Johannes Kepler noted, in his Dissertation on the Sidereal Messenger, that there was a problem with assuming an infinite world, due to what would become known as Olbers’ Paradox: the brightness of the stars would make the night sky bright, not dark. In reality, we now know this isn’t the case for different physical reasons. In 1692, Isaac Newton noted, however, that there was a problem with assuming a finite and stationary universe (or rather, one with infinite time), namely that it would sooner or later collapse into a single point.
