1952, at the age of 80, Russell married his fourth wife and, it is said, found ?lasting marital harmony?. In the sixties, he devoted huge energy to campaigning against nuclear weapons and against the Vietnam War, together with others like Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, who began his heroic campaign to halt the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. That was the era of nuclear armament by the USA and the USSR, with Harold Macmillan going for a separate nuclear deterrent for Britain and De Gaulle going developing France?s own force de frappe.

As a young teacher in London in 1963 (after graduating from Calcutta University in 1961) I was attracted by this movement. The sight of the very old man Russell taking his place in mass demonstrations and inciting young people to civil disobedience through his passionate rhetoric inspired a new generation of admirers. Their admiration only increased when a British court took the extraordinary step of sentencing the 89-year-old Russell to imprisonment. His action then was not unlike that of old Desmond Tutu, first campaigning against apartheid and then later in life chairing and leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nor unlike our one and only grand old Cardinal (Jean Margéot) coming out of retirement to lead Kaya?s funeral and calm an explosive situation.

Coming back to Russell, he died in 1970, lacking three years to become a centenarian. I found this telling description of his last day as written by a friend ?At Penrhyn, his comfortable country house in northern Wales, he worked until the very end - a sparrow of a man, 97 years old and still trying to straighten out the world. A statement went off to Cairo on the Middle East crisis; letters and papers were prepared on VietNam and the plight of political prisoners. Then, after a whisky, he retired with a touch of flu to his bedroom overlooking the sea and the long, passionate life of Bertrand Russell came to an end.? At the time of his death he was far better known as an antiwar campaigner than as a philosopher. For him, truly, life started (to be fair one should say restarted) at 80!