Isaac Newton's prediction that the world would not end before 2060 (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Isaac Newton's prediction that the world would not end before 2060 (2015)

openculture.com

55 pointsHooke31 comments

If you're interested in this topic, you should also have a look at this article (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/januaryfebruary/feature/...) and Keynes' wonderful lecture on the topic. In fact Newton was pre-Newtonian in terms of scientific rigor. You can perhaps say similar things about most revolutionary scientists, i.e. rarely do they fully realize the y have wrought.

I think Newton being the "Last Magician" fascinates/frustrates people because currently we (think) that there is such a clear divide between scientists and mubo-jumboists, the latter perceived to be rather idiotic. In fact, most topics have pretty clear labels classifying them into one or the other: diffraction - science, tarot - MJ, etc. How could Newton, the epitome of reason and the greatest scientist ever lived, dabble in the latter? Of course, the labels were not so clear at his time.

PG has a relevant post on this, where he explains that he thinks of Newton as having made several "bets" on different systems of thought, and we remember the ones that paid off. http://www.paulgraham.com/disc.html

It's worth noting that science is just one side of the coin. The other side is something that every great scientist, artist, inventor, writer, and leader has explored too. Great innovations in every discipline are found where the rational and intuitive overlap.

I'm aware that there is a lot of quackery out there but there are a lot of mysteries about the nature of existence, of consciousness, of the beginning and end of the Cosmos still.

I recently encountered this video about an interesting possible reaction that could have been done by alchemists that might explain where the idea of turning lead to gold came from (in particular, wanting gold as an end product is no surprise, but why lead specifically as the source?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzsdORUPk48 It doesn't quite use period materials, for safety and convenience reasons, but I was satisfied that the described reaction could have been done, with more effort. And it does take "lead" and turn it into something that seems awfully close to gold. If you don't have an atomic theory of matter and understand how elements work, you know, I would submit that it's not even that "magical" of a thought to think that you're so close and surely there's just one or two last tweaks you can do to get there.

It's very easy to imagine that as being part of the inner mysteries of a mystery religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries

Now turning lead into gold is pure 100% unmitigated magic, because we know a lot more stuff. But if we didn't know that stuff, it would not be an obviously magical belief.

I now worry that coming up with a cure for all cancers is a magical belief.

Don't worry: there's no requirement for one single cure-all.

>Now turning lead into gold is pure 100% unmitigated magic

Alchemy is not useful, but what you said here is not a magical belief. All elements were in fact created through the fusion of lighter elements before them through nuclear transmutation. Stellar nucleosynthesis is the natural process creating the variety of elements in the universe.

In other words, we do conceptually know how you can turn lead in to gold, and even heavier elements than gold have already been artificially created.

Wikipedia has a periodic table with the origins of each the elements.-1

1-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_nucleosynthesis#Key_...

> Of course, the labels were not so clear at his time.

This is understating the issue quite a bit. Don't forget that the point of science is to test things in a robust manner, which at this point in time has been done for the things you mention, but in Newton's time they hadn't been.

..or, I mean he was Isaac Newton, maybe he was on to something. Just sayin yo.

Complaints about the headline aside, it is the perfect sort of doomsday prophecy story. It is far enough away that the people who pulled it out of Newton's writing will be forgotten, its near enough that the reader could imagine being alive at that time and wondering what would happen. Erich von Däniken exploited this in his "Ancient Astronauts" stuff, predicting the Mayan's called it with a 2012 extinction event (whoops :-).

Since you only get one end of the world prophesy (when it passes you're a crackpot and everyone who believed you now hates you intensely) you need to pick it to land post retirement at least since you'll not have any credibility afterward. Predicting '2060' (and yes I know Newton wrote no earlier than) as the folks who have used Newton's works to date it, being a bit more than 40 years away will have all of these folks retired by then. My guess is they will really try to milk it for all it is worth in the 2040's.

Singularity prediction dates are subject to a similar reasoning.

But the deadline guarantees a second public attention in your life time when you can promote a new deadline for the same or a nee story.

This idea was explored at the beginning of Ghostbutsters II when Venkman interviewed someone who didn't leave enough time to print paperbacks of his prophesy. One should always think about the economics of a doomsday before committing to a specific date.

Credibility isn't necessarily lost over failed doomsday predictions, at least among the faithful - "When Prophecy Fails" is the classic example of this. And these people tend not to have any credibility outside the faithful to begin with.

If knowledge is, as one common philosophical notion goes, 'true, justified belief', then Newton clearly 'knew' nothing about 2060 as he fell severely short of justification.

It's a shame we can't be equally confident about the prediction also failing the 'truth' aspect. Depending on what exactly one might mean by 'world', it's uncertain to an uncomfortable degree that our world won't end by 2060.

Wasn't something happening in 1999 and then in 2012? There's a Wikipedia page on failed doomsday prophesies. Check it out.

Here's a link for the lazy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...

There's always something happening 'a few years from now'. The two you mentioned were bigger than the usual doomsday prophecies.

In the early 90s, hanging on the wall of my mother's shop was a map of the new coastline of the western US after California fell into the sea in 1997. As far as I'm aware, this map is not in wide use these days...

Reminds me of Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_Cosmographicum

O, so it's not going to be Sep 23, 2017 then.

From the Christian perspective, what Newton is referring to is less about the world that's ending than what will be beginning.

In other words: Newton, brilliant of a lot of things, not so on many other things. We need to accept that, as his attempts to produce gold and invest his money show.

For the record, something very bad will happen by the third Sunday, of the third month, of the 2033 year. Not necessarily on that day, but by then.

> as his attempts to produce gold and invest his money show.

Isn't that just called an "entrepreneur" these days?

On the gold thing maybe I was too harsh...shouldn't judge him because I read Wikipedia some 300 later.

But, basically a great actor or scientist's opinion, outside his field, shouldn't be given extra attention or credibility.

There seem to be some misgivings in the headline. Newton predicted the world will certainly not end before 2060. So the headline should be, "In 1704, Isaac Newton predicts the world will not end before 2060"

Sure, but then I wouldn't have clicked.

Please don't post jokes on HN.

Unfortunately, that wasn't a joke.

Flagged because the title isn't just misleading, but completely wrong. Newton did not predict the world would end in 2060, he claimed that the end of the world would not happen until at least 2060, precisely to challenge claims that it _would_ end in the nearer future (way back in the 1700s).

Ok, we reworded the title above to reflect that.

It's good not to let a bad title spoil a good article. The material is interesting and well on topic for HN.

I agree the headline shows unnecessary certainty. Likewise, "world ending" and "apocalypse" aren't necessarily the same thing, especially when it comes to someone with nonconformist religious views like Newton. But I would counter that it isn't "completely wrong," at least based on Prof. Snobelin's commentary, which the article links to:

https://isaac-newton.org/statement-on-the-date-2060/

Here's a relevant quote:

"Since Newton believed that the 1260 years corresponded to the duration of the corruption of the Church, he added 1260 to 800 A.D. and arrived at the date 2060 for the “fall of Babylon” or cessation of the apostate Church. It seems that Newton believed the fall could perhaps begin somewhat before the end of the 1260-year period and continue for a short time afterward. Whatever the precise chronology, Newton believed that sometime shortly after the fall of the corrupt (Trinitarian, Catholic) Church, Christ would return and set up a 1000-year Kingdom of God on earth."

So yes, it would be more accurate to say that "Newton predicted the apocalypse would happen sometime around the year 2060," but I don't think the headline is completely off base here.

Headline is very misleading.

It is true that, as an unorthodox theologian, Newton investigated the bible for signs of when the world would end, and announced it certainly would not end before 2060 to dispel continually recurring myths (from the Christian standpoint) that it would end soon.

(Almost) obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yis7GzlXNM

... hiding up inside his attic on some Harry Potter business / The Universe is infinite, but this battle is finished

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