The following is an excerpt of an essay by Paul Graham describing the risk of discovery and the “three bets” of Isaac Newton:

Because biographies of famous scientists tend to edit out their mistakes, we underestimate the degree of risk they were willing to take. And because anything a famous scientist did that wasn't a mistake has probably now become the conventional wisdom, those choices don't seem risky either.

Biographies of Newton, for example, understandably focus more on physics than alchemy or theology. The impression we get is that his unerring judgment led him straight to truths no one else had noticed. How to explain all the time he spent on alchemy and theology? Well, smart people are often kind of crazy.

Read the full essay here.

Check out all of Paul Graham’s essays here.

Follow Paul Graham on Twitter here.

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