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Comment by 1337p337 | Hacker News Reader

Well, PG presents them as different bets, one of which paid off. They were the same essential bet from Newton's perspective. For example, books on physics at the time referred to religion heavily, sometimes as a cornerstone of an argument. Even Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica says "Collocavit igitur Deus Planetas in diversas distantiis à Sole, ut quilibet pro gradu densitatis calore Solis majore vel minore fruatur."

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That's a very interesting insight, but isn't it also true that Newton decidedly left theology out of calculus and mechanics? What distinguished his three laws was that he chose not to explain, for example, the motion of something by its "ferver" or "jubilance," as his predecessors did. People at the time may not have treated the fields so separately, but Newton did.

Edit: I just ran the quote through Google Translate. Still, merely casting God as being ultimately responsible is a step forward from interweaving theology throughout your physical theories.

Um. No, he definitely didn't leave theology out of his mathematics. See, for instance:

http://inters.org/Newton-Scholium-Principia-Mathematica

"This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all: And on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God Pantokrator,or Universal Ruler...." and, like, this stuff is all over the place in the Principia. You cannot separate Newton the theologian from Newton the mathematician from Newton the physicist.

Oops, I didn't know that!

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