July 5th, 1687: Newton Publishes His Gravitational Conclusions
Christmas Baby Sir Isaac Newton (Dec 25, 1642 - March 31, 1727) Preeminent Scientist of his day, and God believer but with a few of his own viewpoints. He is believed to have purposefully died a virgin and is considered the single greatest Scientific genius by some, ahead of Einstein in some people's view.
English born Isaac Newton contributed in very greatly in the fields of optics, calculus, and physics, and may have been the party most responsible for coming to an understanding of how gravity worked. He was definitely not orthodox in his views of Christianity from the church of England's perspective, but this extreme genius was utterly convinced that there were many proofs of a divine creator to be found in the visible world. The dates of his birth and death are interesting, in that he was born on Christmas, obviously. But some people believe that they have determined that the last full day of Jesus' life was on March 31 in 33 A.D., and that He was crucified the next day. True? Well, probably not. There are many conjectures about the date of Jesus' death. But still, it is kind of interesting since Newton was given so very much insight by God into God's forces and laws regarding the operation of His Creation. He truly was singled out to be a man given extraordinary discernment in these matters.
"In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."
"No sciences are better attested than the religions of the Bible."
"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect."
"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17, concerning Jesus.
"And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" Hebrews 1:3 concerning Jesus.
Before Science came along people got a lot more of their explanations from the Bible....from scripture. It was believed that if you got the answer from scripture, you got the answer from God! And God was considered a pretty weighty authority on all subjects. But Science grew stronger and more authoritative in the public eye and soon enough they were considered by many to be the chief source of true information on a great many fronts. And if there was a conflict between what God seemed to be saying in scripture and what Science seemed to have discovered, it came to be that many Christians would sheepishly close their Bible and turn away in embarrassed silence, having been corrected in their understandings by the powerful voice of science. Yet here is a fact: where a Scientist finds truth, a Scientist has found a truth about God or something God has done or made, etc. Despite all of the noise to the contrary, God the Father really did create it all - and us all - through His Son Jesus. And the Biblical scriptures actually are completely reliable though they are not concerned in too many instances with Scientific information, but rather focus on history and spiritual teachings in hopes of drawing at least some men and women to choose Jesus as their Lord so that their souls may be saved.
How are all things held together? That is a fair question, right? What holds material objects together? The Christian scriptures say it is Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible says that Jesus 'holds all things together'. Colossians 1:17 Jesus....the WORD. Of course, the Bible is also 'the Word'. In fact, Christians believe that the words of the Bible are actually a form of the presence of Jesus. Those 66 BOOKS of the Protestant Bible, or those 73 Books of the Catholic Bible (and there are other Bibles with other numbers of books, but these 2 serve the most Christians by a wide margin) are a form of Jesus. They are the words of God. It is a little mysterious. But we are told that Jesus is the WORD. and we believe it.
Science, by contrast, would most likely say that what holds everything together is 'GRAVITATIONAL ATTRACTION'. Matter attracts matter. This attraction holds matter together. This attraction is called GRAVITY. Well, they are not wrong about much of what they say about GRAVITY, but Christians believe they are guilty of misattribution. We think that GRAVITY is a force of God and Jesus.
But here is a true mathematical oddity...an unlikely 'coincidence' if you will. There is a scientific constant largely attributed to Isaac Newton, designated by a large letter 'G', which is called the Gravitational Constant. It states that the attraction between 2 masses is proportional to the magnitude of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance which separates them. It took quite a lot of effort to work out the value of this law of attraction, and there was a fair amount of jealousy over who was most rightly its chief discoverer. But it has inarguably been of enormous importance ever since in such fields as astronomy and space travel calculations, etc.
G = 6.673×10-11 N m2 kg-2
Normally a Christian think (I believe) that God Almighty is the true most rightful owner of the title " capitol 'G' "', but Science has awarded this designator to the Gravitational Constant. It is a value associated with the power of attraction of matter for matter, and the number has changed a lot over the decades. But one very commonly accepted value for it, even during this millennium, has been 6.673
Here below is a chart taken from ever-awesome Wikipedia showing the changing 'best accepted value for 'G' over various years. You can see that 6.673 has often held the place of a 'best accepted value' for this quantity which has proven difficult for Scientists to precisely measure. Some sources say that the value 6.674 is presently preferred. But it really has gone back and forth repeatedly, as shown below.
So how odd is it that of all the possible numerals that could ever have happened to describe the magnitude of the force that holds all things together (according to science) the numbers 66 and 73 should be the first 4 numerals of the constant (at such times as it has been calculated to be 6.673, that is)? There are 66 books in the Protestant bibles (which about 900 million Christians use). There are 73 books in the Catholic bibles (which about 1.2 billion Christians use.) And to the Christian, the Bible is the WORD, and Jesus is the WORD, and in some mysterious manner the two are actually one and the same, and scripture clearly and plainly states that it is Jesus who holds all things together in this Creation. And through some hugely ironic twist of fate, what appears to have been one of the most widely used value of the Gravitational Constant contains, front and center, the two-digit numerals describing the number of books in the two most widely used forms of the Christian Bible? Amazing when you think about it. Absolutely profound. Without wishing to do so by any means, Science has (you could argue) inadvertently advertised Jesus, the Word, as the force holding the masses of this universe together.
There is a second manifestation of this 'Biblical binding force' in the world of Physics, though it was found long after Mr. Newton had passed away. It involves the 'strong' and 'weak' nuclear forces that are at work in the atom itself. The 'strong' (nuclear binding force) force happens to be 137 times stronger than the 'weak' (electrostatic force) force. This means that the 'weak' force is 0.00729927 (endlessly repeating) times as strong as the 'strong' force. Or, to round up a little, it is 0.0073 times as strong. As mentioned above, there are 73 books in the Catholic Bible, listed as the most used Bible in the world. So, there is that Biblical connection again, involved in a force that 'holds all things together.' Once again, a number associated with the WORD, which is one of the names of Jesus, and to repeat.... scripture says that Jesus holds all things together. Also in the number 0.00739927 is the number 27, which is the number of books in the New Testament of the Bible, Protestant or Catholic. Even the number 99 has a fairly strong Jesus connotation in that one of the important parables in the New Testament speaks of how the good shepherd loves all of his sheep so much that if he has 100 sheep and one strays away, he will leave the 99 to go and find the one that has strayed and bring it back to be in the herd again. He holds the sheep together! And, just as a comment, Psalm 99 focuses of the HOLINESS of this God of ours who does punish the guilty (and we are all guilty) but shows an extreme desire to protect His people, his many sinful children so long as they will turn and earnestly seek His forgiveness, despite their guilt.
Could it all be just chance? Well, it is impossible to completely rule out that it is all chance. But isn't it highly suspicious that the Creation seems to so often speak of not just a Creator, but with so very many seeming connections to the Creator we read about in the pages of the Bible? So much evidence is out there for those who seek to have faith. But always just a little room is left for the wicked to mock the idea and go on in their wickedness.