Context: Newton personally believed in the concept of absolute space since it reinforced the idea of an absolute God, but the entire premise was proven false by what we know as 'relativity of motion' which makes use of Newton's laws of motion.
Excerpts from 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking:
"... Aristotle believed in a preferred state of rest, which any body would take up if it were not driven by some force or impulse. In particular, he thought that the earth was at rest. But it follows from Newton's laws that there is no unique standard of rest."
"Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even though it was implied by his laws."
Yeah, no.
Newton was such a complex human. He seemed capable of holding many, sometimes opposing beliefs, at the same time.
There's even a Wikipedia page dedicated to his religious beliefs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton
If you are into learning about him there's also a rather good read, The Janus Faces of Genius, by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, that looks into his occult work.
Furthermore, for the sake of complexity, we can look into how, when he was the warden of the mint, he became responsible for the deaths of 19 people. He turned a largely ceremonial role into a task force, chasing down forgers and sentencing them to death.
Man, it was miles better when I just knew him as the motion guy back in primary school
Petition to edit all textbooks, renaming Newton as THE Motion Guy.
All in favor of the emotional motion guy motion petition to move forward unless acted on by an equal and opposite motion say aye.
but how would
every action has an equal and opposite reaction==this is a cruel godless world?I mean, it is a cruel godless world, but not because of the laws of motion 😂
Because God, to be the absolute creator and the prime mover, He must occupy an absolute space.
Newton had described a universe where, when you push a ball, the ball pushes back. Each action, each motion, is relative to another. This implies that, for God to create the first motion, like rolling the Universe across the room, the Universe would have pushed back and moved God.
Newton didn't believe this, and rejected the argument that his theories disproved God. But there is a reason we remember his laws of physics and forget the theological arguments. His work in physics held up to scrutiny for hundreds of years. He was accurately (enough) describing the motion of the world around him. His religious beliefs were based on the same philosophical musings and wishful thinking as every other theologian.
I'm all for Newton's conclusion that God can't be real, but man that just seems like a really weird reason.
Couldn't God push two things in opposite directions for the first motion? like throwing two balls together from each hand so they collide in the middle. That would result in zero net-god-motion. Or, since he's god, maybe he's above the laws of the universe. That might literally be true - there's no reason to believe laws of motion should hold outside of this universe.. whatever that ends up meaning.
I am an engineer but even I felt insulted on behalf of mathematicians when you referred to him as the motions guy 😭
Eh, Leibniz can be the calculus guy.
We use Leibniz's calculus anyway, and both were developed at the same time, prompted by the same paper. Newton just happened to publish first (I think) and was more well known at the time.
Hi, I'm Issac Newton, you might remember me from... The motions.