A Simple Question That Confused Newton

Newton was born premature, about 3 months early. His mother said he could fit in a quart-sized cup upon birth.

You probably know from childhood that Newton was sitting under an apple tree and the apple fell over him, then he questioned the scenario and then discovered Gravity, but the real story is way different than this one. Newton was merely looking out the window when he happened to see an apple drop.

About 500 years ago, we barely knew Universe and how it functions. There were even some organizations that believe Earth was flat. We didn't even know all the planets in our solar system. Luckily, things started to change when genius like Issac Newton and Aristotle was born. Many questions were challenged against philosophers like, "Why doesn’t the Moon fall on the Earth?", "Why did the apple fall on the ground?". These 2 questions changed the history of Science.

As you all know, Newton discovered Gravity, but there was another genius who questioned Newton about his discovery that stamped Newton.

Richard Bentley, an English scholar, critic, and researcher. Once, Richard wrote a letter to Newton. He asked such a simple question that even Newton had no answer.

In 1692, Richard wrote that if gravity is an attractive force, then any collection of stars would naturally collapse into themselves.

If the universe were finite, then all the stars would smash into each other and form a superstar due to gravity.

But Bentley also pointed out that if the universe was infinite, then the force on any object, left or right, would also be infinite, and therefore the stars would simply be ripped apart.

Apparently, Newton was confused. If the universe is finite, then all the stars should collapse into themselves. If it is infinite, then the stars should be ripped apart. He answered this question in a very unexpected way!

Newton confessed in a letter to his follower Richard Bentley and they became known as Bentley Paradox. The first problem was that if the universe is finite, all matter in the universe would be smashed together. All matter would come together to form the singularity which would contain all the mass of the Universe.

The second problem was that if the universe is infinite all matter in the universe would be pulled apart by the universe's gravity. This destruction would start on large scales with objects like galaxies and down to smaller scales with objects like planets. Newton didn't like this this paradox culminated in him stating that the universe has to be infinite with uniform density and mass.

Newton solved Bentley’s question by claiming that God prevented the collapse by making “constant minute corrections”. He claimed that God started the Universe and sometimes, God has to intervene and save the Universe from collapsing.

As you all can see, Newton found a way to escape from Bentley's Paradox. If what Newton says is true, then the universe is analogous to a house of cards: a little jitter would collapse the whole system. According to Newton, a miracle would only stop stars smashing into each other creating chaos in the whole Universe.

The Universe is like a giant clock by God, tickling since the beginning. According to the law of motion, without the interference of divine power, the Universe will collapse into itself. Newton's explanation was rather unsatisfactory than the scientific explanation but Bentley's paradox can be applied to Big Crunch, which is opposite to Big Bang theory.

Bentley's Paradox becomes unproductive when we stop applying Newton's gravitational law to the whole Universe. Many scientists tried to solve this paradox in another way, but still, there was no fruitful outcome. If you know the answer to this paradox, feel free to share it with me in the comment section.