He also developed calculus, and studied optics and gravity then:
When the Great Plague of London ravaged through the British city beginning in 1665, Issac Newton was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. As described in Gale Christianson’s Isaac Newton, a few months after acquiring his undergraduate degree in the spring of that year, the 23-year-old retreated to his family farm of Woolsthorpe Manor, some 60 miles northwest of Cambridge. Along with being located a safe distance from the carriers of the horrific disease that was wiping out the population of the city, Woolsthorpe provided the sort of quiet, serene environment that allowed a mind like Newton’s to journey, uninterrupted, to the farthest reaches of the imagination. This period is now known as annus mirabilis – the “year of wonders.”
Tim Ott, “Isaac Newton Changed the World While in Quarantine From the Plague” at Biography
And what were you doing during the COVID-19 lockdowns? 😉
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
During Covid lockdown I expect Kairosfocus or Bornagain77 to make the ID breakthrough that will convince everyone of the truth if ID.
Steve Alten2
Perhaps someone on your side could come up with how energy came about without ID. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, yet it exists. It is direct evidence of a vastly superior intelligence to man, since something must have created energy. You are on the side with no evidence to support evolution. ID can be seen in the very laws of physics and not a single one can exist without ID. Is it not more likely that something exists with vastly superior intellect than man put the laws into place than a single law to have come about from chaos? Laws are order and cannot come from chaos, yet that is what you must believe without ID.
Where does this claim about pi come from? It’s not in the linked piece (which has its own problems, with its claims b´having already been debunked), and I haven’t seen it anywhere else?
Poor Newton and poor guys in video. Everyone knows pi is 22/7 or 3 1/7.
Here is a link to the video with references included
BobRyan/2
If it’s always existed it didn’t come from anywhere.
You just said energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Doesn’t that mean there’s no need for a Creator?
Bob O’H takes issues with the claims that NEWS made:
Specifically, Bob O’H claims that the claims made in NEWS’s linked article have been debunked.
Yet the specific claims made in the linked article are, relatively speaking, quite modest and are devoid of any of the hyperbole that is usually associated with myth making, The specific claims in the linked article are, “Newton helped develop calculus,,, He analyzed color, light and the spectrum,, Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion,,”
Moreover, Bob O’H’s linked article does not contradict any of these ‘modest’ claims that were made in NEWS’s linked article,
In fact, Bob’s article admits that,
Thus NEWS’s specific claim that “Newton helped develop calculus” stands as undebunked.
Next from Bob O’H’s linked article,
Thus NEWS’s specific claim from her linked article that “Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion,,” also stands as undebunked.
Next from Bob O’H’s linked article, we find
Thus NEWS’s specific claim from her linked article, “He analyzed color, light and the spectrum,” also stands as undebunked.
The only criticism against NEWS’s linked article that Bob’s paper can realistically muster is the somewhat trivial criticism that all this activity of Newton’s was limited ONLY to the year 1666, but even Bob’s paper itself does not dispute that 1666 was a year of amazing and intense intellectual breakthroughs for the young Newton.
In fact, Bob’s linked article, far from directly contradicting any of the claims that NEWS’s actually made, is actually specifically directed at debunking the over the top hyperbole that Neil deGrasse Tyson himself had repeated, i.e. Tyson had falsely claimed that “When Isaac Newton stayed at home to avoid the 1665 plague, he discovered the laws of gravity, optics, and he invented calculus.”
Perhaps Bob should take his grievance with the over the top hyperbole surrounding Newton’s ‘year of wonders’ to his fellow atheist Neil deGrasse Tyson?
After all, Neil deGrasse Tyson himself, Bob’s fellow atheist, is the one who actually drastically overstated what Newton had actually accomplished in his ‘year of wonders’, not NEWS!
From the post by The Renaissance Mathematicus
Seversky claims “If it’s (energy has) always existed (then) it didn’t come from anywhere.”
Yet, via Big Bang cosmology, we now know that energy, (along with matter, space and time), has NOT always existed,
Shoot, to add insult to injury, Quantum Mechanics came along and said that photons and atoms, (i.e. energy and matter), do not really even exist until we look at them.
First, in regards to photons, and via Leggett’s inequality, we find that “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Secondly, in regards to atoms, and via Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, we find that ““It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
As Anton Zeilinger himself commented, “it is not just us (we ourselves) that don’t know where the particle is, the particle itself does not know where it is. This “nonexistence” is an objective feature of reality…”
The Theistic implications of all this are fairly obvious, as Scott Aaronson of MIT stated, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
So exactly where does the photon and/or atom actually exist prior to measurement if not in the physical universe?
Well, prior to measurement, the photon and/or atom is mathematically defined as existing in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space, that takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly.
Now, as a Christian Theist, that certainly sounds very much like the photon, (and/or atom), though not existing in the physical universe prior to measurement, is existing in the infinite Mind of God prior to measurement, and that it is God Himself who is collapsing the ‘infinite dimensional’ Hilbert space and Who is, therefore, sustaining this physical universe in its continual existence. Just as Christian Theism has predicted all along:
7 billion ordinary people have been trying to do their ordinary jobs and raise their ordinary kids while a million DEMONS have been binding and gagging and impoverishing and humiliatring and killing the ordinary people. That’s vastly more heroic than improving the precision of a number.
Of related note to Newton and Gravity
And the inverse square law, for the most part, also holds for Einstein’s General Relativity, i.e. ” in the limit of low velocities and weak gravitational fields, Einstein’s theory still predicts that the gravitational force between two point objects obeys an inverse-square law.”
From the ‘purely materialistic’ perspective of atheists, why should there even be such a nice, neat, and tidy, thing as the inverse square law?
And indeed, the inverse square law is just a little too neat to be an accident.
It is obvious that the inverse square law of Gravity must have been ‘set up’ for man to, fairly easily, discover it.
Newton himself certainly did not hold Gravity to be an accident.
Here is what Newton himself said about Gravitation in his book Principia, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.,,, 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;,,, The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect;,,,
In regards to the inverse square law being ‘set up’ for discovery, the inverse square law also plays out in the ‘perfect’ solar eclipses that we observe here on earth.
Moreover, the amazing coincidence of perfect solar eclipses, which is an outplaying of the inverse square law. has allowed us to make further amazing scientific discoveries:
So it is readily apparent that the laws of the universe, particularly the inverse square law of Gravity, is set up in such a way so as to allow us to, number one, discover it, and number 2, make further scientific discoveries, via ‘perfect eclipses’, about the mysteries of the universe from the earth.
This overall thesis, i.e. that the earth is ‘privileged’ in order to enable humans to make scientific discoveries, has been more fully developed by Gonzalez and Richards,
Verse:
ba77 @ 7 – You might want to read the article. It specifically claims that Newton made these discoveries in a “year of wonders” whilst staying at Woolsthorpe Manor. But, as Thorny C explains, this isn’t true: he developed these ideas over several years, not one, and did so in both Cambridge and Woolsthorpe Manor. So well done on totally ignoring the part that was problematic: Newton didn’t develop his ideas in one year whilst evading the plague.
ba77 @ 5 – Thanks. This link (which you gave) gives Newton’s approximation for pi, so he did calculate it. It’s not obvious to me that this approach was used and extended afterwards, but I haven’t looked closely.
As to Pi in particular, it is also interesting to note that Pi, which is a ‘dimensionless constant’,,,,
it is also interesting to note that Pi, which is a ‘dimensionless constant’, also play a very important role in physics. Pi is found in a very wide variety of Physics equations,
As well, Pi, (i.e. perfect, or almost perfect, circles and/or spheres), unexpectedly turn up is some rather interesting places in the universe
The delicate balance at which carbon is synthesized in stars is truly a work of art.
Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), an atheist turned Theist, who was a famed astrophysicist who discovered the nucleosynthesis of carbon in stars, stated that,
As well, exceptional roundness has now also been found for the electron,
Moreover, the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), has now revealed that the universe is a circular sphere
And the Bible predicted that the universe would be a circular sphere long before it was discovered by modern science,
And it also interesting to note that Pi is also found in Euler’s Identity, which is considered the “most beautiful theorem in mathematics”.
Also of note, the brilliant mathematician Leonhard Euler, who is considered one the most gifted mathematicians to ever exist, stated this about atheists: ” If these people (atheists) maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible.”
Verse:
Bob, you might want to read my response, i.e. “The only criticism against NEWS’s linked article that Bob’s paper can realistically muster is the somewhat trivial criticism that all this activity of Newton’s was limited ONLY to the year 1666, but even Bob’s paper itself does not dispute that 1666 was a year of amazing and intense intellectual breakthroughs for the young Newton.”
i.e. The only real criticism is that 1666 was a ‘year of wonders’
But that criticism turned out, in regards to the actual claims NEWS made, to be ‘splitting hairs’ since the paper you yourself linked to conceded that 1666 was, none-the-less, a remarkable year for Newton, and thus not nearly as consequential to the other ‘modest’ claims that NEWS was actually making for Newton.
Again, your criticism is far more fairly directed towards Tyson’s over the top hyperbole, (i.e. that Newton “discovered the laws of gravity, optics, and he invented calculus.”), not any supposed hyperbole that NEWS may have inadvertently conveyed through her reference to a ‘year of wonders’.
Again, NEWS merely claimed, via the article, that “Newton helped develop calculus,,, He analyzed color, light and the spectrum,, Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion,,”
Those specific claims News made, via her linked article (unlike Tyson’s over the top hyperbolic claims that Newton “discovered the laws of gravity, optics, and he invented calculus.”), are modest and are certainly NOT over the top hyperbole like Tyson’s claims. In fact, those modest claims, more or less, accurately reflect what Newton actually accomplished during that time period. I guess we can call them ‘years of wonder’ instead of just a single year of wonder? 🙂
BA writes,
What does the inverse square law have to do with eclipses? More or less total eclipses happen because the ratio of the diameter to the distance from earth is the same for the sun and the moon. This is not related to the inverse square law.
So explain, BA. What does the inverse square law have to do with eclipses?
You are right Viola Lee. I am mistaken.
For some reason I was reading (way) too much into the inverse square law when I first made that comment a few years ago. I will delete that comment from my notes so that I do not make that mistake again.
Sorry for that.
The fact that the “sun’s diameter is about 400 times larger than that of the moon – the sun is also about 400 times farther away”, is what it is and is why we have our amazing, (and unique in this solar system), solar eclipses.
No need to invoke the inverse square law to explain such an amazing coincidence that has allowed us to have total solar eclipses and make some fairly profound scientific discoveries as a result.
ba77 @ 17 – the title of this blog piece is “While in quarantine from the Plague, Newton transformed the way we calculate pi”, and then continues with “He also developed calculus, and studied optics and gravity then”. But none of this is true – Newton didn’t do all of these when in quarantine.
No it doesn’t, it say that he progress over the six years from 1660 to 1666 were remarkable. This is what Thorny C wrote:
Thanks, BA, for uncoupling eclipses and the inverse square law in your post and notes.
SA2 said:
Are they working on a drug that relieves cognitive bias against ID?
Are they trying to cancel Newton?
I personally like Leibniz in addition to Newton.
Matt Ridley wrote a book on innovation with the conclusion that nearly all great innovations were the result of the efforts of several people. The analogy maybe best be with Edison who was not the first to experiment with incandescent bulbs but was the driving force behind the expansion of electricity to make the incandescent light a common household item. Yes, Tesla won the AC/DC war and is getting his due. But the reason the world has electricity is mainly due to Edison.
His expression is that innovation is a team sport. But only some teams have a Pele or a Jim Brown, or a Babe Ruth, or a Michael Jordan or a Wayne Gretzky.
And who is Otto Frederick Rohwedder? He may be more influential than Newton. He’s the best thing since sliced bread. But he did not invent the knife.
Acartia’ sock:
Only the willfully ignorant don’t accept ID. They definitely can’t refute ID and they have all of the power to do so! To refute ID all those willfully ignorant people have to do is step up and demonstrate that their position’s mechanism can account for what ID says requires an intelligent designer! In other words they just have to support the claims of their asinine position! And yet they can’t.
A Nobel prize and immortality awaits the first person to validate natural selection as a major driver of evolution.
As to: “His achievements were remarkable but not sensational.”
Well Bob, I conceded the 1666 point as to being spread out over several years, but as to your claim that your own paper does not hold 1666 to be a remarkable year for Newton, well, in their own words, they state, ” He had thoroughly learnt all of the work available on the modern analytical mathematics, extended it and systematised it. This was an extraordinary achievement by any standards”
Certainly the term “extraordinary achievement” qualifies as to being ‘remarkable’ does it not?
And perhaps it could be strongly argued that his mathematical work in 1666 greatly helped him later on in optics and gravity, (someone more knowledgeable than I can probably answer that, but I would guess that it probably did help him quite a bit), but, none-the-less, your paper itself does concede that, mathematically speaking, 1666 was a year of “extraordinary achievement by any standards” for the young Newton.
Whether his overall work is to be considered ‘sensational’ or merely ‘remarkable’ all seems really quite a bit subjective to me.
For me personally, not being near Newton’s mathematical caliber, I consider his mathematical work, as demonstrated in the Pi video itself, to be ‘sensational’. After all, he basically transformed the entire way Pi had been calculated for centuries previously. Someone with more mathematical ability than I might call his work merely ‘remarkable’. But then again, he did transform the entire way Pi had been calculated for centuries prior to him.
i.e. 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other.
ba77 @ 26 –
Thank you.
My own paper? I’ve never written. a paper on Newton, I don’t know enough about him.
Well Bob, It just occurred to me that the important thing in all this is, somewhat, as Jerry said, “nearly all great innovations were the result of the efforts of several people.”
But rather than just ‘several people’, I would like to note that the culture in which these people lived is more important still to the rise of modern science than even ‘several people’ are
And Bob although we may disagree as to the importance of Newton’s overall contribution to modern science, the important thing to realize in all this is that Newton, and all the other founders of modern science, were thoroughly immersed in the Christian culture of medieval Christian Europe. In which God was integral to their understanding of nature and thus integral to any contribution to modern science they may have made.
In fact, many of the founders of modern science viewed their work in science, i.e. in ‘natural philosophy’, as a priestly vocation. As Boyle stated, “‘Discovering to others the perfections of God displayed in the creatures is a more acceptable act of religion, than the burning of sacrifices or perfumes upon his altars.’
And as Paul Davies put it, “in doing science, they supposed, one might be able to glimpse the mind of God – an exhilarating and audacious claim.”
Newton was explicit that, “to treat of God from phenomena is certainly a part of experimental philosophy”
In other words, Newton held that “we have epistemic access to God via our observations of the world. And so, from the phenomena, we can learn about God’s nature and divine will”
Thus Bob, while we may disagree as to the relative importance of Newton’s overall contribution to modern science, the important thing to realize in all this is that it was Newton’s, (and all the other Christian Founders of modern science), Christian presuppositions about nature and God that enabled them to make the breakthroughs in modern science that they made.
As the following article states, modern science, “arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview.”
And as the following article states, still today “the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics.”
And that claim that the continued rationality of science is still dependent on Theistic metaphysics is certainly not an exaggerated claim.
In fact, if we adopt the Atheist’s worldview of naturalism (as Atheists insist that we do via ‘methodological naturalism’), then we soon learn that our entire conception of the world collapses into catastrophic epistemological failure,
Specifically, we find that Darwinian atheists, with their naturalistic worldview, are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to:
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist and/or Methodological Naturalist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Thus in conclusion Bob, the important thing to realize in all this is not what Newton may or may not have contributed to modern science, but is to realize that Newton, nor any of the other founders of modern science, would have been able to make any of the breakthroughs that they made unless they first held onto Christian presuppositions.
Christianity is the key linchpin in all this! And THAT is the important thing to realize.
As the following article states, “as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation.”,,,
Jerry/25
I’m afraid that opportunity has long gone. My understanding is that natural selection has not been thought of a the major driver of evolution for quite a while.
If, on the other hand, all those researchers beavering away trying to find compelling evidence of an alien intelligent designer were to actually come up with something that should be worth at least a Nobel Prize and a Templeton grant.
News, you got there first. This video powerfully shows how the whole numbers, integers, rationals and reals — which are demonstrably present in any possible world — exhibit powerful quantitative structures that pervade reality. KF
SA2, really, that’s your response to an extraordinarily powerful and striking result? (I wonder why they did not show us this back in Math class when we first met Pascal’s Triangle and the Binomial Theorem.) KF
PS: No grand persuasive discovery is necessary beyond the multiple Nobel Prize winning work that elucidated the genetic code, decades since. What is the only credible, empirically warranted source of codes, algorithms, language, associated execution machinery again? That’s why I first have declared independence of the purblind system that ideologically locks out something as manifest as that. Second, I recognise the power of a crooked yardstick taken ill advisedly as standard of straightness, uprightness and accuracy, to lock in warped thinking. Even, to induce rejection of the message of a naturally straight and upright plumb line. Homework, go to a hardware store and inspect a speed square. Notice the little notch for a plumb line. Then, connect a few dots in the style of Newton, who again, here, shows his genius at making connexions.
Seversky, there has been no observation of blind chance variation and differential reproductive success as culling, leading to descent with unlimited variation sufficient to account for a novel body plan. Minor adaptations mostly due to breaking existing mechanisms do not support the grand, ideology-driven extrapolation imposed by the new magisterium. KF
VL, actually a lot. First, the law of gravitation explains eclipses. Second, in the ideas train getting there, eclipses pop up. As is now widely known, Eratosthenes used shadow lengths at Summer Solstice to calculate Earth’s circumference. An occultation experiment mimicking a Solar eclipse — dangerous, do not do — will show that the shadow cone is 108 diameters, which gives geometry for Solar eclipses pretty nearly, zone of totality is narrow. Then, in a Lunar Eclipse Earth’s shadow is a circle about three times the Moon’s disk, and BTW Aristotle noted that only a sphere always casts a circular shadow. We can estimate Moon’s relative size from the shadow cone, also its distance in the cone, scaled to the diameter of the Earth. We have measured the Earth-moon system. Now, plonk, the proverbial apple falls, at g. Scale the field intensity out to the Moon’s distance, and we have an explanation for its orbital centripetal acceleration. This reinforces our inference of inverse square law, though of course empirical support is not demonstrative proof. Connect to conic section trajectories including ellipses and then Kepler’s empirical laws. Along the way, infer the three laws of momentum to move from kinematics to dynamics. Spice with Calculus or in his terms, fluxions. Reduce back to then standard geometry. Voila, one scientific revolution, per order. KF
VL, I was working from rough memory, 2.5 not 3 diameters. KF
We have a breakthrough. Another advocate that Darwin and natural selection should be removed from the curriculum of all classrooms in the world.
This is something that nearly all supporters of ID want. Namely, that how evolution happened is a mystery that science has no answer for. Welcome to the ID side.
Here we go again.
You cannot point to a line let alone a straight line in our world. Thus no circles, no polygons in our world. Thus, no pi in our world. They are all abstract mental concepts that we can imagine.
Extremely useful but no continuums in the real world. We can act as if continuums exist and life gets much better if we do. Hope this does not bring back this discussion which has been discussed thoroughly on other threads.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-problem-with-most-theological-doctrines-and-the-theological-argument-for-mental-reality/#comment-715409
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/sabine-hossenfelder-asks-do-complex-numbers-exist/#comment-725678
Any discussion should be on those threads. Not here.
Jerry, abstract spaces pervade our world, in fact they ground our ability to infer that material ruler edges, ball bearings etc are imperfect relative to the geometric ideal. For an analogue, ponder how a plane mirror poses behind it a virtual half universe in an image space superposed on the physical cosmos. I assume, here, that you have done the classic high school science exercise to locate images behind a mirror. (NB: The next step would be to put a pin on the point the image of the toothpick is, then move from side to side to see that no parallax occurs.) KF
KF, I’m pretty sure that VL was merely stating that the inverse square law does not explain the exact positioning of the earth, moon, and sun, and that he accepts that the inverse square law is valid as to deriving ‘how’ total solar eclipses happen in the way that they do as viewed from the earth.
But the atheist’s appeal to chance, (besides being grossly inadequate to explain why the ‘nice, neat’, inverse square law exists in the first place), still does not explain the exact positioning of the earth, moon, and sun. Nor does his appeal chance explain why our solar system takes the ‘life-enabling’ form that it does.
And as the following article noted, “In the General Scholium, Newton explains that, while the laws of motion explain why celestial bodies move in Keplerian orbits, they cannot explain how celestial bodies come to be in their present orbits. And so, he writes, “This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being”,,,
It is also interesting to note that LaPlace’s supposed ‘I have no need for that hypothesis’ remark against God is, most likely, whig history.
Even according to wikipedia, Laplace’s quote is, in all likelihood, based on folklore not on fact,
In fact, Laplace cites with approval Leibniz’s criticism of Newton’s invocation of divine intervention to restore order to the Solar System, i.e. “This is to have very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God.”
Thus I hold that, from what has now been revealed by modern science about the delicate balance of which the solar system is maintained in its stable configuration, Newton, Leibniz, and even the oft misquoted Laplace, would all be very pleased by what modern science has now revealed about the wisdom and power of God in creating our solar system.
To repeat,
Verse:
From the Great Course Daily today, an article about Newton.
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/the-discovery-of-gravity-and-laws-of-motion-by-isaac-newton/
From the article.
There’s a lot more. Maybe the author is not entirely correct but Newton was quite a guy. Should we say remarkable.
By the way I always maintained that Newton stood on Galileo’s shoulders. (And Galileo was the villain in the Galileo affair.)