Shane Mage wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >Nature, and Nature's Laws, lay hid in night;
> >God said, Let Newton Be, and all was light.
> > A. Pope
>
> But 'twould not last, for Satan, roaring "Ho!
> Let Einstein Be," restored the status quo.
> A. Nonymous
Pope, and most of Newton's contemporaries, did not associate him with gravity but with optics. Hence the decorum here of echoing Let there be light. I believe that was even still the case in Wordsworth's days, and his references to Newton make more sense if one thinks of the prism rather than the moon and an apple.
Carrol