I must have been daydreaming for a few days, because I failed to notice until now that Thomas Levenson’s book Newton and the Counterfeiter has been released!

This history of science book describes in detail a little-known chapter in the life of Isaac Newton: he left his academic post and moved to London to become Warden of His Majesty’s Mint.  This put him into what sounds like a very “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” conflict with a master counterfeiter of the day, William Chalconer.

I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on its way from Amazon, and I can hardly wait!  I met Thomas Levenson briefly at ScienceOnline09, and he was a very nice and interesting fellow; he also runs The Inverse Square Blog, where he has been posting, among other things, about the process of getting his book produced.

I’ll post a full review after I read the book…