Isaac Newton:
The mathematical precision of the life expectancy of Mesopotamian empires is so remarkable that it seems strange nobody ever noticed it.  If they did and said so in so many words, I have not learned of it.  But there are hints.

Isaac Newton, whom we remember for his laws of motion, that are still the basis of engineering today and for his co-discovery of calculus had a long and interesting career with many interests.  Among other things he was intensely interested in religion.  In fact he coined the phrase “literal interpretation of the Bible.”  The man was so complex and his life so full of paradoxes that it is hard to talk about him without gross distortion.  So this will be much distorted and I cannot swear that even the selected details are all true, but this is the way I put it together.

Newton took an interest in ancient history.  He got copies of every book he could on the subject.  He copied the books out by hand.  Then he translated them into Latin.  Latin is unambiguous compared with English and he wanted to be sure he knew exactly what he was reading. 

Newton was a number cruncher.  He would take numbers and look at them over and over.  He would see things in numbers nobody else had seen.  He was a superb mathematician.  He could formulate things.  Although there has been a lot learned about Mesopotamian archeology since Newton’s lifetime, he knew everything there was to know then.  It seems quite possible that he extracted the same pattern I have shown you.  Societies collapse in a predictable way.

Newton believed that the end of the world would be the Second Coming of Christ.  This he thought would be a good thing.  Newton predicted the end of the world in a number of different ways, not always seriously.  One of those predictions came out to 2060.  That is not long after my own calculations suggest the last European baby will be born and so close that within anything like reasonable error it is the same.  Take away the babies and the society must collapse.  Newton’s world does come to an end.  Absent European contribution and given the number of mouths now unfed, the world we know ends. 

The reason for the lack of babies will be the fact that we are all involved in a great global community.  Local communities are fast vanishing if any remain at all.  World birth rates indicate that for all practical purposes they are already gone. 

In the second “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie a dialogue much like this takes place:

“I am afraid loyalty is no longer the coin of the realm.”

“Then what is the coin of the realm?”

“Coin of the realm is coin of the realm.”

At about that time Newton was busy overseeing the recoinage of the British Empire.  It was the most honest currency that had existed since Croesus introduced the gold standard in ancient times.  On the strength of that currency, English global power was being built, and globalization was assured.  This was the central issue of the movie, against which the characters played out their personal dramas. 

There is a problem with my logic.  My evidence is that 300 years after a society becomes urbanized it will collapse for want of babies.  But Newton was not even alive by 300 years before 2060.  He could not have made that prediction on that basis.  But he studied ancient civilizations far more deeply than I, indeed probably more deeply than anyone else ever has.  And he was smarter than I am.  He may have been able to go back farther.  Rather than starting the clock when a society came to power he may have understood the preconditions and been able to time them.  Trade and commerce would have been a necessary precondition. 

So put it together.  Newton wants the end of the world.  Newton knows that globalization will do it.  Newton knows a reliable currency will bring that about, and he knows how long it will take.  He becomes Warden of the Mint.  With his prestige he could have had just about any job he wanted.  As warden he produces that reliable currency. 

There was a so called witch known as Mother Shipton.  Her prophesies were published during Newton’s lifetime.  Whether they were really her prophesies may be questioned, but the publication of the book itself is beyond doubt.  Among the prophesies were the words:
Then love shall die and marriage cease/And nations wane as babes decrease.  (http://www.crystalinks.com/mother_shipton.html)
Did he read it?  He read everything.  Did it start him thinking about it?  Possibly.  Did he even know that fertility was at the root?  He could have done the whole thing empirically without knowing fertility was an issue.  But then he had read so much he might well have known. 

Late in his life Newton burned some papers.  Possibly it was just trash, but the biographers seem to think the papers were important.  They could have had something to do with his work at the mint.  They could have had something to do with his heretical religion.  Or they could have been the secret to fertility.  If he had indeed plotted against the survival of humanity, he certainly would not have wanted that information to get out.

There have been 580 visitors so far. 

Home page