Would Isaac Newton have fallen for bitcoin? By the spring of 1720, Newton was one of the most famous scientists in the world—and a very wealthy man. He decided to sell his shares in the South Sea Co., earning a 100% profit. The physicist, said to be worried the market was getting out of hand, supposedly quipped that he “can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.” Yet a few months later, as he watched the stock trade ever higher, he let his own madness get the best of him. Newton got back in, and he eventually lost the equivalent of millions in today’s dollars when the price crashed....