Reading #3: A Short History on Nearly Everything 4

Quote: "Newton was a decidedly odd figure--brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness."

Question: Why would someone be so curious that they would inflict personal harm just for science? What drove people to go to absurd lengths just to figure out Earth's true size? Was there really nothing to do in the 17th century besides spend two years measuring the exact size of Earth?

Comment: It's fascinating to me that people were willing to devote their lives to doing such ludicrous things. It's unfathomable to me in my modern brainwashed view that people were so readily spending their lives on something that seems impossible. Nowadays doing something like this would be ridiculous, especially considering we have technology to do everything for us,