Newton predicted when the world would end. Christ is returning

Everyone knows how good Isaac Newton was at physics and maths, but few mention the time he threatened to burn down his mother’s house or the equally amazing time he stuck multiple needles into his own eyes to see what happens.

Yes, when Newton wasn’t revolutionizing our notions of motion and gravity, he was, by today’s standards, a bit of a weirdo. In addition to devoting much of his free time to the study of alchemy—a medieval belief that metals can be turned into gold—Newton was deeply interested in the occult and biblical apocalypse.

In fact, in some private speculations that were probably not intended for the public, Newton tried to predict the end of the world based on his Protestant understanding of the Bible and the events that followed. In one of the attempts, written on a piece of paper alongside actual non-apocalyptic math calculations, Newton apparently referred to the year 2060:

“Then the times and half the time are 42 months or 1260 days or three and a half years, counting between twelve months and a year and 30 days for a month, as was done in the Primitive Year Calendar.

And the days of the short-lived Beasts being counted for the years of the kingdoms lived, the period of 1260 days, if it dates from the complete conquest of the three kings 800 BC, will end in 2060 BC It may end later, but I do not see no reason why it would end earlier,” according IFL Science.

Newton was convinced that Christ would return

Newton believed in apocalyptic visions in the Bible, in which a battle of Armageddon would take place between “Gog and Magog” at the end of days. Newton probably has only himself to blame for talking about the “lifting up of the little horn of the Goat” and leaving his notes in plain sight, but it should be noted that he was not predicting that the end of the world would occur in 2060, but rather the end of an era.

“Newton was convinced that Christ would return around this date and establish a global kingdom of peace,” wrote Stephen D. Snobelen, now a professor of the history of science and technology at King’s College University in Halifax, in 2003. “‘Babylon’ (the corrupt Trinitarian Church) will also fall and the true gospel will be openly preached.”