Isaac Newton’s attempts to unlock secret code of pyramids | Hacker News Reader

Isaac Newton’s attempts to unlock secret code of pyramids

theguardian.com

88 pointssamizdis45 comments

Newton often gets derided for his unfruitful efforts at unlocking alchemy, but there's something admirable there. He was willing to take on bold, grand ideas that were not obviously wrong. I'd even venture to say that in the 17th century, the concept of alchemy sounds much more reasonable than the idea that there is an 'invisible' force of attraction between everything in the universe.

A lot of this derision for Newton's alchemy comes from hindsight knowledge of the hundreds of years of chemistry knowledge we've since accumulated.

And in the end, he wasn't really wrong in principle about whether alchemy is possible. He was just off on the scale of energy required.

Yes, modern chemistry starts with Lavoisier's "Traité Élémentaire de Chimie" (1789) and development of chemistry as a science took a lot of time: only in 20th century the existence of atoms was finally proven. Up to then there were still some scientists who denied the existence of atoms, one of the last of the famous ones: Ernst Mach: "he famously declared, after an 1897 lecture by Ludwig Boltzmann at the Imperial Academy of Science in Vienna: "I don't believe that atoms exist!""

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

Newton died in 1727. He followed however not only unscientific paths in alchemy, but also in his analysis of the ancient texts. Both reflect the time he lived and his own beliefs, which influenced these endeavors. With hindsight, we know that these investigations didn't advance humanity's knowledge, but are interesting for history. It can be that he even discovered something scientifically interesting while doing alchemy, but he had his reasons to try to hide that work and apparently some of these papers never survived to this day. And what survived wasn't public until 20th century, contrary to the principles of science.

Yes, the history of the atomic model where it became indisputable is _quite_ recent. And before this the structure of matter was more or less a disputable mystery.

The atomic model became undisputable after Jean Perrin's experiments in 1908 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Perrin

And only after being prompted by the investigations of Einstein published in 1905 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber_die_von_der_molekula...

The size of this mystery gets forgotten in modern discussion - but getting to the bottom on how the world is built was among the biggest triumphs of modern world. And the people who lived before the 20th century should not be belittled for lacking this knowledge.

>The atomic model became undisputable after Jean Perrin's experiments in 1908

For the people reading this who know more about science than history of science (like me), this is referring to cathode rays and experimental verification of Einstein's "constant collisions from molecules" Brownian motion model.

>but getting to the bottom on how the world is built was among the biggest triumphs of modern world.

We are not at the bottom yet. :)

It wasn't that much "a mystery" , more that there were those who lived in denial, like Mach. On the positive side, much before Mach, there was obvious scientific progress. Not much later after Lavoisier:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_theory#Avogadro

"Avogadro was able to offer more accurate estimates of the atomic mass of oxygen and various other elements, and made a clear distinction between molecules and atoms." (Since 1811).

Mach and similar simply denied what was already discovered, often not even wanting to consider that, sticking to their beliefs. Mach was "physicist and philosopher," not a chemist. Not having a definitive proof for physical existence doesn't mean that chemistry haven't already used the concepts.

Today too there are scientists who after they became prominent for some work start to spread the false beliefs, some realizing that at the moment they are too hard to disprove, even when most of the experts don't believe them. And some get more influence than it would be scientifically valid. The progress is not something automatically guaranteed, it's always the result of hard work and perseverance.

Totally agree. He tried to solve difficult problems, with some he succeeded, with others he didn’t. He would deserve derision if he had published theories about alchemy, but he didn’t.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe he knew the difference between the success and failures; it was all just piled up and someone had to come along, sort through it, and tell him it was important. He sought patterns.

Didn’t he publish his work about gravity and light but not about alchemy ? It seems to me he had a pretty good handle on results that were worth publishing vs the ones that weren’t.

It's like geez, what intellectual endeavour pie didn't this guy have his hands in?

Almost every waking moment of his prime years were devoted to major intellectual pursuits.

I read a fascinating article about Newton's studies in theology[1], particularly Jewish sources and the Jewish Temple. It's based on papers currently in Israel's National Archives[2]. He very much used the same scientific techniques for all his studies, whatever the topic.

The most fascinating thing is that, based on these methods, he predicted the return of the Jews to the ancient Land of Israel starting in the 1880's (correct), and that a great misfortune would befall them in the 1940's (also correct).

I do not know how many things he got wrong, or if these were just coincidences. But the article was an interesting read nonetheless.

[1] https://iyun.org.il/maremakom/newtons-theology/ In Hebrew, and unfortunately Google translates it very badly for some reason

[2] https://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/collections/Humanit...

That was a fascinating read, but without links to the original I have to remain a little bit skeptical. I tried to access the documents in your second link hoping I could search for myself, but it looks like I'm locked out.

The claim is that Newton figured out the dates from the Book of Daniel. The book of his about his conclusions was published in 1733 (he died in 1727) and is available in different formats:

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Observations-Upon-Prophecies-Daniel-A...

1733 original:

https://archive.org/details/observationsupon1733newt

Some PDF version:

http://www.historicism.com/Newton/newton.pdf

One author (Matania Z. Kochavi) writes that it can be seen that Newton wrote that believing he was personally chosen to understand the hidden code in the Bible, and when and how there will be the Second Coming of Christ, and "end of times" based on such logic like "flowing water represented a friendly encounter, whereas a flood symbolized war; similarly, a single boat sailing at sea was an image of friendship, whereas a flotilla represented a battle." or "three sets of symbols" "appeared in various places throughout the text. One set was composed of metals: gold, silver, copper, and iron. The second set used symbols from the animal kingdom: the lion, bear, leopard, and the "Fourth Beast." The third set made use of the ram and the goat."

Thanks for some sources. I spent a lot of time looking through them but was unable to find evidence Newton predicted the events the person I’m responding to claims he did.

That's typical for the whole industry of the texts and books of the authors who sell their stuff by writing about the "old prophecies." I also expect that the said claims aren't what Newton wrote, but are the new "interpretation" of what Newton's "interpretation" was.

In modern form, these kind of "interpretations" have also typically much less rigor than what e.g. Newton did regarding the texts on which they are based -- it could be that the author intentionally doesn't even want to say what the actual sentences on which he bases his claims are.

That's why I also cited the part of Newton's logic on which he bases everything, as a hint to those who are aware of the following to not spend to much time on the newest claims: we know today that there the assumptions of Newton were on very shaky grounds, with him believing that he has in front of him something that he can directly "decrypt" like a secret messaging code (some of which, used in his times, he was surely aware of): the whole development of historical analysis of Bible texts as the branch of bible studies happened also only after Newton, and today we know: first, that the texts can't be considered as something directly produced by God, but that they are the texts obviously produced by the humans of these times, and second: that they were also in some ways changed through the time, relatively randomly, being translated, transcribed, some variants lost etc. So we know that whatever Newton believed to be a secret code couldn't have been perfectly transported to Newton in England many centuries later, because we know today how that path looks like -- almost like an evolution tree of some biological subject. And then, even if that what was to Newton important had been actually preserved, we know that the time in which Newton lived wasn't special in the way he believed it was in his starting assumptions (regarding the "end of times", of course).

So if some new author claims too much about what "Newton wrote" and "predicted" without the whole context... it's at least more suspicious than the author wants us to believe.

While I don't believe the pyramids can tell about the apocalypse or the Bible, the math of the pyramids is more complex than one would think.

Most famously, the great pyramid has eight sides (not four) [1] and it has at least two massive hidden chambers that no-one can figure out [2].

Some of the Egyptian pyramids had stereograms inside, they have fantastic mazes of pathways and traps.

Building these things (like the inner angle of the great pyramid) must have been quite a feat, the logic for some of these decisions still escape us, and the style of building is not consistent from one pyramid to the next.

(I haven't verified that these sites are good, just took the first links on DDG, but the facts were widely reported and are easy to verify.)

[1]: https://curiosmos.com/were-all-3-ancient-giza-pyramids-built...

[2]: https://www.dailygrail.com/2019/11/mysterious-hidden-chamber...

> Some of the Egyptian pyramids had stereograms inside,

cite?

> they have fantastic mazes of pathways and traps.

And they have guys in a cowboy hat with a whip collecting relics too. Probably. What traps? (edit: and mazes?)

How in the hell it took this long for Newton's "unpublished" notes to be unveiled? I mean the guy was one of the most famous scientist/mathematician of all time. I can justify the reluctance out of religious reasons(?) in 1600 or up until like 1800, but after that, after he has been long dead, what excuse could possibly be to not publish ALL of his works? Is it because someone just bought them all and kept it for himself? Any history expert want to chime in?

From the site which is selling it:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/english-literat...

Newton "left behind vast manuscript writings on biblical exegesis and other theological subjects, presumably in the hope that his secret knowledge would reach a select and receptive readership in future generations. The true range of Newton's writings has only become apparent remarkably recently. Such was Newton's reputation as the exemplar of the Enlightenment scientist that for generations there was little willingness to publish material that might seem to undermine that status. It was only with the sale of Newton's papers by the Earl of Portsmouth in these rooms in 1936 that the scale of his interest in alchemy, in particular, became generally recognised, and it is even more recently that the extent of his theological writing has been acknowledged."

The pages now being on sale

"are likely to have been part of a larger lot sold in the 1936 auction of the Newton papers, but they cannot be positively identified in the sale catalogue."

You can browse a lot (or all?) of papers which were bought then and ended in the National Library of Israel:

https://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/collections/Humanit...

"The manuscripts found at the National Library are from the collection of Abraham Shalom Yehuda (1877-1951), an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. Professor Yehuda purchased the manuscripts at a public auction at Sotheby’s of London in 1936. Other manuscripts in the collection, dealing mostly with the topic of alchemy, were purchased by the well-known economist, John Maynard Keynes, and are located at King’s College in Cambridge University."

Also, Isaac Newton’s Works, University of Oxford, (mostly or all?) donated by Keynes, should be somewhere here, among the works from other collections:

http://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/texts/newtons-works/all

and the background behind that:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.1952.000...

In "1872" "the purely scientific papers were generously given to the University of Cambridge." (Note: Newton studied there).

"The event which stimulated Keynes to his greatest effort in bookcollecting was the dispersal at Sotheby’s on 13 and 14 July 1936 of the Newton papers of Viscount Lymington, to whom they had descended from Catherine Conduitt, Viscountess Lymington, Newton’s great-niece. The relentless pressure of death-duties made it necessary to sell this great collection."

Once reason it was initially locked away was that it contained heresies, e.g. he denied the Christian Trinity. After that people forgot about it, it's hard to go through so many papers...

Newton was a nut, in nearly every positive and negative, sense of the word.

I highly recommend James Gleick's Isaac Newton: https://www.amazon.com/Isaac-Newton-James-Gleick/dp/14000329...

It is an engrossing and not long read on Newton. It covers a fair amount of his heretical thoughts and feuds with people and paints a rather complete picture of the man. It's basically common knowledge now, but Newton's writings on alchemy and religion are in vast excess of his writings on physics and mathematics. It seems that intriguing questions that he couldn't find answers for almost made him rabid, in a sense.

That's a good book.

If you liked that one you’ll love Westfall’s Never At Rest

I remember reading somewhere that many of the intelectuals of the time (including Newton) would likely have suffered some degree of mercury poisoning (from alchemy related experiments). This could well explain the paranoia and odd behaviour later in life.

Alchemy means "the process of transmutation by which to fuse or reunite with the divine or original form" which in reality doesn't deal with concrete materials, but it is about something akin to psychological transformation.

Practitioners of alchemy would uphold deceptive ideas about it, in order to protect themselves.

I highly doubt that Newton was as silly and foolish as misunderstanding what alchemy is fundamentally about. However supposedly he was found to have mercury in his hair upon being found dead, which certainly discredits the occult and esoteric part of his studies.

The public image of Newton is heavily shaped by the British Government, the whole thing about the Enlightement scientist that society is supposed to emulate and so on. It's quite the rabbit hole to investigate.

Why is this being downvoted? These are facts. Seemingly nobody knows the psychological / spiritual ideas behind alchemy and only has comical images of long-bearded men trying to turn metal into gold in their minds?

There is a whole rabbit hole to explore here: William Newman: “Newton the Alchemist”.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.1979.000...

"Newton’s ‘derangement of the intellect’. New light on an old problem, P. E. Spargo and C. A. Pounds, 1979"

And regarding the documented symptoms:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.1979.000...

"Mercury poisoning: A probable cause of Isaac Newton's physical and mental ills, L.w. Johnson and M. L. Wolbarsht, 1979"

Eternal recurrence is a concept supposedly found in ancient Egypt and where one can understand all the causes & effects that made our life can theoretically repeat for infinity. The bible story about Adam & Eve is somewhat significant to highlight the cause of eating the forbidden fruit resulting in the effect of original sin but fails to highlight God being the cause for such a forbidden fruit existing in the first place; or one could even argue God being the cause for giving them free will.

Anyway from the foregoing, it makes sense scientists can benefit from looking at historical events, stories, and traditions for improving perception. I don't know why people get shamed or embarrassed about reading things like magic or alchemy as an example. Science likely benefits from creativity and what's more creative than imagination or unrealistic topics.

Another source related to the topic: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/newtons-temple-596350

"My Dear Yahuda, Newton’s writings on biblical subjects seem to me especially interesting because they provide deep insight into the characteristic intellectual features and working methods of this important man. The divine origin of the Bible is for Newton absolutely certain, a conviction that stands in curious contrast to the critical skepticism that characterizes his attitude toward the churches. From this confidence stems the firm conviction that the seemingly obscure parts of the Bible must contain important revelations, to illuminate which one need only decipher its symbolic language. Newton seeks this decipherment, or interpretation, by means of his sharp systematic thinking grounded on the careful use of all the sources at his disposal. While the formative development of Newton’s lasting physics works must remain shrouded in darkness, because Newton apparently destroyed his preparatory works, we do have in this domain of his works on the Bible drafts and their repeated modification; these mostly unpublished writings therefore allow a highly interesting insight into the mental workshop of this unique thinker.

- Einstein. September 1940, Saranac Lake

P.S. I think that it is wonderful that the writings will all be kept together and made available for research.”

It's interesting that 400 years later, especially in this day and age of freedoms and lesser stigmatization, we still have this dissonance. People are unwilling to listen to their inner instincts that maybe not everything we believe in must be a published paper in a reputable journal.

I was also just about to post about how there's still a ton of stigma around alternative theories of history. In particular, the ones about how the pyramids were built by ancient civilizations. The end result is that it's tough to find the real work being done because most credible people are driven underground. We're left with the conspiracy theorists.

Here is my bone with these 'alternative' theories, a lot contain a lot of snake oil (of course I didnt look at much) and are disingenious. Let me give you an example. (I think it was a video by Däniken). He takes a ancient egyptian metal-vessel (probaly copper amphore) and then says:'the amazing thing is, if you just add a little acid and a wire to this amazing device it will act like a battery. So did the egyptians have electricity?' Or something like that. Of course that will happen, and it will happen to any metal cup, it does not show anything about having the knowledge about electricity of a society, but people who do not know much physics will then lead astray to 'so how do you explain this'. If they would have found the wire (of a different metal) inside the jar, in some device... ok... but this is like finding a rock of uranium and saying:'they could have made nuclear power plants from this'.

When I saw they had to go this low, I was pretty sure they have nothing.

Your post is seriously meta:

To demonstrate how snake-oil people leap to conclusions and paint with a broad brush based on flimsy evidence…

…you leap to conclusions and paint with a broad brush based on anecdata.

> When I saw they had to go this low, I was pretty sure they have nothing.

Well, I remember it was one of the 'big-guys' of this alternative theories. So I believe if 'they' had something he would have used it. But please go ahead, point me to the best piece of evidence (no goal-post shifting later, please)

Possibly relevant (Baghdad Battery):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

>"In March 2012, Professor Elizabeth Stone of Stony Brook University, an expert on Iraqi archaeology, returning from the first archaeological expedition in Iraq after 20 years, stated that she does not know a single archaeologist who believed that these were batteries."

Sounds great!

OK. What are you goal posts though? :)

Here's my (hopefully charitable) reading of your argument:

1. Alternative theories of history are disingenious (sic) snake oil, because they're based on weak circumstantial evidence. They use flawed reasoning to support strawman interpretations of the data.

2. To support this theory, you mention a video you saw (well, maybe saw…) of one guy X (Däniken) claiming something about Y (vessel batteries?).

Don't you find the irony delicious?

All theories were "alternative" at some point. Some stood the test of time and evidence; some didn't (Gobekli Tepe embarrassed quite a few "mainstream" scientists in its time); some are in the academic weighing right now (the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis).

No. I do not see the irony. I am not posting a researched theory here. Also since this is a forum, anybody can point out the smoking gun/honest interpretation whatever. A little burden of proof is on the alternative theories (and I do not go that far to say 'extraordinary claims need extraodinary evidence', I am fine with normal evidence).

Well, that is my experience, too. I'm very open so I examined several so-called proofs of alternative history. Unfortunately, in all cases they can be explained in more traditional ways, or were a fabrication like the crystal skulls. This doesn't mean that we haven't been visited by alien civilizations, but as far as I can tell we don't really have any definitive proof. Unless we equate aliens with gods - but even then the only artifacts we have are just scriptures.

[ I guess you mean "high technology" ancient civilisations? ]

The problem is that wrong/inadequate/inferior theories will tend to be neglected, professionals will be stay clear of them, and "if only we had better theorists" could be a rallying call in those cases as well.

"If only there wasn't such a bias against phlogistonism we'd have higher-quality phlogiston research."

Weirdly enough I don't think I've heard this argument much in the crackpot science world, where I have more experience, but it is not uncommon for people to imprint on obsolete theories that modern working scientists can't really discuss because they don't know them in detail or maybe even in broad strokes (epicycles or the like).

I'm happy to leave it to the professionals. History is a quite high-evidence high-rigour domain, with many converging sources that confirm earlier theories (genetics/linguistics/carbon dating/etc.).

I couldn't disagree more. The democratisation of (the idea of) science had a strong role to play in the proliferation of conspiracy theories and anti-science sentiment in general. I think many people are doing exactly what you say and listening to their instincts. That's a negative development, not a positive one.

Interesting how at this point in history it was thought that the Egyptians knew alchemical secrets that were lost in time.

Fun little bit of etymological history: chemistry comes from alchemy which is a translation from an arabic phrase to mean 'from Egypt'. https://www.etymonline.com/word/alchemy

Neal Stephenson's System of the World trilogy has a lot to say on Newton's alchemical investigations.

I really ought to finish the last book.

I remember it captured Newton’s nuttiness and strong interest in experiment and knowledge when Stephenson had a scene where Newton used knitting needles inserted under his own eyeballs to distort the shape of his eyeball and describe what he saw.

There's a interesting movie (available on YT) - The Revelation of the Pyramids from 2010. Discussing technical feats of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and speculates about hidden knowledge encoded in the dimensions / location of these structures. Goes even further suggesting it is a warning of recurrent catastrophe. But biggest impression made on me info ( around 1hour:15minutes mark) that plenty of the important ancient structures around the globe are located on circle roughly 100KM wide and Equator length and different geometrical relations between these points.

https://archive.vn/XsM8A

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