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Sir Issac Newton, best known for formulating the laws of motion and gravity, predicted in a letter he penned in 1704 that the world would cease to exist in the year 2060. The physicist based his doomsday prophecy on his Protestant interpretation of the Bible and the events that followed biblical history, specifically, the Battle of Armageddon.
"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," read the ominous warning, written in a letter slip above a series of mathematical calculations.
"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predications fail."
Sir Isaac Newton's methodology
Known to have penned enough papers to fill 150 novel-length books, Sir Newton arrived at the year by using the days numbered 1260, 1290 and 2300 in the Book of Daniel and Revelations, which mark the end and beginning of certain important moments in the apocalypse. However, he interpreted these days as years.
Consequently, he settled on 800 AD as the date the abandonment of the church formally began - the year the Holy Roman Empire was founded. He then calculated the world would reset 1,260 years after its founding.
"So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half, recconing twelve months to a year & 30 days to a month as was done in the Calendar of the primitive year," the letter stated.
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"And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived kingdoms, the period of 1260 days, if dated from the complete conquest of the three kings AC 800, will end AC 2060."
Sir Newton is not the only one to have made such doomsday predictions. Nostradamus, a French astrologer, who lived in the 1500s, has predicted that 2025 may witness a giant asteroid colliding with the Earth, or coming in dangerous proximity to the planet.