how can I keep all of my material possessions, including my children, safe from Gods awful terrorist acts?
Believe in a different God?
My snide religious remarks aside, Newton was - despite his brilliance - a bit of a prick. He kept a lot of his ideas to himself for fear of other people using them for example, to the extent that we're still learning about the things he did put to paper. He was also fiercely secretive about his private life, his religious beliefs, where we are again still picking through what he actually thought of it all.
If memory serves, Newtons prediction was similar to the Young Earth Creationists approach of finding all the dates for the events and working out a time line. If people have misjudged the creation of this planet by 4.5 billion years using the method, it's pretty safe to say they'll misjudge the end using this method too, whether they're Newton or not.
Do you know exactly when the world will end?
We can work out the probability of various scenarios happening that would destroy the Earth, but you cannot set a date in stone for them.
We have a pretty good understanding of stellar evolution to know that the Sun will eventually die, and you do not want to be on Earth during the process of the Sun's demise… but, in theory, on paper, we might find a way to move the Earth out of it's orbit to keep it at a safe distance from the expanding Sun, and eek out what little time remains. So as drastic as an event as we make it out to be, would could still have a slim chance of prolonging the life of the Earth in that scenario.
There is no black and white statement that can be said other than "It will end." But there is an awful lot of grey that says "in all probability we're not going to see it end for billions of years."
apathy (guest) 11 Nov 2010 16:04