1720 London, England

“How goes the Stock? Go, says t’other, it does not go, it flies.” (-Daniel DeFoe)

The Company was a colossus astride an ocean of wealth. One of the world's greatest minds could not deny the allure of what everyone else saw, wealth, in the form of rising prices.

The Company made money trading in human beings, slaves for the Americas. It then became banker to the Kingdom of England.

It won the honor to manage the debt of His Majesty's Government. One of the greatest minds of the age, in charge of the Kingdom's currency as warden of the Royal Mint, was an early investor too.

The company was founded in 1711 for trade with Spanish America.

At first, it was a dull, steady business for almost 10 years.

The Warden invested early on, at 100 pounds a share. By 1719, the Warden owned thousand of pounds of shares. Most of his money was invested in government bonds for steady income.

January 1720, the South Sea Company's management had new ideas.

April 1720, the new idea was put into action. Everyone could swap their dull debt, with their dull interest payments, for exciting shares, with rising prices. The government could cut their interest payments. A few payoffs in Parliament and with officials eliminated government resistance.

The share price doubled from 150+ to 300+ pounds soon after.

The Warden of the Royal Mint, took profits early, and made 20K Pounds, about 200 times his annual salary as a professor.

He kept his investments in government bonds with their steady income. The share price kept flying up however. It was helped in part by behind the scenes pumping the price higher.

June 1720, the Warden couldn't take seeing the share price go higher without him in it, he starting buying shares again.

August 1720, he sold his safest investments, in government bonds, for more shares, at more than twice the prices he sold them for a few months ago. This went on until Fall.

September 1720, reality in price met with reality in value.
The "Fear of Missing Out", in any century, country, company, and currency, is the same with the same ending.

Decades of the Warden's scientific contributions to humanity will never be eclipsed, but he was the same as everyone else.

1667, Invited to a fellowship at Cambridge, after spending the last 2 years of working from home as student of Trinity College

1668 Invents a reflecting telescope

1669 Discovers the differential math, and calculus

1672 A paper on optics, light and color

1684 Begins what will grow into one humanity's great works, the "Principia Mathematica", the first part entitled "On Motion"

1696 Appointed the Warden of the Royal Mint of London, in charge of the Kingdom's currency, who mints currency, replaces old coinds with new, and takes pleasure in catching counterfeiters

1703 President of the Royal Society

1704 A first edition of his work on light and color, "Opticks"

1705 Knighted by Queen Anne

1721 NEAR BANKRUPTED by the collapse of the South Sea Bubble

1727 Sir Isaac Newton, buried at Westminster Abbey

“I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies ...but not the madness of the people.”