The Hypothesis of deriving the frame of the world by mechanical principles from matter evenly spread through the heavens, being inconsistent with my system, I had considered it very little before your letters put me upon it, and therefore trouble you with a line or two more about it, if this comes not too late for your use.
In my former I represented that the diurnal rotations of the Planets could not be derived from gravity, but required a divine Arm to impress them. And tho' gravity might give the Planets a motion of descent towards the Sun, either directly or with some little obliquity, yet the transverse motions by which they revolve in their several orbs, required the divine Arm to impress them according to the tangents of their orbs. I would now add, that the Hypothesis of matter's being at first evenly spread through the heavens, is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the Hypothesis of innate gravity, without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and therefore it infers a Deity. For if there be innate gravity, it is impossible now for the matter of the earth and all the Planets and stars to fly up from them, and become evenly spread throughout all the heavens, without a supernatural power; and certainly that which can never be hereafter without a supernatural power, could never be heretofore without the same power.
You queried, whether matter evenly spread throughout a finite space, of some other figure then spherical, would not in falling down towards a central body, cause that body to be of the same figure with the whole space, and I answered, yes. But in my answer it is to be supposed that the matter descends directly downwards to that body, and that that body has no diurnal rotation.[翻譯請求][3] — 牛頓
^I. Bernard Cohen. Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents 2nd. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1978: 310–312. ISBN 9780674468535.
^Joseph John Thomson. Notes on Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism: Intended as a Sequel to Professor Clerk-Maxwell's 'Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism'.. Dawsons. 1893.
^Einstein, A.; Podolsky, B.; Rosen, N. Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?. Physical Review. 1935, 47 (10): 777–780. Bibcode:1935PhRv...47..777E. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.47.777.
^Bell, J.S. (1966). On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. Reviews of Modern Physics. 38(3). 447-452.