Perhaps one of the greatest indications of how important a figure Isaac Newton was in physics and mathematics is the rare mention of the time when his mother threatened to burn down his house, or, equally surprisingly, when he stuck a few needles in his own eyeballs to see what would happen.
When Newton wasn’t bothering to revolutionize the concepts of motion and gravity, he was a somewhat odd man by today’s standards. Besides devoting much of his spare time to the study of alchemy, a semi-magical medieval belief, including that metals could be turned into gold, Newton also had a keen interest in the occult and biblical apocalypse.
In fact, in a few private prediction pieces that were probably never intended to be made public, Newton tried to predict the end of the world based on the Protestant understanding of the Bible and the events that followed. In an essay written on a letterhead next to actual mathematical calculations that have nothing to do with the apocalypse, Newton apparently referred to the year 2060:
- The 2300 prophetic day did not begin before the rise of the Male Goat’s little horn.
- It did not begin that day after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans A.[D.] 70.
- Time, times, and half time did not begin before the year 800 when the Pope’s leadership began.
- They did not start after the reign of Gregory 7. 1084
- The 1290 days did not begin before 842.
- They didn’t start after the reign of Pope Greg VII. 1084
- The difference between 1290 and 1335 days are parts of seven weeks.
- Therefore, 2300 years does not end before the year 2132 or after 2370. Time, times and half time before 2060 or[2344] then it doesn’t end. 1290 days before 2090 or[2374]then [does not end].
Newton believed in the biblical apocalyptic view that at the end of the days an Apocalyptic war would take place between “Gog and Magog”. Newton may have wanted his notes left around, in which he spoke of “the rise of the little horn of the Male Goat”, to remain confidential, but it may be worth noting that he predicted the end of an era, not the end of the world, in 2060.
Stephen D. Snobelen, professor of the history of science and technology at King’s College University in Halifax, wrote in 2003 that “Newton was convinced that Christ would return around this date and establish a global Kingdom of peace.”
Although Newton himself made such a prediction, he disliked the practice of predicting the end of the world because of the damage it did to religious prophecies when the apocalypse did not happen: “We do this by frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so, not to pretend that the end will happen. I say this to put an end to the hasty assumptions of imaginary men who discredit divine prophecies when their predictions often fail. Christ comes like a thief in the night, and it is not for us to know the times and seasons that God holds in his bosom.”
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