On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 25, 2014
Well at least he was actually born on December 25th.Personally I would love to see Christmas changed to celebrate the birth of Sir Isaac Newton rather then the mythological birth of the Christ child.
Update: Apparently Professor Tyson's tweets did not go over well with everybody.
Of course that just makes me like them all the more.
Merry Calcumas
ReplyDeleteFor Isaac gave us his only begotten son, Figg...
ReplyDeleteThat was funny!
DeleteBEFORE Emperor Constantine embracing Christianity, Sun worship reigned as the official religion of the Roman Empire.
ReplyDeleteAnd prior to the Council at Nicea, Constantine had already made December 25th the official day upon which the SUN was born.
When Constantine made the Son the official religion instead of the Sun, he kept the date.
The fact that Newton was born on that date is simply a coincidence.
Or IS it???
like
DeleteThere is actually some dispute as to when Newton was born, though the 25th is generally accepted as his birthday. Clever tweet nonetheless!
ReplyDeleteEven better would be if we could learn to celebrate the special relationship between Earth and Sun, and learn the history of how humans in the northern hemisphere have celebrated seasonal changes that result from that relationship. Maybe we could even learn how humans in the southern hemisphere celebrated seasonal changes too. What wonderful world…it…could…be...
ReplyDeletewell actually Isaac Newton was born around Jan 4th. Reason being using the Julian calendar back then didn't account for leap years for correction, so it was about 10 days off. That only got corrected once the west starting using the Gregorian calendar. Scholars figure Jesus was born in the spring, not Dec. Pegging it to Dec 25 way back when conveniently got all the pagan & Christian holidays on board at the same time--an accommodation to keep everyone happy.
ReplyDelete~Canuck~
The comments on the source article are absolutely hilarious!
ReplyDeleteThe ones supporting Christianity are pathetic or bash Neil deGrasse Tyson or science. I feel I regress in time (become stupid) when I read those comments.
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