Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #isaacnewton, aggregated by home.social.
Isaac Newton, géant de la science, a aussi prédit la fin du monde pour 2060 📅
Dans une lettre de 1704, il calcule cette date à partir du Livre de Daniel. Il évoque aussi 2344, 2090, 2374...
Faut-il prendre au sérieux les prophéties d'un génie ?
#IsaacNewton #Prophétie #FinDuMonde
https://www.openculture.com/2026/10/isaac-newton-predicted-that-the-world-will-end-in-2060.html
If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Discovered gravity.
I discover new bruises after bumping into furniture.
#IsaacNewton #EverydayAccidents #GravityHumor
Cross-sectional view of Newton’s Cenotaph (1784) by Étienne-Louis Boullée.
Source: Library of Congress
https://pdimagearchive.org/images/8d0e8453-420d-40b9-bb3f-db8e90d9a165
#france #forms #designs #tombs #frenchrevolution #fantasyarchitecture #spheres #monuments #utopias #ink #geometry #architecture #isaacnewton #theimpossible #design #painting #drawing #art #publicdomain
Christophe Pauly (#ScienceEtVieTV) interviewe Jean-Philippe Uzan, physicien théoricien et cosmologiste (15/08/2026 ; 1h16)
https://youtu.be/rfOgrRY420s
#Science #Hypothèse #Spéculation #Théorie #Expérience #Physique #Astronomie #Astrophysique #Mathématiques #Philosophie #Épistémologie #Univers #Multivers #Infini #Lumière #Vitesse #AugusteBlanqui #Vie #Atome #Chimie #PrincipeAnthropique (#BrandonCarter) #ThéorieDesCordes #GeorgesLemaître #BigBang #UniversÀRebonds #CollisionDeMembranes #OndesGravitationnelles #OndesGravitationnellesPrimordiales #Gravitation #IsaacNewton #AlbertEinstein #EspaceTemps #TrouNoir
https://www.europesays.com/si/195545/ Ste vedeli, da je Isaac Newton izračunal letnico konca sveta – prihaja že kmalu #ApokaliptičneNapovedi #Headlines #IsaacNewton #KonecSveta #Leto2060 #NajpomembnejšeNovice #News #Novice #OsrednjeNovice #PreroškeKnjige #Slovene #Slovenščina #SvetopisemskaAnaliza #TeološkiRokopisi #TopStories #ZgodovinaZnanosti #ZlataDoba #ZnanostInVera
A Pendulum for the Multiverse: David Albert, Hugh Everett, and the Worlds We Never Feel
On my grandfather's porch in North Loup, Nebraska, the ground kept its promises. Summer evenings the floorboards held the day's heat, the corn stood in rows that ran clear to the horizon, and nothing in all that flat immensity so much as trembled. When a teacher first told me the Earth was spinning at close to a thousand miles an hour while racing around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand more, I pressed my bare feet against those boards and waited to feel the ride. The stillness came back like a verdict. Whatever the books claimed, my soles reported a stationary world, and a boy trusts his soles. Every child who has run that experiment has rebuilt, in miniature, the strongest objection the seventeenth century could throw at Copernicus. If the Earth turns, why does a dropped stone land at the foot of the tower and never a few feet to the west? Why does the gale of our orbital speed fail to strip the leaves from the trees? The objection deserved respect because it rested on evidence, on the honest testimony of every human body that had ever stood still. It took Galileo's ship, and then Newton's laws, to explain why that testimony, though honest, was worthless. […]
Exploring the Foundations of the Scientific Revolution
Illustrating the integration of faith and reason from key Christian scientists.Several notable and important people led to the modern Scientific Revolution. It grew from their faith rooted in a Christian worldview. These philosophers and scientists founded their beliefs on a rational knowable Creator believing He would leave this universe imbued with rational laws that do not change. As a result using a sound investigative method those laws might be discovered.
The initial start to the development of modern science was heavily influenced by two philosophers who taught and developed the methodology of scientific empiricism: Roger Bacon in the 13th century and Francis Bacon in the 16th/17th century.
Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20–1292), known as Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and polymath who is considered one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method and empiricism.
His philosophical contributions include:
However the next Bacon has had the greatest influence on the fundamentals of modern science.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher and statesman widely regarded as the father of empiricism and a foundational figure in the development of the scientific method. He argued that knowledge should be derived from inductive reasoning and careful observation of nature, rejecting the deductive Aristotelian logic that dominated his era.
His philosophical contributions include:
Francis Bacon was a devout Anglican Christian who sought to reconcile his faith with the emerging scientific method. He believed that studying nature through empirical observation was a way to understand God’s creation and that scientific progress served a spiritual duty to alleviate human suffering.
While Bacon argued for keeping theology and natural philosophy in separate spheres to prevent religious dogma from hindering scientific inquiry, he remained critical of atheism.
Bacon famously stated that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,” viewing the increase of knowledge as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
However he was not a biblical creationist in the modern sense. He believed that mixing theological dogma with natural philosophy (science) corrupted both, famously criticizing those who tried to build systems of physics based on Genesis or Job.
Bacon articulated the metaphor of “Two Books” written by God:
He urged scholars to pursue “endless progress” in both books but warned strictly against “unwisely mingling or confounding” them.
Of course, I totally disagree his “unwisely mingling” view. There are “Two Books” representing one creation, One Creator. The two books are interwoven by the very nature of the creation. It is all one system created by God and any philosophy that ignores this fact is ultimately doomed to failure.
However he rightfully is credited with what is nowadays called the Scientific Method: hypothesis, experiment and data collection that may disprove the initial hypothesis. No experimental results can ever prove the hypothesis. If you want proofs, try mathematics, which is a closed artificial universe.
I have no doubt that this method gave a big start to the Scientific Revolution, which really started with Francis Bacon in the early 1600s. However in all my own experience in university research labs what was actually used were Bayesian Methods.
Bayesian Methods are statistical techniques that use Bayes’ theorem to update the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence or data becomes available.
Instead of treating unknown yet-to-be-determined parameters as fixed, Bayesian analysis interprets probability as a degree of belief, allowing for the incorporation of prior knowledge or subjective beliefs alongside observed data. Bayes’ theorem uses a conditional probability to update the prior knowledge.
That means that Bayesian methods build on prior knowledge. And that also means prior biases, which is often seen when a parameter is measured over time. The prior measured value is considered with more weight than it should be and so new values are chosen that fall closest to the prior. What results is a progressive creep in the value towards the final accepted value, the true value. This can be seen in the historical measured values for the round-trip speed of light, c.
Historical measurements of the speed of light, cAlso in the measurements of the electron charge (e).
Historical measurements of the electron charge, eThe bias is not due to the error bounds not overlapping the final correct result but due to weight placed on the priors. So a results that favour a prior is accepted before newer values which may be more accurate. This bias is a feature of a worldview.
Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–1761) was a Presbyterian minister and a member of the English Nonconformist (Dissenter) religious tradition. While his father was a traditional Presbyterian, scholars describe Bayes’ personal theological beliefs as Unitarian or Arian, indicating he strayed from standard Christian orthodoxy. (That is the same accusation leveled against Isaac Newton, so perhaps there is some doubt there.)
Bayes mathematical work, specifically Bayes’ theorem, was originally developed to provide a probabilistic defense of Christianity against the skeptical arguments of philosopher David Hume, who had questioned the validity of miracles.
Bayes published two works during his lifetime: a theological tract titled Divine Benevolence (1731) and a mathematical defense of Isaac Newton’s calculus (1736).
Barring a miraculous revelation from God, in a dream or vision, most experimental development comes from a long list of prior researchers, scientists who slowly advanced the field — one building on the work of another. This is what the oft quoted expression means.
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
The expression is most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, who used it in a 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke. However, the metaphor actually originated in the 12th century with the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres, who described humans as “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.”
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English polymath and a central figure in the Scientific Revolution, renowned for his foundational contributions to physics, mathematics, and optics.
Newton attended Trinity College, Cambridge, ostensibly preparing to become an Anglican minister, but spent his time developing his groundbreaking theories. The years 1665–1666 was a period of intense personal productivity known as his annus mirabilis.
He was a deeply religious Christian whose theological writings vastly outnumbered his scientific works. Newton believed in God the Father as the sole creator and Jesus Christ as His divine Son, but some have claimed he denied their co-equality, rejecting the Trinitarian doctrine.1,2 Don’t be misled by such claims. He was an alchemist too, but he wasn’t a witch. Alchemy at that time was the start of modern chemistry and metallurgy.
He viewed his scientific discoveries as a means to understand God’s design in nature, believing that the laws of physics revealed the order of a rational Creator. Newton spent decades studying biblical prophecy (particularly Daniel and Revelation) and church history, seeking to restore the “pure” faith of the early apostolic era.
His major works include Principia Mathematica (1687), which established the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and Opticks (1704), which detailed his experiments on light and color, including the invention of the reflecting telescope (1668).
Isaac Newton adapted and popularized the concept to acknowledge that his scientific discoveries built upon the work of predecessors like René Descartes. And this situation has been the norm since Isaac Newton.
René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution.
He is most famous for the epistemological foundationalist dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum) and for developing Cartesian dualism, the theory that the mind and body are distinct substances.
René Descartes was a Roman Catholic who actively sought to align his philosophy with Christian doctrine. He worked diligently to provide rational proofs for the existence of God, aiming to reconcile the new science with Christian beliefs and avoid conflict with ecclesiastical authorities.
He insisted that truths of faith were superior to human reason and separated theological doctrines (like the Trinity) from his rational metaphysics.
In works like the Meditations, he offered arguments for God’s existence (such as the trademark and ontological arguments) to establish God as the guarantor of truth and the creator of the universe.
His distinction between mind (immaterial soul) and body (material matter) was intended to support the immortality of the soul, a core tenet of Christian theology.
Despite his personal devotion, critics accused him of atheism because his mechanistic view of the physical world seemed to exclude God from daily natural processes, leading to the prohibition of his books by the Catholic Church in 1663.
Ultimately, Descartes is viewed as a figure who tried to rationalize religion without abandoning it, positioning human reason as a path to understanding God rather than a replacement for faith.
That is quite different to the humanist arguments of atheistic human reason without any foundation in God.
What we now need to understand is that not all science is science. It is not all subject to the Scientific Method even allowing for the human biases and Bayesian inference.
When an hypothesis cannot be tested because the subject lies in the past for the researcher it cannot be called operational or experimental science.
One problem that arises here is that the scientists themselves cannot recognise their own biases and proceed as if they are validly testing their assumed hypothesis. Their minds are dominated by their worldview, and that could be based on there being no Creator (atheism), or that the Creator is no longer around (deism) and all universal parameters evolve from their initial conditions.
In cases where an historical parameter is sought, the science should be called forensic or historical science because no direct evidence of the sought-after parameter is available. As a result proxies are used. But the proxies also cannot be directly tested for what they are assumed to mean.
For example, when trying to determine historical Earth temperatures tree rings or Oxygen isotope ratios are used as proxies. They need calibration but even the calibrations cannot be unequivocal since no one has a time machine. No past measurement is possible. All are inferred from some measurement done in the present.
Francis Bacon kept separate his “Two Books”. To keep them separate is a flawed approach, which other Christian apologists have also used. It is very similar to what Hugh Ross (of Reason to Believe ministry) teaches. He speaks of the 66 books of the bible but then there is the 67th book of nature. Ross claims God revealed that to him before he was even a believer in Christ.
It is a compromise because it does not allow the Creator to work. It assumes that in terms of a literal history in the Genesis account there is error and the language must be reinterpreted to fit in with modern science.
In Ross’ case he believes in the big bang origin of the universe, and so he squeezes the big bang timeline into the 6 x 24-hour days of Genesis creation. Ross accepts the multi-billion-year ages of the Earth and its rock strata, fitting in long periods for each day of creation. He employs a sequence of progressive creation acts that are intended to correspond to the sequence of events in the Genesis account. But one problem with that is the order. They are out of sequence. As well, his progressive “creation” events are, for all intents and purposes, infinitesimally close to Darwinian evolution of species (which he denies).
Each flash indicates a conflict in sequence between the biblical account and the big bang evolution story. Note that ‘long-age creationists’, though they deny biological transformism, hold to the identical order of appearance as evolutionists. There are 23 conflicts in total shown here. Credit: Idea from Dr. Russ Humphreys.Why is it so difficult for even the men of faith to completely accept the Christian worldview in all its details. Thankfully there have been many who have done so. But even among the believers there have been many who compromised on the scriptures in favour of secular interpretations of the physical sciences. They could not fully integrate into their worldview one big picture for the handiwork of God.
Footnote:
That to say there is but one God, ye father of all things, excludes not the son & Holy ghost from the Godhead becaus they are virtually conteined & implied in the father. … To apply ye name of God to ye Son or holy ghost as distinct persons from the father makes them not divers Gods from ye Father. … Soe there is divinity in ye father, divinity in ye Son, & divinity in ye holy ghost, & yet they are not thre forces but one force.
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#BayesianMethods #BigBang #empiricism #FrancisBacon #historicalScience #IsaacNewton #operationalScience #originOfTheUniverse #ReneDescartes #RogerBacon #ScientificMethod #ScientificRevolution #ThomasBayes
Cuadernos alquímicos, Isaac Newton
Esta obra recopila una serie de manuscritos personales que permanecieron ocultos por más de 200 años y que revelan una faceta poco difundida del célebre científico inglés. A diferencia de sus publicaciones matemáticas y físicas más conocidas, las páginas de este volumen reúnen notas de laboratorio, epístolas, poemas y cosmologías enfocadas enteramente en el estudio de las ciencias ocultas y la transmutación de los metales. A través de este compendio de textos, el lector puede constatar que el célebre físico dedicó una parte considerable de su vida a la búsqueda del elixir de la vida y la interpretación de fórmulas antiguas, redactando cerca de un millón de palabras sobre estos tópicos. La lectura resulta de gran utilidad para comprender el pensamiento de una época donde la línea entre el racionalismo empírico y el misticismo tradicional era sumamente delgada, ofreciendo una perspectiva directa de sus apuntes personales sin intermediarios ni censura histórica.
— A. Eldritch, Periodista, Locutor, podcaster y bloger del fediverso
Alt text via @altbot y @TeLoDescribot
#RecomendaciónLiteraria #IsaacNewton #Alquimia #Historia #Libros #Ciencia
Gravity Isn’t a Force: Google DeepMind’s Adam Brown on Einstein’s Biggest Insight — BigGo Finance
Imagine a power plant that extracts 100% of the energy stored in matter itself — not from chemical…
#NewsBeep #News #Science #AdamBrown #AlbertEinstein #ArthurEddington #AU #Australia #eventhorizontelescope #GoogleDeepMind #GPS #GW150914 #IsaacNewton #KarlSchwarzschild #LIGO #Mercury #Pound-Rebkaexperiment #RogerPenrose #SagittariusA #StephenHawking
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/792716/
New on my #blog: https://aspi.blog/2026/07/08/arisaig-2026-25-homeward-bound-york-to-home/
The final post in my series about my Scottish holiday, detailing the final stages of my return journey.
#Arisaig2026 #photography #PublicTransport #Railways #RailwayPhotography #RailwayHistory #York #Grantham #Peterborough #Ely #KingsLynn #TheMallard #IsaacNewton #TheWoodlandTrust
Oh, and as far as my favourites go, it's right up there with "And if I have not seen as far as others, it is because I have stood in the footprints of giants" 😆
Cambridge experts recreate 336-year-old garden to commemorate ‘father of natural history’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/cambridge-experts-recreate-336-year-old-garden-to-commemorate-father-of-natural-history #Plants #UniversityOfCambridge #Cambridge #Gardens #IsaacNewton #Science #UkNews #Environment
https://www.europesays.com/pt/420679/ Marcelo Gleiser estreia curso sobre mistérios do Universo – 16/06/2026 – Ciência #AlbertEinstein #Astronomia #CasaFolha #Ciência #CiênciaETecnologia #CiênciaEtecnologia #cientista #física #folha #IsaacNewton #MarceloGleiser #Portugal #PT #Science #ScienceAndTechnology #ScienceAndTechnology #Technology #Tecnologia #TeoriaDaRelatividade #Universo
“Here comes the sun”*…
Earth’s magnetic field provides an imperfect shield against solar stormsFurther, in a fashion, to last Wednesday’s post… We’ve looked before (e.g., here) at the potential havoc that solar storms could wreak on our electified lives. Now, as Paul Voosen reports, scientists are speculating on a defense, suggesting that gases released from satellites could slash the threat of severe “space weather”…
When violent eruptions from the Sun slam into Earth’s magnetic field, they do more than paint aurorae across the night sky. They can scramble the electronics of satellites and induce powerful ground currents that knock out electrical grids. It’s been estimated that a one-in-a-100-year solar storm like the 1859 Carrington Event could cause more than $3 trillion of damage to the power grid alone. [See here.]
Yet for decades, society’s only defenses have been better space weather forecasts and more durable technology on the ground and in space. Now, a small group of space physicists says humanity should intervene and weaken solar storms in real time. In a study published [recently] in Space Weather, the researchers describe a provocative proposal called “StormWall”: a fleet of satellites that would release hundreds of tons of gases into space just before a solar storm strikes Earth. Computer simulations suggest the artificial cloud could cut the intensity of a major solar storm by half or more. “It’s as if you could install an airbag in the magnetosphere,” says Daniel Welling, a co-author and space physicist at the University of Michigan.
Call it “helioengineering”—a deliberate intervention in the near-Earth space environment. But unlike controversial geoengineering proposals to mitigate global warming, which would inject long-lived Sun-blocking particles into the atmosphere, StormWall’s protective gases would dissipate within hours, says Brian Walsh, the study’s lead author and a space physicist at Boston University. “It’s waiting for us to do some temporary modification.”
The proposal would require more extensive simulations and testing. But it is “highly innovative and appears to be quite feasible in the near term,” says Allison Jaynes, a space physicist at the University of Iowa. It’s a “laudable idea,” adds Gurudas Ganguli, a space physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)…
[Voosen explains the technology proposed and considers the challenges in its implementation…]
… Of course, like an airbag, StormWall would have to be replaced if deployed. But just as NASA and other space agencies are studying how to protect the planet from asteroids [and here], Walsh says there’s a good argument for fortifying an electronics-dependent society against massive solar eruptions. “If we lose all our power grids and can’t use the internet for 6 years, it would be traumatic.”
“Radical proposal would block solar storms with orbital ‘airbag’” from @science.org.
* George Harrison
###
As we apply sunscreen, we might send bright birthday greetings to Godfried Wendelen; he was born on this date in 1580. And astronomer (and Catholic priest) known as “the Ptolemy of his time.” Despite the tenets of his church, Wendelen was an audacious proponent of the Copernican theory that the planets orbit around the sun. He made more accurate measurements of the distance to the sun than those previously made by Aristachus (2,000 years earlier) from the geometrical relationships at the exact time of a half-moon.
Wendelen is considered by many as a precursor of Kepler and Newton, and was in fact cited by Newton in his Principia. The crater Vendelinus on the Moon is named after him
#Aristarchus #astronomy #Copernicus #culture #electricGrid #GodfriedWendelen #history #IsaacNewton #Kepler #Moon #powerGrid #Ptoemy #Science #solarFlares #solarStorms #StormWall #sun #Vendelinus #Wendelen
#27Mayo Tarde de playa #València Calor de verano y juegos en el mar "Para mí, solo soy un niño jugando en la playa, mientras vastos océanos de la verdad no se han descubierto" #IsaacNewton
Irked by both his character and his tendency towards corruption, Jonathan Swift spent years ruthlessly satirising #IsaacNewton.
⌛️ Last chance to read this archive article for free
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/great-debates/isaac-newton-laputa
Irked by both his character and his tendency towards corruption, Jonathan Swift spent years ruthlessly satirising #IsaacNewton.
🔓 Patricia Fara’s new Great Debates is free for 7 days
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/great-debates/isaac-newton-laputa
“Something that doesn’t actually exist can still be useful”*…
Gregory Barber on ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite. Ultrafinitism has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy, but it is also producing new insights in math and beyond…
Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician who believes that all things come to an end. That just as we are limited beings, so too does nature have boundaries — and therefore so do numbers. Look out the window, and where others see reality as a continuous expanse, flowing inexorably forward from moment to moment, Zeilberger sees a universe that ticks. It is a discrete machine. In the smooth motion of the world around him, he catches the subtle blur of a flip-book.
To Zeilberger, believing in infinity is like believing in God. It’s an alluring idea that flatters our intuitions and helps us make sense of all sorts of phenomena. But the problem is that we cannot truly observe infinity, and so we cannot truly say what it is. Equations define lines that carry on off the chalkboard, but to where? Proofs are littered with suggestive ellipses. These equations and proofs are, according to Zeilberger — a longtime professor at Rutgers University and a famed figure in combinatorics — both “very ugly” and false. It is “completely nonsense,” he said, huffing out each syllable in a husky voice that seemed worn out from making his point.
As a matter of practicality, infinity can be scrubbed out, he contends. “You don’t really need it.” Mathematicians can construct a form of calculus without infinity, for instance, cutting infinitesimal limits out of the picture entirely. Curves might look smooth, but they hide a fine-grit roughness; computers handle math just fine with a finite allowance of digits. (Zeilberger lists his own computer, which he named “Shalosh B. Ekhad,” as a collaborator on his papers.) With infinity eliminated, the only thing lost is mathematics that was “not worth doing at all,” Zeilberger said.
Most mathematicians would say just the opposite — that it’s Zeilberger who spews complete nonsense. Not just because infinity is so useful and so natural to our descriptions of the universe, but because treating sets of numbers (like the integers) as actual, infinite objects is at the very core of mathematics, embedded in its most fundamental rules and assumptions.
At the very least, even if mathematicians don’t want to think about infinity as an actual entity, they acknowledge that sequences, shapes, and other mathematical objects have the potential to grow indefinitely. Two parallel lines can in theory go on forever; another number can always be added to the end of the number line.
Zeilberger disagrees. To him, what matters is not whether something is possible in principle, but whether it is actually feasible. What this means, in practice, is that not only is infinity suspect, but extremely large numbers are as well. Consider “Skewes’ number,” eee79. This is an exceptionally large number, and no one has ever been able to write it out in decimal form. So what can we really say about it? Is it an integer? Is it prime? Can we find such a number anywhere in nature? Could we ever write it down? Perhaps, then, it is not a number at all.
This raises obvious questions, such as where, exactly, we will find the end point. Zeilberger can’t say. Nobody can. Which is the first reason that many dismiss his philosophy, known as ultrafinitism. “When you first pitch the idea of ultrafinitism to somebody, it sounds like quackery — like ‘I think there’s a largest number’ or something,” said Justin Clarke-Doane, a philosopher at Columbia University.
“A lot of mathematicians just find the whole proposal preposterous,” said Joel David Hamkins, a set theorist at the University of Notre Dame. Ultrafinitism is not polite talk at a mathematical society dinner. Few (one might say an ultrafinite number) work on it. Fewer still are card-carrying members, like Zeilberger, willing to shout their views out into the void. That’s not just because ultrafinitism is contrarian, but because it advocates for a mathematics that is fundamentally smaller, one where certain important questions can no longer be asked.
And yet it gives Hamkins and others a good deal to think about. From one angle, ultrafinitism can be seen as a more realistic mathematics. It is math that better reflects the limits of what people can create and verify; it may even better reflect the physical universe. While we might be inclined to think of space and time as eternally expansive and divisible, the ultrafinitist would argue that these are assumptions that science has increasingly brought into question — much as, Zeilberger might say, science brought doubt to God’s doorstep.
“The world that we’re describing needs to be honest through and through,” said Clarke-Doane, who in April 2025 convened a rare gathering of experts to explore ultrafinitist ideas. “If there might only be finitely many things, then we’d better also be using a math that doesn’t just assume that there are infinitely many things at the get-go.” To him, “it sure seems like that should be part of the menu in the philosophy of math.”
For mathematicians to take it seriously, though, ultrafinitists first need to agree on what they’re talking about — to turn arguments that sound like “bluster,” as Hamkins puts it, into an official theory. Mathematics is steeped in formal systems and common frameworks. Ultrafinitism, meanwhile, lacks such structure.
It is one thing to tackle problems piecemeal. It is quite another to rewrite the logical foundations of mathematics itself. “I don’t think the reason ultrafinitism has been dismissed is that people have good arguments against it,” Clarke-Doane said. “The feeling is that, oh, well, it’s hopeless.”
That’s a problem that some ultrafinitists are still trying to address.
Zeilberger, meanwhile, is prepared to abandon mathematical ideals in favor of a mathematics that’s inherently messy — just like the world is. He is less a man of foundational theories than a man of opinions, of which he lists 195 on his website. “I cannot be a tenured professor without doing this crackpot stuff,” he said. But one day, he added, mathematicians will look back and see that this crackpot, like those of yore who questioned gods and superstitions, was right. “Luckily, heretics are no longer burned at the stake.”…
Read on for the history of ultrafinitism, the critical dialogue surrounding it, and its implications: “What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?” from @gregbarber.bsky.social in @quantamagazine.bsky.social.
* Ian Stewart (whose point was somewhat different from Zeilberger’s :-), Infinity: A Very Short Introduction
###
As we engage the endless, we might spare a thought for a man whose work touched on the infinitesimal, Isaac Barrow; he died on this date in 1677. A theologian and mathematician, he played a key role in the development of infinitesimal calculus (in particular, for a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus). Barrow was the inaugural holder of the prestigious Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post later held by his student, Isaac Newton (who, of course, shares primary credit for the development of calculus with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).
#calculus #culture #DoronZeilberger #GregoryBarber #history #infinitesimalCalculus #infinity #IsaacBarrow #IsaacNewton #Leibniz #Mathematics #philosophy #Science #ultrafinitism
Sunday service 2026 May 3 Experiences of religion
Spring seemed to have arrived properly this last week.
It’s really lovely to have you all with us. Very lovely to have Jonathan and Rachel Edwards from Winton meeting, and Rachel will be talking to us, giving words of encouragement a bit later.
It’s so good, isn’t it, to be together as a family, a family in Christ, so that we can praise God and thank Him for His creation and for everything that He’s done for us. And of course, most importantly, to remember what Jesus has done and what he is still doing for us day by day. Because it’s because of him that we’re here now. And it’s because of his sacrifice that we have hope in the future.
And we know that he is here with us in this hall, because he said that whenever 2 or 3 people gather in his name, he’s there in the midst of us.
So he may have lived 2000 years ago, but he is alive today in this year 2026.
May our singing, may our meeting of the Bible and remembering Jesus in bread and wine give Jesus and his God the honour they deserve.
So, dear God, now we simply put this meeting into Your Hands. May we feel Your presence here with us today and throughout the week and always.
In the name of our loving lord Jesus, we offer this our service to You now, Amen.
Julian has had a stroke, which has affected his right arm. He is now at home with support from the family, coming to terms with his new situation. They are managing their change circumstance with fortitude, and they’re not doing too badly. Regular physiotherapy sessions at home, the care review is scheduled for next week. They send their love and best wishes to everyone.
Belanwa Methode from our Anderlecht ecclesia is feeling much better and recovering after a recent heart attack and spell in hospital. We do hope to have a service again on Saturday, 16 May at the house church in Anderlecht.
Jane reports that the family of her brother-in-law in Australia are facing a very difficult time; he is facing a major operation in May, which will be life-changing. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.
John Launchbury from Portland, USA, had a major heart surgery last Monday. By Wednesday, he was sitting up in bed and had actually been out of bed moving around, having had most of the tubes removed. This weekend, they hope that he’ll be able to return home. – We pray for him and his family at this difficult time.
With our song “Give thanks” we gave thanks to our Most High God, from whom we all receive those blessings from Mother Earth.
Next, we listened to the reading talking of the time when Jacob, the 3rd patriarch, son of Isaac and Rebekah, went out from Beer-sheba to go to Haran.
Coming to a certain place, he made it his resting-place for the night, for the sun had gone down; and he took one of the stones which were there, and putting it under his head, he went to sleep in that place.
And he had a dream, and in his dream he saw steps stretching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on them. And he saw Jehovah by his side, saying that He is the Lord, the God of Abraham his Father, and the God of Isaac. This God said to Jacob:
“13 … I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14 and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (Genesis 28:13-15 ASV)
And Jacob, awaking from his sleep, said,
“16 …Surely Jehovah is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17 ASV)
And early in the morning, Jacob took the stone which had been under his head, and put it up as a pillar and put oil on it. And he gave that place the name of Beth-el (house of God), but before that time the town was named Luz. Then Jacob took an oath and said,
“20… If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Jehovah will be my God, 22 then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” (Genesis 28:20-22 ASV)
Our speaker today wants to think about the experiences of religion,
as I’m sure you know, means to tie fast. It’s a binding between God and man, and I want to try to explore how long or short that finding is.
We’re told God is in heaven. Isaiah chapter 66 begins:
Thus says the Lord, heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house that ye build unto Me? And where is the place of My rest? (Isaiah 66:1)
The first mention is in Genesis chapter one, quoting the authorised version.
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. …
“6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:1, 6-8 AV)
I understand that the firmament was a word made up in the 17th century. The NIV uses the words “expanse ” and “sky,” and the NLT says it’s a space called “sky.”
In 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 2, Paul talks about some caught up to the third heaven, and this is often explained as the first heaven being the atmosphere and the clouds at 1 to 3 miles above the surface of the earth.
Planes fly about 6 to 7 miles high. So, these days, it’s within touching distance.
The second head is the planets, stars and galaxies.
Abraham was promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. He could probably see about 3.000 stars, so he was promised a huge family. In the universe in total, there are about 8.000 stars bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.
But there are actually thought to be 200 million trillion steps, 200.000 million, million, million stars in the universe. So he was promised an amazingly large family.
The third heaven is the final sphere, God’s dwelling place.
The Hebrew word means to be lofty. And looking at the Greek word for heaven, strong offers by explanation happiness, power, and eternity.
The physical space was finite, and beyond the material world was the spiritual space of God. The physical world was subject to death and decay, but the heavens were eternal, spiritual, and better than the earth. And the planets and stars were pointers to the religious heaven of God.
Up to the Middle Ages, the cosmos was believed to have had the Earth at the centre of everything, surrounded by concentric spheres of the moon, the sun, planets and stars.
Art aimed to represent the spiritual order beyond the material world and portrayed heaven in pictures comprising a light blue background with flat, out-of-proportion figures, often in gold, referencing the sky and the sun.
But art in the 13th century developed a new way of seeing heaven. And even a pope encouraged a change of style to incorporate linear perspective, which made a sort of medieval virtual reality. Which was thought to have the power to convert unbelievers to the Christian faith by making heaven more believable.
Science took up the reins of the shift a couple of hundred years later, with Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, who were all on the side of God. To them, the new astronomy reflected the glory of God the Father, Whose power and order in the universe supported their faith in Christianity’s eternal salvation, whose domain is the Kingdom of heaven.
Firstly, Copernicus suggested that the Earth went round the sun so that the Earth, including us, was no longer at the centre of everything. Newton’s big idea was that gravity, the gravity that makes an apple fall to the ground, also keeps the moon orbiting the Earth and planets orbiting the sun. So space everywhere is ruled by the same physical laws. This continuity between terrestrial and celestial realms, by this continuity, Newton famously united the heavens and the earth. The physical space could go on forever. So there was no room left over for heaven as a superior alternative domain.
Newton tore a hole in the social fabric that we’ve been … we’re struggling to comprehend, and reverberate still in the war between science and religion.
Einstein replaced Newton’s cosmology with space-time, and this has been developed into hyperspace, which I don’t understand, but is described as nothing but space curled up into patterns.
At the start of our universe, space had no structure, formless and empty darkness, to quote Genesis chapter. It was simple and uniform, like a blank piece of paper. Then, as time proceeded, the paper crinkled up into ever more elaborate structures, eventually giving rise to the complexities of today. So, perhaps this is God as the origami artist.
The new understanding of space impacts on who we think we are in space today is an arena to be mapped and measured. If heaven isn’t special, are we special?
Are we in conglomeration with molecules?
Christadelphians and other fundamental Christians and even New Age proponents do not accept this poor, demoralising, reductionist world.
But, I don’t think there is a war between science and religion. Science has furthered our understanding of the physical world. And as we’ve mentioned, it greatly enhanced the promise of Abraham.
But God doesn’t need to live in heaven. He is everywhere. Acts chapter 17 verses 27 and 28 say He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being.
Jesus often spoke about the Kingdom of heaven, or the Kingdom of God.
In the road spray, he taught us to ask
They Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Asking for the divide between God and man to be dissolved.
The Kingdom of heaven is still the domain of human salvation, the righteousness of God replacing the sin of the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Today, the expression “a thin place” is used to describe a place in time where space, the space between heaven and earth, grows thin and the sacred and the secular seem to meet.
This is what I mean by the experience of religion.
The Bible is full op people being touched by God, often in a vision or a dream. I picked a few examples showing how people felt about God drawing near to them. We’ve read about Jacob and his ladder experience in Genesis chapter 28. And his conclusion was
How awasome is this place?
This is none other than the House of God. This is the gate of heaven.
Then in the New Testament, I think of Mary.
My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.
After Jesus’ resurrection, the couple on the road to Emmaus expressed their vivid feelings.
When are our hearts burning within us? While he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us.
In our 21st-century lives, a thin place offers a sense of peace or a feeling of awe, where we feel our connection with God more strongly.
Some people feel it in wonderful landscapes. Others in a quiet place, or listening to music, or appreciating a work of art, or a moment in daily life, like opening the door onto a sunny morning.
I expect lots of people find the giving of thanks and taking the bread and wine a thin place.
As we’re about to remember Jesus’ sacrifice, may you know Jesus, your saviour.
May I know Jesus, my saviour. Thank you.
Thank you, Rachel, for those lovely words. It’s almost impossible, isn’t it, to imagine the extent of the universe, the cosmos, and to think that God is both filling that. But also, as you said, so close to every one of us now. And you have brought us beautifully to the centre point of our meeting, to think about Jesus, who said about himself, and I’m doing this remembering Jesus would one day see the angels ascending on himself, the Son of man. So just as Jacob saw the connection between heaven and earth, wo we see heaven and earth coming together in Jesus, our lord.
Before we share the bread and wine, we’re going to sing another hymn. And this time it’s going to be ” Praise the Lord” 174, which reminds us of the depths of the love that has been poured out on us in the sacrifice of Jesus.
Who his love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing his praise?He can never be forgotten, thoughout heav’n’s eternal days.
We thank You Father,
we come before You at this time to give our thanks and praise for all the blessings You bestow on us.We thank You for the love that You show towards us because You loved us so much.
You gave your only son.
We come now to remember the love that Your son, our lord, showed not only to You, but to us and the whole world also, in that he fullfilled Your word to the very end.As we pass these emblems of our lor’s love and great sacrifice to one another, we again give our thanks for the Plan that You have for all people that believe in You.
We ask that we may soon see the return of our lord and that we can therefore be brought closer to You, our eternal Father.
We ask that You be with us all and that You will hear this prayer through our lord and saviour’s name. Amen.
Together we sing a Christian hymn based on Joachim Neander’s German-language hymn “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren”, published in 1680.: When we look down from a lofty mountain grandeur,
O Lord my God! when I in awesome wonder
consider all the works thy hand hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed:Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee,
how great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee,
how great thou art! How great thou art!
*
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX8CyJwvyBg?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=560&h=315]*
We finish our Sunday service with prayer:
Let us pray, Lord God Heavenly Father,
we put oour minds to places where we just can’t comprehend Your dwelling place, the sky above the stars above the sun and moon, places You hold in the Palm of Your Hand.
Yeah, beyond our wildest imagination,Yeah,
we come to You in prayer, whether we are gathered in this room, whether we are sat in our various homes across different countries worshipping and praising You now and we know You’re in our presence. You are hearing these very words now. That’s amazing and we are in such actual majesty and splendour and Your power and glory in our presence now.
It is humbling and we pray tha what we have done this morning just a litle bit goes towards chewing as a sweet smell. As pleasing and acceptable we are mindful of the clouds above. And in our lives, we feel the rains pouring down at us sometimes and the stresses and strains and struggles of life.
Oh, too much.
And there’s no sunshine, and there’sno brightness. There’s nothing to look forward to. Then the clouds break. And the blue sky above is always there. The sun is always there. And the same with You, that well, whatever our situation, whatever our circumstances, whatever our troubles and problems and strains and anxiety, You are therejust above it all. And we can come to You in our prayers, or we can seek strength and guidance. As we face another week we know that You are ina principle of hearts and minds. And You control everything, and You planeverything for us. So guide our ways. Help us take our hand and lead us as Yougo towards another week.
So we thank You for so much, we thank You for Your blessings, for Your kindness, for Your love.
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El último de los alquimistas: Isaac Newton y su búsqueda en el crisol
La vida privada del hombre que descubrió la gravedad a través de la alquimia
Isaac Newton es recordado en todos los libros de texto como el padre de la física moderna por sus leyes sobre el movimiento y la gravedad. Sin embargo, detrás de su imagen como hombre de ciencia, se escondía una pasión mucho más profunda que ocupó la mayor parte de su tiempo y esfuerzo mental. Newton dedicó décadas de su vida al estudio de la alquimia, una práctica que en su época mezclaba la química, la filosofía y la búsqueda de secretos espirituales. Se estima que escribió más de un millón de palabras sobre experimentos alquímicos, una cantidad de trabajo que supera por mucho a sus publicaciones sobre matemáticas o física.
Para Newton, la naturaleza no era una máquina simple que funcionaba por sí sola, sino un sistema lleno de fuerzas invisibles que él intentaba comprender mediante el fuego y las mezclas de metales en su laboratorio privado. El científico pasaba noches enteras frente al horno, inhalando vapores de mercurio y otros elementos químicos, convencido de que los antiguos sabios habían ocultado verdades profundas en textos oscuros. Él no veía una separación entre sus descubrimientos sobre la luz y sus intentos por encontrar la piedra filosofal; para su mente, ambos caminos eran formas válidas de entender cómo Dios había diseñado el universo.
Muchos de sus hallazgos en la ciencia fueron posibles gracias a la paciencia y el rigor que aprendió como alquimista. La idea de que los cuerpos se atraen a distancia sin tocarse, que hoy conocemos como gravedad, tenía mucho en común con las fuerzas de atracción que los alquimistas observaban en sus crisoles. Newton fue un hombre que vivió entre dos mundos: el de la lógica matemática y el de la alegoría mística. Al observar su legado completo, descubrimos que el gran científico fue, en realidad, el último de los grandes alquimistas que intentó descifrar el código secreto de la creación antes de que la ciencia moderna se separara definitivamente del misterio.
— A. Eldritch, Periodista, Locutor, podcaster y bloger del fediverso
Alt text via @altbot y @TeLoDescribot
https://www.europesays.com/cz/53898/ Tři místa ve vesmíru, kde přestávají platit pravidla hry a realita ukazuje chybovou hlášku #AlbertEinstein #Astrofyzika #ČernáDíra #Fyzika #IsaacNewton #KvantováFyzika #Poznání #Science #Science&Technology #Technika #Technology #TeorieRelativity #Věda #VědaATechnika #vesmír
https://www.europesays.com/sk/38564/ Isaac Newton nechal ľudstvu MRAZIVÝ ODKAZ, z ktorého naskakuje husia koža! #génius #IsaacNewton #KoniecSveta #News #predpoveď #SK #Slovak #Slovenčina #Správy #Svet #World #WorldNews
Isaac Newton predicted the apocalypse wouldn’t come until 2060: 12 little-known facts about him |
Isaac Newton is known as one of the most important scientists in history, yet much of his personal…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Physics #IsaacNewton #isaacnewtonfacts #isaacnewtonunknownfacts #IsaacNewton’sinterestingfacts #IsaacNewtonlife #Science
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/547939/
https://www.europesays.com/ie/406294/ Isaac Newton predicted the apocalypse wouldn’t come until 2060: 12 little-known facts about him | #Éire #IE #Ireland #IsaacNewton #IsaacNewtonFacts #IsaacNewtonUnknownFacts #IsaacNewton’sInterestingFacts #IsaacNewtonlife #Physics #Science
Isaac Newton predicted the apocalypse wouldn’t come until 2060: 12 little-known facts about him |
Isaac Newton is known as one of the most important scientists in history, yet much of his personal…
#NewsBeep #News #Physics #AU #Australia #IsaacNewton #isaacnewtonfacts #isaacnewtonunknownfacts #IsaacNewton’sinterestingfacts #IsaacNewtonlife #Science
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/567063/
https://www.europesays.com/uk/852968/ Isaac Newton predicted the apocalypse wouldn’t come until 2060: 12 little-known facts about him | #IsaacNewton #IsaacNewtonFacts #IsaacNewtonUnknownFacts #IsaacNewton’sInterestingFacts #IsaacNewtonlife #Physics #Science #UK #UnitedKingdom
“The bigger, the better”*…
Thea Applebaum Licht with a reminder that, when it comes to size, Texas has got nothing on California…
Between about 1905 and 1915, the United States entered a golden age of postcards. Cheaper and faster mail service, the advent of “divided back” cards (freeing the entire front for images), and improved commercial printing all drove a new mass market for collectible communication. It was at this same moment that a craze for “tall-tale” or “exaggeration” postcards reached its peak. By cutting, collaging, and re-photographing images, artists created out-of-proportion illusions. One of the most popular genres was agricultural goods of fantastic dimensions.
Nowhere were such postcards more popular than in the western states. There, in the heart of the tough business of agriculture, illustrations of folkloric American abundance were understandable favorites. Pride and place were tied up with the prodigious crops. Supersized fruits and vegetables were often accompanied by brief captions: “How We Do Things at Attica, Wis.”, “The Kind We Raise in Our State”, or “The Kind We Grow in Texas”. Photographers like William “Dad” H. Martin and Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. captured farmers harvesting furniture-sized onions and stacking corn cobs like timber, fisherman reeling in leviathans, and children sharing canoe-like slices of watermelon.
In the series of exaggeration postcards [produced in the run-up to the postcard boom, then published during it] collected [here], it is California that takes center stage. Produced by the prolific San Francisco–based publisher Edward H. Mitchell, each card features a single rail car rolling through lush farmland. Aboard are gargantuan, luminous fruits and vegetables: dimpled navel oranges, a dusky bunch of grapes, and mottled walnuts. Placed end-to-end, the cards would make a colorful train crossing California’s fertile valleys. Unlike other, more action-packed “tall-tale” cards — filled with farmers, fisherman, and children for scale — Mitchell’s series is restrained. Sharply illuminated, the colossal cargo lean toward artwork rather than gag. “A Carload of Mammoth Apples”[here], green-yellow and gleaming, could have been plucked from Rene Magritte’s The Son of Man [here].
Fabulous fruit and vegetables: “Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909),” from @publicdomainrev.bsky.social.
In other art-related news: (very) long-term readers might recall that, back in 2008, (R)D reported that London’s Daily Mail believed that it had tracked him down, and that he is Robin Gunningham. Now as Boing Boing reports:
Anyone reading Banksy’s Wikipedia article at any point since a famous Mail on Sunday exposé in 2008 would likely get the impression the secretive stenciler is probably Robin Gunningham or Robert Del Naja, artists who came from the Bristol Underground. Reuters, having conducted extensive research into their movements, finds both men present at critical moments, but only one at all of them: an arrest report from New York City puts Gunningham firmly in the frame, and recent public records from Ukraine put it beyond doubt.
We later unearthed previously undisclosed U.S. court records and police reports. These included a hand-written confession by the artist to a long-ago misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct – a document that revealed, beyond dispute, Banksy’s true identity. … Reuters presented that man with its findings about his identity and detailed questions about his work and career. He didn’t reply. Banksy’s company, Pest Control, said the artist “has decided to say nothing.”
His long-time lawyer, Mark Stephens, wrote to Reuters that Banksy “does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct.” He didn’t elaborate. Without confirming or denying Banksy’s identity, Stephens urged us not to publish this report, saying doing so would violate the artist’s privacy, interfere with his art and put him in danger.
Del Naja (better known for other work) evidently participates in painting the murals and is perhaps the stencil draftsman (Banksy: “he can actually draw”). Banksy’s former manager, Steve Lazarides, organized a legal name change for Gunningham after the Mail on Sunday item, which successfully ended records for Banksy’s movements under his birth name and stymied researchers—until Reuters figured out the new one by poring through Ukrainian public records on days Del Naja was there. Gunningham used the name David Jones, among the most common in the U.K. If it rings a bell, you might be thinking of another famous British artist was who obliged by his record company to find something more unique.
* common idiom
###
As we live large, we might spare a thought for Isaac Newton; he died on this date (O.S.) in 1727. A polymath who was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed, Newton was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, author, and inventor. He contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, achieved the first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. He also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating infinitesimal calculus. (Newton developed calculus a couple of years before Leibniz, but published a couple of years after.) Newton spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, a role in which he increased the trustworthiness/accuracy and security of British coinage in a way crucial to the rise of Great Britain as a commercial and colonial power.
Newton, of course, had a famous relationship with fruit:
Newton often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. The story is believed to have passed into popular knowledge after being related by Catherine Barton, Newton’s niece, to Voltaire. Voltaire then wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), “Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree.” – source
Newton’s apple is thought to have been the green skinned ‘Flower of Kent’ variety.
Newton’s Tree with Woolsthorpe Manor (where, during the Plague, Newton was staying when he had his insight) behind (source) #apple #art #calculus #culture #currency #EdwardHMitchell #Enlightenment #fruit #gravity #history #humor #IsaacNewton #photography #postcard #Postcards #RoyalMint #Science #scientificRevolution #vegetables
‘Romance’ between scientists and AI leads to progress on age-old maths problem https://www.byteseu.com/1812084/ #AI #arXiv #ChinaScienceDaily #Chinese #DavidGregory #DavidHilbert #FudanUniversity #IsaacNewton #KissingNumber #OlegMusin #PackingStar #PekingUniversity #QiYuan #Science #ShanghaiAcademyOfAIForScience #SpherePacking
Scientists discover “time crystals” that defy Newton’s third law
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; so, as you probably learnt in school, dictates…
#NewsBeep #News #Physics #CA #Canada #IsaacNewton #Newton'sThirdLaw #Science #Sound #timecrystals
https://www.newsbeep.com/ca/480329/
Scientists discover “time crystals” that defy Newton’s third law
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; so, as you probably learnt in school, dictates…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Physics #IsaacNewton #Newton'sThirdLaw #Science #sound #timecrystals
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/472640/
https://www.europesays.com/uk/738479/ ‘It was born before Isaac Newton’: Greenland shark that may have lived since the 1600s goes viral | #AgeEstimationOfSharks #ArcticMarineLife #CenturyOldSharks #DeepSeaEcosystems #GreenlandShark #IsaacNewton #LongestLivingVertebrate #MarineBiology #Science #ScientificResearchOnSharks #UK #UnitedKingdom #wildlife
‘It was born before Isaac Newton’: Greenland shark that may have lived since the 1600s goes viral |
A viral social media post has renewed attention on the Greenland shark. Scientists believe the species …
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Wildlife #ageestimationofsharks #Arcticmarinelife #century-oldsharks #deep-seaecosystems #Greenlandshark #IsaacNewton #longest-livingvertebrate #Marinebiology #Science #scientificresearchonsharks
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/445407/
This week's E-Sylum notes the birthday (anniversary) of Sir Isaac Newton. Famed physicist and victim of falling apples, he was also Warden of the Royal Mint where he took quite an interest and made quite an impact. Read more: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n01.html#article20
Pictured is a 1793 ½ Penny from Middlesex: https://en.numista.com/53433
#Numismatics #Coins #Physics #IsaacNewton #OnThisDay @numismatics
Isaac Newton dedicó gran parte de su actividad intelectual a la alquimia, produciendo más de un millón de palabras sobre esta disciplina, la cual consideraba fundamental para comprender la estructura íntima de la materia. Sus indagaciones se encuentran registradas en cuadernos y recopilaciones que incluyen textos como "Sobre la Piedra Filosofal", "El Monje Negro habla sobre el Elixir" y "Cazar al León Verde", este último una interpretación de procesos químicos bajo el simbolismo del antimonio.
En "Theatrum Chemicum" (1669) y "The Vegetation of Metals" (1669), Newton exploró la hipótesis de que los metales poseen una forma de vida interna y capacidad de crecimiento. Sus estudios técnicos no se limitaban a la transmutación metálica; en el Manuscrito del Maná (1675), el autor expone que la alquimia es una ciencia que trasciende lo material para buscar los principios activos que rigen el cosmos.
Actualmente, estos documentos forman parte del "The Newton Project", donde se analiza cómo su metodología experimental en la alquimia influyó directamente en su rigor científico posterior. El análisis de estas fuentes primarias revela que Newton no separaba la física mecánica de sus estudios alquimistas, buscando una explicación unificada de las leyes naturales.
Un episodio recurrente en la historiografía biográfica de Isaac Newton ilustra el fenómeno de la abstracción mental profunda, característica del físico durante sus periodos de investigación intensiva. Según el relato, Newton se disponía a cocer un huevo para su cena y, con el propósito de cronometrar los minutos de cocción de forma precisa, extrajo su reloj de bolsillo.
Mientras permanecía absorto en sus reflexiones matemáticas, su atención se desvió del procedimiento físico inmediato. Minutos después, al verificar el estado de la cocción, descubrió que había depositado el reloj dentro del recipiente con agua hirviendo, mientras que el huevo permanecía en su mano 🤣 .
Este incidente ha sido citado por diversos biógrafos para documentar la "distracción" del científico, un estado en el que la capacidad cognitiva se concentra de tal forma en un problema teórico que se produce una desconexión temporal con los estímulos del entorno y las acciones motrices cotidianas.
'Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things'
-Isaac Newton
#datocurioso
¿Sabían que Isaac Newton, el padre de la física moderna y la gravedad, dedicó más tiempo y escribió más palabras sobre alquimia que sobre ciencia convencional?
Durante mucho tiempo, este aspecto de su vida se mantuvo en secreto porque la alquimia se consideraba una "pseudociencia". Pero cuando sus manuscritos fueron estudiados en el siglo XX, se descubrió que había escrito más de un millón de palabras sobre el tema.
Newton no buscaba solo la piedra filosofal para convertir plomo en oro, aunque era uno de sus objetivos. Llevó un rigor casi científico a sus experimentos alquímicos, buscando entender los principios activos detrás del movimiento de las partículas.
De hecho, se especula que su obsesión con sustancias como el mercurio, que usaba en sus experimentos, pudo haber contribuido a los problemas de salud que sufrió.
Principia for Sale
With Christmas approaching, you may be looking for gift ideas so I thought I would pass on this advertisement:
The book concerned is a First Edition of the Continental Issue of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, dated 1687.
For more details see here. The estimate is “only” €100,000, which seems to me a bit on the low side. A similar volume was listed by Christie’s in 2016 as $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 but in the end sold for $3.7 million. This one has had some repairs and is slightly browned with age, but has an interesting provenance. I’d be surprised if it didn’t fetch at least a million. We’ll find out in a week!
#IsaacNewton #KettererRareBooks #PhilosophiæNaturalisPrincipiaMathematica #Principia
“Alchemy. The link between the immemorial magic arts and modern science. Humankind’s first systematic effort to unlock the secrets of matter by reproducible experiment.”*…
As (AI/tech pro and writer) Dale Markowitz explains, for scientists of yore anything—from mermaids to alchemy—was on the table…
In 1936, the economist John Maynard Keynes purchased a trove of Isaac Newton’s unpublished notes. These included more than 100,000 words on the great physicist’s secret alchemical experiments. Keynes, shocked and awed, dubbed them “wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value.” This unexpected discovery, paired with things like Newton’s obsession with searching for encrypted messages in the Bible’s Book of David, showed that Newton “was not the first of the age of reason,” Keynes concluded. “He was the last of the magicians.”
When it came to fascination with the occult, Newton was hardly alone. Many contemporary scientists may cast aspersions on spells, mythical tales, and powers of divination. Not so for many of the early modern thinkers who laid the foundations of modern science. To them, the world teemed with the uncanny: witches, unicorns, mermaids, stars that foretold the future, base metals that could be coaxed into gold or distilled into elixirs of eternal life.
These fantastical beliefs were shared by the illiterate and educated elite alike—including many of the forebears of contemporary science, including chemist Robert Boyle, who gave us modern chemistry and Boyle’s law, and biologist Carl Linnaeus, who developed the taxonomic system by which scientists classify species today. Rather than stifling discovery, their now-arcane beliefs may have helped drive them and other scientists to endure hot smoky days in the bowels of alchemical laboratories or long frigid nights on the balconies of astronomical towers.
To understand the role of magic in spurring scientific progress, it helps to understand the state of learning in Europe in those times. Throughout the Middle Ages, many scholars were fixated on the idea that knowledge could only be gleaned from ancient texts. Universities taught from incomplete, often poorly translated copies of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen. To stray from the giants was a crime: In 14th-century Oxford, scholars could be charged 5 shillings for contradicting Aristotle. Curiosity was considered a sin on par with lust. A powerful motivator was needed to shuck off ancient thinking.
One of the first influential thinkers to break with the old ways was the 16th-century Swiss-German physician Paracelsus. The father of toxicology, known for his pioneering use of chemicals in medicine, Paracelsus was among the first of his time to champion the importance of experimentation and observation—a philosophy which would set the foundations for the scientific method. Paracelsus showed the scholars what he thought of their old books by publicly burning his copies of Galen and Avicenna.
But what led him to this experiment-first approach? Perhaps it was because, to Paracelsus, experimentation was a kind of magic. His writing fuses scientific observation with the occult. To him, medicine, astrology, and alchemy were inextricably linked—different ways of unveiling sacred truths hidden in nature by God. Paracelsus considered himself a kind of magus, as he believed Moses and Solomon had been, as Newton would view himself 150 years later. Paracelsus believed, though, that divine knowledge could be gained not just by studying scripture, but also by studying nature. The alchemical workbench, the night sky—these were even surer routes to God than any dusty old textbook…
[Markowitz recounts the stories of Tycho Brahe [almanac entry here], his patron Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, Robert Boyle, William Harvey, and Linnaeus [here], who, in 1749, urged the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to launch a hunt for mermaids…]
… To our contemporary ears, most all of this may sound fairly ridiculous. But as Edward Donlick puts it in The Clockwork Universe, “The world was so full of marvels, in other words, that the truly scientific approach was to reserve judgment about what was possible and what wasn’t, and to observe and experiment instead.” To the 17th-century scientist, anything was on the table, so long as it could be experimentally studied.
Today, we know how the story ends: Belief in astrology, alchemy, and witchcraft declined in places where empiricism and skepticism became cornerstones of science. But perhaps early scientists’ fascination with the occult should remind us of other tenants of discovery: open-mindedness and curiosity. Witches, mermaids, and the philosopher’s stone may not have survived modern scrutiny, but it was curiosity about them that drove real progress and allowed early thinkers to stray from established norms. In this sense, curiosity is a kind of magic…
“How the Occult Gave Birth to Science,” from @dalequark.bsky.social in @nautil.us.
See also: “The importance of experimental proof, on the other hand, does not mean that without new experimental data we cannot make advances” and “Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher’s stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find.”
###
As we think about transmutation, we might spare a thought for a rough contemporary (and fellow-traveler) of Newton’s, Rasmus Bartholin; he died on this date in 1698. A physician, mathematician, and physicist, he is best known for his discovery of the optical phenomenon of double refraction. In 1669, Bartholin observed that images seen through Icelandic feldspar (calcite) were doubled and that, when the crystal was rotated, one image remained stationary while the other rotated with the crystal. Such behaviour of light could not be explained using Newton’s optical theories of the time. Subsequently, this was explained as the effect of the polarisation of the light.
Bartholin also wrote a several mathematical works and made astronomical observations (including the comets of 1665). And he is famed for his medical work, in particular his introduction of quinine in the fight against malaria.
(Bartholin’s family was packed with pioneering scientists, 12 of whom became professors at the University of Copenhagen; perhaps most notable, his elder brother Thomas, who discovered the lymphatic system in humans and advanced the theory of “refrigeration anesthesia”(being the first to describe it scientifically).
Rasmus Bartholin (source)#alchemy #astology #culture #Discovery #doubleRefraction #history #IsaacNewton #Linnaeus #lymphaticSystem #malaria #occult #optics #Paracelsus #philosophy #quinine #RasmusBartholin #Science #Technology #ThomasBartholin #TychoBrahe #witchcraft
Isaac Newton's apple 🍏 was clearly not busy enough, so he decided to invent binomial power series before breakfast. Meanwhile, Quanta Magazine is busy discovering ALL the topics ever, one painfully obvious revelation at a time 🎉.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-isaac-newton-discovered-the-binomial-power-series-20220831/ #IsaacNewton #QuantaMagazine #MathInnovation #BinomialSeries #ScientificDiscovery #HackerNews #ngated
How Isaac Newton Discovered the Binomial Power Series (2022)
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-isaac-newton-discovered-the-binomial-power-series-20220831/
#HackerNews #IsaacNewton #BinomialPowerSeries #HistoryOfMathematics #ScienceDiscovery #QuantaMagazine
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Aubrey-HistoryOfEngland-Vol3/pages/vol3-401-Sir-Isaac-Newton/
Recently i wrote that Names of Angels was the 2nd most popular image on fromoldbooks.org; this is the most popular, a 19th century engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, famous for inventing the apple.
I’m actually not certain why it’s so popular - i should check!
Today i added the shirt, prints, socks... https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/174109620
Scanned with #xsane and cleaned up with #GIMP3 (#Gimp_3).
#vintageArt #portrait #isaacNewton #Newton #fobo #engraving #vintageEngraving #scientist
If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton
⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #IsaacNewton #Discovery
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #ChacoCanyon #Petroglyphs #NewMexico
📖 **Newton's Principia : The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Newton**
"_Read or download for free_"
🔗 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76404.
#Read #IsaacNewton #Newton #Science #Physics #Ebook #Book #Bookstodon @bookstodon @science
#Image attribution: John Vanderbank, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Sir_Isaac_Newton_(4670220).jpg.
If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
-- Isaac Newton
