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.”

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 days ago

    discovering how physics works doesn’t necessarily dis-prove the existence of a supreme being that designed the laws of physics

    I’ve said many times in my life that I hate all religion…But Jesus lives under one of the couches in my house so I guess he might be real.

    I asked him what he was doing down there and he told me “I’m hiding from the Christians”

    He likes to watch me play video games, but he can’t drive himself to actually play any of them. He doesn’t like violence…not even computer-simulated violence.

    • fishos@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      how physics works doesn’t necessarily dis prove the existence of a supreme being that designed the laws of physics

      This is how Darwin felt about evolution. It was the answer to “how?”, not “why?”.