Tabloid Tale
"The story about [Isaac] Newton predicting the Apocalypse in 2060 is the sort of thing that one would expect to see on the covers of the tabloids. In this case, however, the story is true," wrote Newton scholar Stephen Snobelen on the Isaac-newton.org website. He had to issue the statement because of all the newfound interest in Newton's religious speculation when the great scientist's papers were finally made available to the public. Snobelen took pains to say that Newton didn't think the world would blow up or somesuch in 2060. But then, neither do many of the people who predict the end of our current ordered world. "It would," according to one of the world's most celebrated discoverers, "be the end of an old age, and the beginning of a new era -- the era Jews refer to the Messianic age and the era premillenarian Christians term the Millennium or Kingdom of God." Admittedly, this date has not come and gone yet, so who knows? Newton could yet prove prescient about the end. Even a stopped clock may be right once a day, if that's the day the world stops spinning.
