Anglican clergyman and professor of mathematics. In 1701 he became an assistant to Sir Isaac Newton in Cambridge, succeeding him as professor of mathematics in 1703. In 1696 he published The New Theory of the Earth, an attempt to reconcile the new Newtonian understanding of the world with the biblical accounts. Whiston’s theory was that the planetary system was formed by a giant comet in a perfect state: exactly circular orbits and a year of 360 days. The misbehavior of Adam and Eve started Earth’s rotation. On Friday, November 28, 2349 B.C.E., another giant comet produced the flood, and slowly Earth settled into its present imperfect state divine retribution for human sinfulness. Whiston’s thesis was a serious scholarly attempt to produce a unified theory for his time, using the best scientific and mathematical knowledge at his disposal and combining it with the indisputable word of God, the Bible.
Whiston’s theories extended beyond Earth. He believed that other planets and planetary systems were inhabited with beings with similar problems to ours, and he also proposed that the interior of Earth, the sun, the planets, and comets were inhabited and that some planets had very different occupants: beings that were invisible, having no physical substance. He was deprived of his professorship in 1710 because of the unpopularity of his ideas.