In 1704, Isaac Newton Predicted That the World Will End in 2060

We have become quite used to pro­nounce­ments of doom, from sci­en­tists pre­dict­ing the sixth mass extinc­tion due to the mea­sur­able effects of cli­mate change, and from reli­gion­ists declar­ing the apoc­a­lypse due to a sur­feit of sin. It’s almost impos­si­ble to imag­ine these two groups of peo­ple agree­ing on any­thing oth­er than the omi­nous por­tent of their respec­tive mes­sages. But in the ear­ly days of the sci­en­tif­ic revolution—the days of Shake­speare’s con­tem­po­rary Fran­cis Bacon, and lat­er 17th cen­tu­ry Descartes—it was not at all unusu­al to find both kinds of rea­son­ing, or unrea­son­ing, in the same per­son, along with beliefs in mag­ic, div­ina­tion, astrol­o­gy, etc.我们已经对各种末日预言习以为常，从科学家因气候变化带来的可衡量影响而预言的第六次大灭绝，到宗教人士因罪孽深重而宣称的世界末日。除了各自信息中蕴含的凶兆外，几乎无法想象这两类人会在任何事情上达成共识。但在科学革命初期——即莎士比亚的同时代人弗朗西斯·培根，以及后来的17世纪哲学家笛卡尔所处的时代——在同一个人身上同时发现这两类推理（或非理性），以及对魔法、占卜、占星术等的信仰，一点也不罕见。

Yet even in this mael­strom of het­ero­dox thought and prac­tices, Sir Isaac New­ton stood out as a par­tic­u­lar­ly odd co-exis­tence of eso­teric bib­li­cal prophe­cy, occult beliefs, and a rigid, for­mal math­e­mat­ics that not only adhered to the induc­tive sci­en­tif­ic method, but also expand­ed its poten­tial by apply­ing gen­er­al axioms to spe­cif­ic cas­es.然而，即使在那个异端思想与实践纷乱的漩涡中，艾萨克·牛顿爵士依然显得格外独特，他身上奇特地并存着深奥的圣经预言、神秘学信仰，以及严谨、形式化的数学体系。这套数学体系不仅遵循归纳科学方法，还通过将一般公理应用于具体案例，扩展了其潜力。

Yet many of Newton’s gen­er­al prin­ci­ples would seem total­ly inim­i­cal to the nat­u­ral­ism of most physi­cists today. As he was for­mu­lat­ing the prin­ci­ples of grav­i­ty and three laws of motion, for exam­ple, New­ton also sought the leg­endary Philosopher’s Stone and attempt­ed to turn met­al to gold. More­over, the devout­ly reli­gious New­ton wrote the­o­log­i­cal trea­tis­es inter­pret­ing Bib­li­cal prophe­cies and pre­dict­ing the end of the world. The date he arrived at? 2060.尽管如此，牛顿的许多一般性原则在今天大多数物理学家看来，似乎与自然主义格格不入。例如，在制定引力原理和三大运动定律的同时，牛顿也在寻找传说中的“哲人石”，并试图将金属炼成黄金。此外，虔诚的牛顿还撰写了神学论文，解读圣经预言并预测世界末日。他得出的日期是哪一年？2060年。

New­ton seems, writes sci­ence blog Anoth­er Pale Blue Dot, “as con­fi­dent of his pre­dic­tions in this realm as he was in the ratio­nal world of sci­ence.” In a 1704 let­ter exhib­it­ed at Jerusalem’s Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty, above, New­ton describes his “rec­coning”:科学博客“Another Pale Blue Dot”写道，牛顿“在这一领域表现出的自信，与他在科学理性世界中的自信如出一辙”。在耶路撒冷希伯来大学展出的一封1704年的信件中（见上图），牛顿描述了他的“推算”过程：

So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half, rec­coning twelve months to a yeare & 30 days to a month as was done in the Cal­en­dar of the prim­i­tive year. And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived [sic] king­doms, the peri­od of 1260 days, if dat­ed from the com­plete con­quest of the three kings A.C. 800, will end A.C. 2060. It may end lat­er, but I see no rea­son for its end­ing soon­er.因此，“时间、时期和半个时期”即为42个月，或1260天，或三年半，按照原始历法一年十二个月、一月三十天来计算。如果将短命的“兽”之日数代入长寿王国的年数，那么从公元800年三个国王被彻底征服之日起算，1260天的周期将在公元2060年结束。它可能会更晚结束，但我没看到它会提前结束的理由。

New­ton fur­ther demon­strates his con­fi­dence in the next sen­tence, writ­ing that his intent, “though not to assert” an answer, should in any event “put a stop the rash con­jec­tures of fan­ci­full men who are fre­quent­ly pre­dict­ing the time of the end.” Indeed. So how did he arrive at this num­ber? New­ton applied a rig­or­ous method, that is to be sure.牛顿在接下来的句子中进一步展现了他的自信，他写道，他的意图“虽然不是要断言”一个答案，但无论如何都应该“阻止那些经常预测末日时间的狂想之徒的鲁莽猜测”。的确如此。那么他是如何得出这个数字的呢？可以肯定的是，牛顿确实运用了一套严谨的方法。

If you have the patience for an exhaus­tive descrip­tion of how he worked out his pre­dic­tion using the Book of Daniel, you may read one here by his­to­ri­an of sci­ence Stephen Sno­be­len, who also points out how wide­spread the inter­est in Newton’s odd beliefs has become, reach­ing across every con­ti­nent, though schol­ars have known about this side of the Enlight­en­ment giant for a long time.如果你有耐心阅读关于他如何利用《但以理书》得出预测的详尽描述，可以在此阅读科学史学家斯蒂芬·斯诺伯伦（Stephen Snobelen）的文章。他还指出，人们对牛顿这些奇特信仰的兴趣已变得多么广泛，跨越了每一个大洲，尽管学者们很早以前就知道这位启蒙运动巨人的这一面。

For a sense of the exact­ing, yet com­plete­ly bizarre fla­vor of Newton’s prophet­ic cal­cu­la­tions, see anoth­er New­ton let­ter at the top of the post, tran­scribed below.若想感受牛顿预言式计算那种既严谨又极其怪异的风格，请参阅文章顶部另一封牛顿的信件，其转录内容如下。

Prop. 1. The 2300 prophet­ick days did not com­mence before the rise of the lit­tle horn of the He Goat.命题1：2300个预言日并未在公山羊的小角兴起之前开始。

2 Those day [sic] did not com­mence a[f]ter the destruc­tion of Jerusalem & ye Tem­ple by the Romans A.[D.] 70.2：这些日子并未在罗马人于公元70年摧毁耶路撒冷和圣殿之后开始。

3 The time times & half a time did not com­mence before the year 800 in wch the Popes suprema­cy com­menced3：“时间、时期和半个时期”并未在教皇权威开始的公元800年之前开始。

4 They did not com­mence after the re[ig]ne of Gre­go­ry the 7th. 10844：它们并未在格列高利七世（1084年）统治之后开始。

5 The 1290 days did not com­mence b[e]fore the year 842.5：1290天并未在公元842年之前开始。

6 They did not com­mence after the reigne of Pope Greg. 7th. 10846：它们并未在教皇格列高利七世（1084年）统治之后开始。

7 The dif­f­ence [sic] between the 1290 & 1335 days are a parts of the sev­en weeks.7：1290天和1335天之间的差值是七个七年的一部分。

There­fore the 2300 years do not end before ye year 2132 nor after 2370.因此，2300年不会在2132年之前结束，也不会在2370年之后结束。

The time times & half time do n[o]t end before 2060 nor after [2344]“时间、时期和半个时期”不会在2060年之前结束，也不会在2344年之后结束。

The 1290 days do not begin [this should read: end] before 2090 [New­ton might mean: 2132] nor after 1374 [sic; New­ton prob­a­bly means 2374]1290天不会在2090年（此处应读作：结束）之前开始（牛顿可能指的是：2132年），也不会在1374年之后开始（原文如此；牛顿可能指的是2374年）。

The edi­to­r­i­al inser­tions are Pro­fes­sor Snobelen’s, who thinks the let­ter dates “from after 1705,” and that “the shaky hand­writ­ing sug­gests a date of com­po­si­tion late in Newton’s life.” What­ev­er the exact date, we see him much less cer­tain here; New­ton push­es around some oth­er dates—2344, 2090 (or 2132), 2374. All of them seem arbi­trary, but “giv­en the nice round­ness of the num­ber,” writes Moth­er­board, “and the fact that it appears in more than one let­ter,” 2060 has become his most mem­o­rable dat­ing for the apoc­a­lypse.文中的编辑插入语出自斯诺伯伦教授，他认为这封信“写于1705年之后”，并且“颤抖的笔迹表明这是牛顿晚年的作品”。无论具体日期为何，我们在这里看到他显得没那么确定；牛顿推敲了一些其他日期——2344年、2090年（或2132年）、2374年。所有这些似乎都很随意，但正如《Motherboard》所写，“鉴于这个数字的圆满，以及它出现在不止一封信件中的事实”，2060年已成为他关于世界末日最令人难忘的预言。

It’s impor­tant to note that New­ton didn’t believe the world would “end” in the sense of cease to exist or burn up in holy flames. His end times phi­los­o­phy resem­bles that of a sur­pris­ing num­ber of cur­rent day evan­gel­i­cals: Christ would return and reign for a mil­len­ni­um, the Jew­ish dias­po­ra would return to Israel and would, he wrote, set up “a flour­ish­ing and ever­last­ing King­dom.” We hear such state­ments often from tel­e­van­ge­lists, school boards, gov­er­nors, and pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates.值得注意的是，牛顿并不认为世界会“终结”，即停止存在或在神圣的火焰中燃尽。他的末世哲学与当今相当一部分福音派教徒的观点相似：基督将回归并统治一千年，犹太侨民将返回以色列，并如他所写，建立“一个繁荣且永恒的王国”。我们经常从电视布道者、学校董事会成员、州长和总统候选人那里听到此类言论。

As many peo­ple have argued, despite Newton’s con­cep­tion of his sci­en­tif­ic work as a bul­wark against oth­er the­olo­gies, it ulti­mate­ly became a foun­da­tion for Deism and Nat­u­ral­ism, and has allowed sci­en­tists to make accu­rate pre­dic­tions for hun­dreds of years. 20th cen­tu­ry physics may have shown us a much more rad­i­cal­ly unsta­ble uni­verse than New­ton ever imag­ined, but his the­o­ries are, as Isaac Asi­mov would put it, “not so much wrong as incom­plete,” and still essen­tial to our under­stand­ing of cer­tain fun­da­men­tal phe­nom­e­na. But as fas­ci­nat­ing and curi­ous as Newton’s oth­er inter­ests may be, there’s no more rea­son to cred­it his prophet­ic cal­cu­la­tions than those of the Mil­lerites, Harold Camp­ing, or any oth­er apoc­a­lyp­tic dooms­day sect.正如许多人所论证的那样，尽管牛顿将自己的科学工作视为抵御其他神学的堡垒，但它最终成为了自然神论和自然主义的基石，并使科学家们能够进行数百年的准确预测。20世纪的物理学可能向我们展示了一个比牛顿想象中更为激进、不稳定的宇宙，但正如艾萨克·阿西莫夫所言，他的理论“与其说是错误，不如说是不完整”，并且对于我们理解某些基本现象仍然至关重要。然而，尽管牛顿的其他兴趣引人入胜且充满好奇，但我们没有理由相信他的预言计算，就像我们没有理由相信米勒派、哈罗德·康平或其他任何末日邪教的预言一样。

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.注：本文的早期版本曾于2015年在我们网站上发布。

Relat­ed Con­tent:相关内容：

M.I.T. Com­put­er Pro­gram Pre­dicts in 1973 That Civ­i­liza­tion Will End by 2040麻省理工学院计算机程序在1973年预测文明将在2040年终结

Isaac New­ton Cre­ates a List of His 57 Sins (Cir­ca 1662)艾萨克·牛顿列出的57条罪状（约1662年）

Isaac New­ton Con­ceived of His Most Ground­break­ing Ideas Dur­ing the Great Plague of 1665艾萨克·牛顿在1665年大瘟疫期间构思了他最具开创性的思想

Videos Recre­ate Isaac Newton’s Neat Alche­my Exper­i­ments: Watch Sil­ver Get Turned Into Gold视频重现艾萨克·牛顿的炼金术实验：观看白银如何被转化为黄金

The Icon­ic Design of the Dooms­day Clock Was Cre­at­ed 75 Years Ago: It Now Says We’re 100 Sec­onds to Mid­night“末日时钟”的标志性设计诞生于75年前：现在它显示距离午夜还有100秒

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. 乔什·琼斯（Josh Jones）是一位居住在北卡罗来纳州达勒姆市的作家和音乐家。