Context: Newton personally believed in the concept of absolute space since it reinforced the idea of an absolute God, but the entire premise was proven false by what we know as 'relativity of motion' which makes use of Newton's laws of motion.
Excerpts from 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking:
"... Aristotle believed in a preferred state of rest, which any body would take up if it were not driven by some force or impulse. In particular, he thought that the earth was at rest. But it follows from Newton's laws that there is no unique standard of rest."
"Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even though it was implied by his laws."
Yeah, no.
Newton was such a complex human. He seemed capable of holding many, sometimes opposing beliefs, at the same time.
There's even a Wikipedia page dedicated to his religious beliefs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton
If you are into learning about him there's also a rather good read, The Janus Faces of Genius, by Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, that looks into his occult work.
Furthermore, for the sake of complexity, we can look into how, when he was the warden of the mint, he became responsible for the deaths of 19 people. He turned a largely ceremonial role into a task force, chasing down forgers and sentencing them to death.
Man, it was miles better when I just knew him as the motion guy back in primary school
Petition to edit all textbooks, renaming Newton as THE Motion Guy.
All in favor of the emotional motion guy motion petition to move forward unless acted on by an equal and opposite motion say aye.
I am an engineer but even I felt insulted on behalf of mathematicians when you referred to him as the motions guy 😭
Eh, Leibniz can be the calculus guy.
We use Leibniz's calculus anyway, and both were developed at the same time, prompted by the same paper. Newton just happened to publish first (I think) and was more well known at the time.
You just had an emotion, which was the result from an opposite emotion.
Hi, I'm Issac Newton, you might remember me from... The motions.