A couple dozen actors, writers, politicians and scientists call Newton their current or former home:

Ray Kurzweil — He’s one of MIT’s most vocal and high-profile technology visionaries. He said humans will become more creative and more loving by adding artificial intelligence to their brains.

But aside from the hype, Kurzweil did help invent the flatbed scanner. Also, he invented and commercialized a line of keyboard synthesizers. So you can blame him or thank him for a lot of what happened in the ’80s.