Slashdot Mirror
Sir Isaac Newton: The world Will End In 2060
Rikardon writes "A professor at King's College in Halifax has discovered, among the papers of Sir Isaac Newton, a prediction by this 'most influential scientist who ever lived' that the world would end in 2060. Those narrow-minded souls who still believe that devout religious faith is incompatible with fervent scientific inquiry are probably unaware that Newton 'was a theologian who wrote well over a million words on Biblical subjects,' and who devoted 'something like 55 to 60 years' studying the Book of Revelation."
Mr. Newton was a scientist so I am sure he would appreciate the following about the battle of armageddon from "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural " (jref.sawco.com):
"Although commonly used as a designation for the end of the world, this name actually applies to a real geographical location in Israel near Mt. Carmel, about five miles from the coastal city of Haifa. It was the site of several important battles in ancient history.
According to the predictions of St. John in Apocalypse, a battle between good and evil will take place there at some unspecified time, producing a river of human blood "to the height of a horse's bridle'' for a distance of 200 miles. Assuming that (a) all the blood were to be drained from each victim's body at the same moment, that (b) the "river'' is only ten feet wide, and it does not flow at all, that (c) the horse is rather small, it would mean that some 360,000,000 persons would have to be slaughtered during this battle, all simultaneously. Since the area cannot itself hold that number of persons standing should-to-shoulder, it appears that St. John's figures are poorly arrived at. But perhaps that is one of the properties of a miracle. "
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Well, nose-thumbing on the submitters part aside, what does this prove? Isaac Newton was Christian? OK, but this isn't news. Way back in grade school and high school science classes we learned about this. We also learned that the Vatican wasn't entirely impressed with Newton's investigations which doesn't really mean much either. Newton was a believer in the bible, apparently a very devout one who believed that the bible was true and correct. The areas of his investigations didn't reveal anything that contradicted the bible, at least in his opinion. If in 2060 passes by uneventfully (or even eventfully but still passes by) will that mean that the bible has been disproven? No. It won't be proven either.
The problem that most people have with the combination of religion and science is that religion often tries to impose what appears in the bible over what we have learned through experience and conjecture. Science as it is supposed to be practiced is a constantly self-correcting body of knowledge. This body of knowledge is used to produce a working model of the universe. In Newton's time the force = mass / acceleration was accurate enough to describe most things that they investigated. Time passed and there were problems with this. To a first approximation in most peoples lives this is still accurate, but if you're a cosmologist you'll want a more accurate model which includes Einstein's theories as an example. If you're looking at very small things rather than very large you'll be interested in quantum theory and so on.
Science evolves (a word that puts a furrow in the brow of some religious people) based on a refinement of information and the advancement of knowledge. If based on your religious conviction you insist that the speed of light in a vacuum isn't 3*10^8 m/s or that things do in fact go faster than it or that the sun is the center of the universe then science has a problem with that. It's easily reconcilable if you can find actual evidence to support your theory, scripture doesn't count.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
PROOF THAT NEWTON IS EVIL:
N-E-W-T-O-N = 14+5+23+20+15+14 = 91
Add this to the date of his death (1727): 1818
Flip this upside down: 8181.
Take away the year of his birth (1642): 6539
Add GRAVITY (7+18+1+22+9+20+25=102): 6641
Add 10 (newton had ten fingers): 6651
Gravity is an inverse square law, operating in three dimensions so multiply by the inverse square of 3: 739.
Subtract his age when he died (85): 654
Add 24/3, the date this story was published if you're british (which he was): 662.
Finally, add the number of laws of motion he created (3): 665.
Fuck.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
ended well before his 30th birthday. After that he made a complete fool of himself with his attempts to apply his rapidly dimishing mental abilities to "decoding" the Bible. I was a physics student back in the days when the History of Science was still considered a necessary part of training as a scientist. As I recall from Newton's biographys, he made a number of attempts to date Biblical events, including creation, and missed every one by at least an order of magnitude. No one who has any knowledge of Newton's life and work is likely to consider this "prediction" as anything more than it was: the rantings of a demented mind.