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Notwithstanding its comments on the Spindle of Necessity, the Sirens and the Fates, the following current claim:
"One of the earliest intimations of celestial spheres appears in Plato's "Myth of Er," a section of the Republic, which describes the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity, attended by the Sirens and turned by the three Fates."
does not actually evidence Plato was a spherist, rather than merely a bandist as in Timaeaus.
Unless Plato's alleged spherism can be documented, I propose its deletion.-- Logicus ( talk) 15:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I hereby propose to restore the original text of my previous contribution to this article’s section on the celestial spheres in the middle ages, imperiously and invalidly removed by Leadwind on 4 May 2009, and put in a new article Dynamics of the celestial spheres. See my comments on the rank invalidity of Leadwind’s action @ User Talk:Leadwind.
At least for the record, below here I also re-present Steve McCluskey’s mistaken objections to my contribution, posted on the Talk:Dynamics of the celestial spheres page of the article created by Leadwind, and at least to give McCluskey the opportunity to strike them out as invalid if he does not wish to resurrect them to try and justify removing my contribution to this article yet again.
Logicus also proposes McCluskey should add his most welcome useful valid contributions to the ‘Dynamics of the celestial spheres’ article to this article, where they most properly belong.
McCluskey’s objections to Logicus’s contribution to the topic of the dynamics of the celestial spheres in the middle ages
Anachronisms in the article One of the central problems with this article is its formulation of ancient and medieval discussions of dynamics in terms of mathematical equations. Such relationships were not used by any of the authors under discussion and to present their discussions in this form falsely leads the reader into the assumption that the logical conclusions one can readily draw from the mathematical formulations could be drawn from the ancient and medieval verbal expressions.
Furthermore, an article about ancient and medieval dynamics should be stated in terms of ancient and medieval concepts. The modern term "force", F in the article, was not clearly defined and generally accepted until sometime after Newton's articulation of the concept in his Principia; attributing that concept to Aristotle and his followers is profoundly misleading. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 22:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Major rewrite I spent some time looking over this article with an intent to edit it and it soon became clear that mere editing won't suffice; a complete rewrite is called for. The central problems of the old version concern lack of balance; as it stood it failed to give the reader the broad overview of the topic expected in an encyclopedia.
There may still be some things of value in the prior version of the article, which is available in the article's history. Other editors may wish to mine it for appropriate material, while retaining the article's encyclopedic balance.
-- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 16:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
--
Logicus (
talk)
03:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Closer's note. Content RfCs do not need to be validated. Consensus is that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material, due to the interpretive nature of the material. Removal from active article space is necessary per Wikipedia's no original research policy, pending acquisition of secondary sources to support it. Suggest userfication of that portion. If no secondary sources exist it is possible to generate that by publishing in a reliable vetted venue, then citing that source at Wikipedia. When that is done properly the update becomes uncontroversial. Durova 371 17:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus note on Closer’s note: There was no consensus of the ten respondents that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material. Of those ten respondents only Finell is even remotely interpretable as expressing such an opinion in his following comment of 2 November rebutted by Logicus on 20 November: “A majority of the sources that are cited are primary.”. So even if Deor himself also expressed this opinion, that is at most only 2 out of 11 involved in the RfC who do.
So if consensus were decided by some kind of majority vote of respondents to the RfC, the opinion that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material was at best an extremely small minority opinion.
And on the question of whether the material is OR, only 6 out of 11 say it definitely is, a maximally slim simple majority.
But as explained by Logicus in the archived RfC, consensus is anyway not decided by votes according to Wikipedia policy.
The outcome of this meritless RfC, raised in breach of Wikipedia dispute resolution policy that the disputant must first discuss the issue with the editor before raising an RfC. is that Logicus anway as always offers to revise material that is defective or breaches policy once the complainant has identified where and why the material is in breach. But neither Deor nor anybody else has ever done so in this case except Wilson, in accusations of Original Synthesis that Logicus has responded to with proposed revisions posted below on 30 November. But Wilson refuses to discuss them, apparently revealing bad faith that he was never interested in constructively helping improve the material, which appears to be true of the whole coterie of editors involved in this RfC. Thus it seems negotiatons to remedy the material by revision are locked in refusal to do so.
And any charge of irremediable OR remains unproven.
Logicus to Closer: Would you please kindly explain what your following comments mean.
“Content RfCs do not need to be validated” Does it mean that if OR is alleged, nevertheless valid substantiation of the claim is not required ?
“Suggest userfication of that portion.”
“Removal from active article space is necessary per Wikipedia's no original research policy, pending acquisition of secondary sources to support it.” The material already has some secondary sources that support it. So what further secondary sources are required and where ?
And would you please be so kind as to explain by what authority or policy rule you parachute in here to ‘close’ this RfC with your apparently unfounded opinions on consensus, rather than its initiator or a bot closing it ?
Final;ly, you might like to give comment on the following defect of Wikipedia consensus policy raised on its Talk page: ‘This key Wikipedia policy article as currently written crucially fails to specify what constitutes a consensus. Is it a unanimous or a majority agreement of some community ? And what is the relevant community ? Dictionary definitions of consensus typically say it is either unanimity or else majoritarian agreement. So it is clearly important to decide which it is. But such definitions also leave open the further question of whether it is at least a simple majority (i.e. at least 51%) or at least a great majority (i.e. two-thirds) of the relevant community. But the more basic problem here is the article’s failure to identify what the relevant community is. And even more basically, we are told consensus is not even decided by votes anyway. Thus the Wikipedia fundamental policy of editing by consensus is surely in effect empirically empty, whatever all its rubrics about discussion and procedure ? ‘
Thanks you for your interest in this RfC
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Logicus (
talk •
contribs) 19:26, December 1, 2009
BTW I should say I do not agree with Kamm's critique and wish to see Wikipedia flourish, but I do now think it is profoundy rotten and in urgent need of reform. I may write a critique of Kamm's elitist anti-amateur critique.-- Logicus ( talk) 17:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Does the material added to the article in this edit constitute original research based on primary and selected secondary soures; and, more broadly, does it give undue weight to a particular approach to the topic of the article, overwhelming the encyclopedic treatment of the celestial spheres in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance? Deor ( talk) 15:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to Deor:
I have deleted the RfC tag you put here as illegitimate, principally for the reason that your procedure is in apparent breach of the following dispute procedure guideline by virtue of your having bypassed its first step required before seeking outside opinion:
“Before asking outside opinion here, it generally helps to simply discuss the matter on the talk page first. Whatever the disagreement, the first step in resolving a dispute is to talk to the other parties involved.“
To recap what has happened here, first of all you reverted my restoration of my contribution on the ground that it defied a consensus that it does not belong here. and you said that if I reverted it you would begin dispute-resolution procedures to ensure it stays reverted, thus apparently revealing your prior prejudice of not being open to discussion about the outcome.
Thus you gave the impression the dispute was about my breaching some alleged Wiki policy consensus rule, albeit you failed to state what that policy rule was. And the material disagreement you raised was about where my contribution belongs, not whether it is Wiki OR or has undue weight. It seemed you maybe thought it belonged to the Dynamics of the celestial spheres article instead.
I then reverted your reversion, and as it happened, before I saw your comments about consensus etc. on the Talk page. I just responded to your Editorial comment ‘no consensus for this addition; seek consensus on the talk page if you want’ by pointing out in my Editorial comment that consensus on the Talk page for an addition is not required. In fact boldness policy is explicitly against any such rule. It seems you just invented a bogus rule to get your own way.
However, you did not revert my reversion, but rather McCluskey did, also in his Talk page comments repeating his usual cavalier allegations of OR and disruptive editing against Logicus, which he has previously notably failed to substantiate.
You then posted an RfC on the Talk page within a few hours of your warning of starting dispute-resolution, before I had responded to your complaints on the Talk page about consensus and where my text properly belongs, and notably not even responding to my Editorial point that your justification for reversion was invalid by demonstrating some rule it breached
But the RfC you posted did not ostensibly concern any dispute about relevancy nor consensus, but rather a quite different dispute about whether my contribution to this article is OR or not, and whether it commits some sin of undue weight.
Thus I had had no prior notification from you that you now regard this contribution as OR and having undue weight, and therefore no opportunity to discuss these two charges with you, and so to find out what OR rule you now claim it breaches and where, and hence to consider whether your two charges have any substance whereby I should somehow revise or withdraw my proposed contribution.
So can you please rewind the tape, and clarify exactly what your beef is before proceeding to the second stage of dispute resolution in seeking outside opinion in an RfC?
Are you complaining that my contribution to this article, which was previously accepted by you and previously stood unedited for most of a year before its invalid removal to another article by Leadwind last May, (1) should have less weight in this article, or (2) should not be in this particular article at all, rather than in some other, or (3) that it is entirely irrelevant to the subject of the dynamics of the celestial spheres, or (4) that it is OR that should not be in any Wikipedia article at all ?
I note the only issues the RfC attempted to raise were those of OR and undue weight.
Therefore in the first instance could you please kindly review what dispute(s) you wish to raise with me out of all these four different disputes you seem to have raised in one way or another.
Then if you wish to initiate dispute-resolution about some dispute, would you please kindly first proceed to its advocated first stage of discussing your complaint(s) with me first, rather than completely omitting that stage and proceeding directly to an RfC , its specified second stage ?
May I also advise you to review whether you wish to invoke dispute-resolution in good faith without prior prejudice to its negotiated outcome, or rather have decided in advance of any discussion and negotiation that the only acceptable outcome is ‘to ensure my contribution stays reverted’. -- Logicus ( talk) 14:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Please stop removing the RfC tag User:Logicus. I would notify you on your talk page, but you are now editing (perhaps inadvertently) from an IP address at the British Library. This is considered to be disruptive editing, and you can be blocked for it if you persist. 71.182.189.125 ( talk) 19:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
It is junk replete with weasel words and mystical claptrap. Of course it is possible to discuss mystical claptrap long since discredited. Someone who offers this must reasonably say who (the medieval authorities who offered such claptrap as unqualified truth). At the least it must name names of its proponents.
That is separate from the concept of "original research", which the section is. Such claptrap cannot be the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation. The writing is amateurish enough to be original. -- Pbrower2a ( talk) 05:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus’s critical comments on the responses to this illegitimate RfC:
I have inserted my comments in emboldened text within square brackets in each respondents text below:
1) * The issue raised by Deor is just one more example of a fairly widespread pattern of disruptive editing on pages relating to the history of science, philosophy of science, and even physics. For some examples look at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Logicus and his Block log. [McCluskey has never managed to substantiate any of his repeated charges of DE against Logicus, even just once, in spite of much sadly unprobative verbiage attempting to do so in his entirely failed and illegitimate RfC of February 2007, on which Logicus commented on his User Talk page on 10 July 2008, explaining possibly why such as McCluskey make such invalid accusations of OR and DE. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Turning to the specifics of this incident, I agree totally with Deor's analysis. The lack of balance uses this article as an attempt to advance Logicus's idiosyncratic historical interpretation. [ But what is Deor's analysis? Because Deor has bypassed the first stage of dispute-resolution in failing to talk to Logicus first about his latest complaints, we have yet to hear his beef and analysis. Thus McCluskey's comments are void and irrelevant, establishing neither the OR claim nor the undue weight claim. What is the due weight for analysis of the origin of key concepts of 17th century dynamics in medieval celestial dynamics ? Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
2) I am not commenting on Logicus's editing behavior one way or the other. However, one RfC in February 2007 (which attracted very little comment) and one 24-hour block in October 2008 (with no block before or after that one) does not demonstrate a pattern of disruptive editing. Please confine comments here to the issue raised, not the editor. Thank you. —Finell (Talk) 16:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC) [Correct, except for the fact that the RfC attracted no comment rather than little comment ! But unfortunately Finell's comments below are not confined to the two issue raised. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
3) * Comment: Without full refs the edit in question would appear to be WP:OR. But most, if not all Wikipedia articles are not fully referenced, and there is no policy rule that they should be. References are only required when an unsourced claim is challenged. Deleting articles just because not all its propositions are referenced would delete virtually all Wikipedia articles. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] More to the point and more relevant: [No, irrelevant to the RfC raised Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] the text as presented is too big, too obscure and too dense to benefit the general reader. It's not readable, not accessible and therefore not encyclopedic. Wikipedia is WP:NOT PAPER. [These points are beside the points at issue and so irrelevant, but thanks for the style criticism ! But do try reading the many huge, obscure, dense, unreadable and inaccessible Physics articles, for example, that do not benefit the general reader, and then try mine again for some relatively light relief (-: For example, try reading Hamiltonian mechanics. And please note that it is almost completely unsourced, and commits all the sins you cite, and so must be deleted on the logic of such as yourself, Deor and McCluskey etc., as probably must most Physics articles. Also take a look at Quantum Mechanics Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] --Whoosit (talk) 22:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
4) * Comment: The test is quite simple. Does this analysis appear in published sources elsewhere? ['But what analysis is "this" specifically ? Analysis of the origin of key concepts of 17th century inertial and impetus dynamics as being in medieval celestial dynamics ? If so the answer to this question is Yes ! Just see the sources provided in the text Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] If the answer is yes, then references to these published sources must be made clear, and attribution should be given. If the answer is no, then it is original research. I am very suspicious that this analysis is an entirely original synthesis, though, given the near complete lack of supporting sources, [There is no "near complete lack of supporting sources". Many are supplied. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] as well as the overall pattern of behavior of the section's sole proponent. I would like to add that the section under dispute in this RfC has other non-OR problems with it. First, by itself it exceeds the maximum recommended length of an encyclopedia article (see WP:LENGTH). [And what is that maximum recommended length in words ? I did not see one in a quick look at WP:LENGTH. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Secondly, it clearly does not observe summary style: there is already an article Dynamics of the celestial spheres. If this content could be made to conform to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (doubtful as it seems), then surely it would belong there instead of here, if anywhere. Thirdly, why are all of the equations displayed in bold face type? At the very least it should be made to conform with the Manual of Style (mathematics). 71.182.189.125 (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I now see that indeed what happened was that the material was already moved to Dynamics of the celestial spheres and subsequently edited to conform to Wikipedia's core principles. Recreating the earlier material here is a clear WP:POVFORK. 71.182.189.125 (talk) 19:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
(5) * (after edit conflict): This contribution is clearly original research, among other problems. Long passages have no cited sources. [Even were this true, there is anyway no policy ban on such and this is certainly true of very many articles. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] A majority of the sources that are cited are primary. [Even were this true, there is anyway no policy rule that a majority of sources cannot be primary. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Where secondary sources are cited, it is often an evaluation of the source or a comparison of one versus another. [Even were this true, there is no policy ban on evaluation or comparison of secondary sources. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] In Wikipedia, secondary sources should be used for what they say, not for commentary about the sources. [There is no such policy rule. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] The contribution also favors one scholar's point of view over the others. [Which scholar? But anyway there is no policy ban on such, and the very many articles that only cite the view of just one scholar to justify a claim, but not of all scholars, inevitably do so. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Also, this contribution is way too long and is not written in summary style; it reads more like a philosophy paper. [But are there any policy rules against such? At least it does not read like a bad history paper like many Wikipedia history of science articles do, as mindless and boring collections of dessicated facts, one damned idea after another without rhyme or reason. And if Bolingbroke and Hegel are right that history is just philosophy fabricating examples, then history should indeed read like a philosophy paper, and especially history of science and ideas (-: Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] —Finell (Talk) 16:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC) [So much for Finell's Wiki-barrack-room-lawyering inventing bogus rules ! Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(6) * Clearly inappropriate here. I leave it to other editors whether the reformed version at Dynamics is still original research, essay, and undue. - 2/0 (cont.) 08:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC) [But Deor notably did not raise any RfC about appropriateness, having apparently ceded that complaint in our discussions last year: see above. Hence this is an entirely irrelevant comment Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(7) It is junk replete with weasel words and mystical claptrap. Of course it is possible to discuss mystical claptrap long since discredited. Someone who offers this must reasonably say who (the medieval authorities who offered such claptrap as unqualified truth). At the least it must name names of its proponents.
That is separate from the concept of "original research", which the section is. Such claptrap cannot be the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation. The writing is amateurish enough to be original. --Pbrower2a (talk) 05:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC) ['??? Since when was OR that which is not "the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation" ? This is just very confused ranting. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(8) * Agree with removal of section. We can debate whether this is original research, a violation of NPOV, a content fork, tendentious editing, or (most likely) all of the above, but the bottom line is that it doesn't improve the article. And the tl;dr wikilawyering above by Logicus doesn't help either. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC) [Irrelevant! The RfC did not ask for opinion on removal of the material, but rather opinion on whether it is OR. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus will deal with Wilson's late response later, but notes he has already begun the strikethrough of its many blunders, and hopefully awaits his strikethrough of the rest of it to save Logicus the tedious task of pointing out its various defects. -- Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I have tabulated the comments raised within the discussion concerning Logicus's edits:
WP:NOR | WP:WEIGHT | Other Negative Comments | Other Positive Comments | |
SteveMcCluskey | Yes | Yes | Disruptive Editing | |
Whoosit | Yes | Too big, too obscure, and too dense | ||
71.182.189.125 | Yes | WP:SYNTH; WP:LENGTH, WP:POVFORK | ||
Finell | Yes | POV, Length, incivility | ||
2/0 | Clearly inappropriate here | |||
David Wilson | Yes | Yes | NPOV, citation fails verification | |
Pbrower2a | Yes | weasel words and mystical claptrap | ||
David Eppstein | likely | likely | wikilawyering | |
Sławomir Biały | Yes | WP:V, Disruptive Editing, WP:TLDR | ||
Logicus | Unproven | Unproven |
Perhaps this will assist us in arriving at a consensus on the RfC. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 16:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC) --updated 19:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC); further update 19:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus's Alternative Summary: The following alternative Counter Summary to the above McCluskey Summary summarises the pertinent outcome of the 10 responses so far to the RfC question of whether the material is “OR based on primary and selected secondary sources”:
1) Respondents who say material is ‘OR based on primary and selected secondary sources’ - - 0/10
2) Respondents who claim the material is definitely OR - - - - - - - - - - - - 5/10
3) Respondents who say where and why the material is OR - - - - - - - - - 1/10
4) Respondents with valid proofs of OR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0/10 ?
The question mark in 4 questions whether all Wilson’s efforts to prove where and why the material is OR are now refuted by Logicus’s response of 25 November, or any remain standing. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
And contrary to McCluskey's suggestion otherwise, there may be no resulting consensus if the two disputing parties do not agree.
Nor have I promised a reply to Wilson’s reasons for claiming the material is OR as McCluskey says. Such a reply is not relevant UNLESS the disputant Deor actually adopts any of them himself. The purpose of an RfC is surely not to create even more disputes with a number of other editors in conflict escalation, but rather to help settle the dispute with the editor in question ? -- Logicus ( talk) 19:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
— David Wilson ( talk · cont) 15:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus apparently now wants to claim that the material on page 170 of Marshall Clagett's book Greek Science in Antiquity vitiates the objections I have raised here against some of the material in his disputed edit. I'm afraid the claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The disputed edit's treatment suffers from several serious defects which I have already indicated, and which are nowhere to be found in Clagett's. Some of the more significant are:
Finally, I should like to clear up some further misunderstandings. Logicus wrote:
But nowhere in the disputed edit was anything cited from "the literature" to support its apparently defective version of this practice. All that was cited was an English translation of Aristotle's works which quite clearly did not directly support much of the material, as is required by
the Wikipedia policy I have already cited.
Next
This puts words which I never uttered into my mouth. Nowhere did I make any judgement about what Clagett's analysis would or would not "condemn as OR". If Logicus could find some reliable source which actually did support all of the material in the disputed edit that I have objected to (which—except for the mathematical travesties—I have already acknowledged as a possibility
here) then that text would of course not be
original research. Nevertheless, in view of the differences I have pointed out between Clagett's exposition and that of the disputed edit, it would, however, still be giving a
non-neutral point of view which would therefore have to be balanced by some acknowledgement of those differences.
Nor has Logicus demonstrated any mistake on my part, let alone a "major blunder". In my struck out statement I gave force, weight and resistance as examples of magnitudes which I believed Aristotle would have regarded as being of different kinds, and therefore not capable of forming ratios. But nowhere that I can see does Clagett contradict this. When Clagett himself uses such a ratio (F/R) on page 170 he says explicitly that "of course, Aristotle does not do this", so there is no contradiction whatever between this statement of Clagett's and the belief that Aristotle would have regarded forces, weights, and resistances as magnitudes of different kinds that are incapable of forming ratios.
—
David Wilson (
talk ·
cont)
19:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to Wilson: I find this quite beside the main point I intended, which was not that Clagett's text verifies my text as it stands as you imply, but simply that Clagett's text shows that reconstructing Aristotle's dynamics as having a general law of motion v α F/R is not OR on my part, but a standard practice of historians of science.
And I would kindly ask you to seriously consider whether your points here are now anything more than rather nitpicking objections which may be easily avoided by a few revisions. So let me offer some revisions of my text that I hope will render it no longer OR in your view.
As far as I can determine, your criticisms amount to claiming the following four sentences are OR, namely (i) Para 1 Sentences 1 & 2, (ii) Para 6, Sentence 3, (iii) Para 10, Sentence 3 and (iv) Para 13. I therefore offer the following revisions of them for consideration.
1) Para 1 Sentence 2 to have a footnote to become of the following ilk:
'However, the motions of the celestial spheres came to be seen as presenting a major anomaly for Aristotelian dynamics, and as even refuting its general law of motion v α F/R[ref> According to this law all motion is the product of a motive force (F) and some resistance to motion (R), and whose ratio determines its average speed (v).[ref> This is strictly intended as a law for motions, and not for rest when there is no motIon because the motive force is too small to overcome the resistance(s) to motion. Although Aristotle did not express his dynamical rules of motion in terms of this algebraical summary formula, historians of science have traditionally interpreted his various rules of motion articulated in Physics 4.8 and 7.5 as effectively endorsing a general mathematical law of motion that is expressible as v @ F/R (where v = s/t, s = distance travelled and t = time taken) without misrepresenting any of his logical conclusions. For example, see Clagett's 1955 Greek science in antiquity p170. [/ref>'
2) Para 6 Sentence 3 to become of the following ilk with a footnote:
'Yet in dynamically similar terrestrial motion, such as in the hypothetical case of gravitational fall in a vacuum,[4]driven by gravity (i.e. F = W > 0), but without any resistant medium whereby R = 0, Aristotle's rules of motion predicted the movement would take place instantaneously, or, in terms of the formula v @ W/R, v would go to infinity as R goes to zero and so v is unbounded and hence the speed is infinitely fast).[ref> See Clagett's 1955 Greek science in antiquity p170. In Aristotle's terms, the resistance to motion of a medium is measured by its density D, and for the same motive force and distance travelled in two different media of different densities D1 and D2, T1:T2 = D1:D2 where T is time taken. Hence when D1 = 0 as in a vacuum, then T1 = 0. See pp351&3 Aristotle Physics Books I-IV Wicksteed & Cornford Loeb 1996 [/ref>'
3) Para 10 Sentence 3 to become of the following ilk:
'The prediction of the speed of the spheres' rotations in Aristotelian celestial dynamics is given by the following logical argument with three premises:
[ (i) v α F/R & (ii) F > 0 & (iii) R = 0 ] entails the motion is instantaneous.
4) Para 13 to become of the following ilk:
Hence the alternative logic of Averroes' solution to the refutation of the prediction of Aristotelian celestial dynamics
[ (i) v α F/R & (ii) F > 0 & (iii) R = 0 ] entails the motion is instantaneous
was to reject its third premise R = 0 instead of rejecting its first premise as Philoponus had, and assert R > 0.'
OK ? Satisfied now ? Would such a revised text mean that those respondents who have produced valid proofs of OR in such material would now be 0/10 ?
-- Logicus ( talk) 18:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
The style of discussion on this talk page is not typical. Many of the posts are in the style of a "letter" from one editor to another, in the form Editor A to Editor B. Typical talk page discussion topics address a particular issue concerning the article, rather than a message from one editor to another. Collaborative editing and building consensus would be better served by discussion of the issues, rather than personal messages from one editor to another; that is, discuss the issue(s) rather than the editor(s). Also, some posts are excessively long, and the extensive use use of boldface type looks like shouting. — Finell (Talk) 15:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
This talk page is quite long and retains some very old discussions. Unless other editors object, I intend to implement automatic archiving of this talk page. — Finell (Talk) 16:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I've downplayed the role of Eudoxus in the creation of the Celestial spheres. As Dreyer says in his History of Planetary Astronomy..., pp. 90-1:
A similar view of the lack of a mechanical model in Eudoxus and Callippus is expressed by G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle..., p. 150.
-- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 18:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
(undent)
Logicus to Wilson: Thanks for this sort out. But I don't accept the Pederson reference. It only refers to 'the abstract geometrical character of the theory', but not of the spheres themselves. A failed verification ? Are the other 2 refs any better ? -- Logicus ( talk) 15:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey: Pederson would be wrong in claiming the Almagest is completely free of any reference to the physical properties of the universe, and his claim that its tables are is obviously irrelevant since all astronomical tables are anyway. But even if the Almagest were completely free of any references to the physical properties of the universe, which it is not, that would still not entail the spheres are only mathematical fictions without any physical substance, unless it positively says so. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus: Thanks for all this, which I have not yet digested to see whether I agree or not. But can I just simplify things here by cutting to the following chase.
There has always been a major problem in the literature with the instrumentalist thesis that Ptolemy’s spheres, or just his spheres in the Almagest but not in PH, were just mathematical fictions without any physical reality. It is this. If the spheres are just fictions, but the stars and planets are real as they surely are in the Almagest, then they must surely just be whizzing around in empty space according to Ptolemy. Hardly !
Are we happy to promote this conclusion by the current text ? It says:
“The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) defined geometrical predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest and extended them to a unified physical model of the cosmos in his Planetary hypotheses.”
This surely implies the spheres in the Almagest were not physically real. So what filled space then ?
I suggest it be replaced by something of the following ilk:
'The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) dealt just with the applied mathematics of his predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest with hardly any discussion of the physical nature of its spheres, but which he then dealt with in his Planetary hypotheses in hypothesising about their specific shapes.'
I just came across this explanation of Ptolemy's tambourines in Andrea Murschel, "The Structure and Function of Ptolemy's Physical Hypotheses of Planetary Motion," JHA, 26(1995) at p. 40:
Murschel goes on to point out that in creating this model Ptolemy also aimed "to provide instrument makers with a description of instructional models of celestial motion. Unlike a set of full shells, an instrument composed of rings allows the student to view planetary positions through the shells, just as the semi-fixed armillary spheres of the renaissance were constructed to teach the rudiments of astronomical coordinates."
It seems Ptolemy's motives in the Planetary Hypothesis were physical both cosmologically and "instrumentally" (not in the philosophical sense but in the sense of describing a physical instrument). Things don't appear to be simple with Ptolemy. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 15:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Ptolemy's Ptambourines
I am pleased to see you are following up my research into Ptolemy's tambourines with this Lisa and Andrea stuff, and look forward to the restoration of something about them in the article before I have to start beating them again (the tambourines that is, not Andrea and Lisa)(-:
But what is the relevance of this to the issue here of whether the Almagest was a purely geometrical work which denied there are any physically real spheres rather than a work of mathematical physics on the mathematical aspects of real spheres ? A purely mathematical description of entities does not in itself entail they are physically unreal purely mathematical entities as the article currently implies.
As a result of my reading on Ptolemy's planetary rings, Plato's planetary rings and pre-Socratic wheels/rings/spheres cosmologies from 6th century BC Greece I am beginning to think the article itself needs to be re-titled 'Celestial rings/spheres'. And there are many important issues involved in the crucial differences between rings and spheres. For one thing note that on the rings cosmology space is mostly empty rather than an Aristotelian plenum. And note that on the principle of material economy rings are much more rational than spheres, if not on the principle of mechanical connectedness inasmuch as rings that are not the rims of wheels have nothing within which their poles can be held as axles, even if there is a celestial sphere within which such poles could be embedded. And I used to think the empirical rationale of the spheres was that on a clear night in the Med the stars actually look just like the inner concave surface of a sphere, and this empirically based perception was then extended to the planets, albeit 'irrational' because there was no empirical reason to put the single planets on whole spheres rather than just on single wheels or rings once it had been decided they were nearer than the stars rather than also on the stellar sphere. But it seems I was wrong because the rationale was the opposite, with at least Sun and Moon being on wheel rims/rings and the stellar sphere itself built up out of rims/rings i.e. rings preceded spheres.
I suggest such things should go into improving the article where possible.
And I am delighted to see you are coming to realise what an interesting and beautifully poetic great African scientist Ptolemy was, and maybe even the greatest scientist and cosmologist of all time in terms of longevity and predictive power ? -- Logicus ( talk) 16:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey: Will comment on your OR later. But meanwhile could you please kindly provide the Crowe quotations that supposedly verify the claim made about Almagest just geometrical ? -- Logicus ( talk) 16:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims:
"For medieval scholars, on the other hand, celestial spheres were actually thick spheres of rarefied matter nested one within the other, each one in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.[5] Since each sphere was perfect and only spun around in place, it always occupied the exact same space.[5]"
But this is surely false going on such as the article's Peuerbach diagram and the illustration on p106 of Grant’s Foundations..... . For the deferent spheres are not in complete contact with the spheres in which they are embedded and nor do the epicyclical spheres always occupy the same absolute space as they rotate around on the deferent. See Dennis Duke’s animated Ptolemy’s cosmology @ http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/ptolemy.html These two sentences must surely be deleted. -- Logicus ( talk) 15:54, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey:As I have noted and I think you agree, there is conflict and confusion in the article about the number of spheres in the middle ages because of a failure to distinguish between the popular simplified (essentially Eudoxan concentric) model with at most only about a dozen or so spheres and the much more complex scientific model with over two dozen by virtue of its eccentric deferential and epicyclical spheres. I therefore propose a distinction be introduced between the primary spheres for each planet and its secondary and tertiary etc spheres contained within them. In short, a primary sphere for a planet should be defined as its containing sphere that contains all its other spheres.
I therefore propose the following current text:
“In Ptolemy's geocentric model adopted in the middle ages, the planetary spheres (i.e. those that contained planets) were arranged outwards from the spherical, stationary Earth at the centre of the universe in this order: the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The planetary spheres were followed by the stellar sphere containing the fixed stars; other scholars added a ninth sphere to account for the precession of the equinoxes, a tenth to account for the supposed trepidation of the equinoxes, and even an eleventh to account for the changing obliquity of the ecliptic.[1]”
should be replaced by this text:
‘In Ptolemy's geocentric model adopted in the middle ages, the planets were arranged outwards from the spherical, stationary Earth at the centre of the universe in this order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The seven primary planetary spheres for each of these, that is, those spheres that contained all a planet's other secondary spheres within them, were followed by the stellar sphere containing the fixed stars; other scholars added a ninth sphere to account for the precession of the equinoxes, a tenth to account for the supposed trepidation of the equinoxes, and even an eleventh to account for the changing obliquity of the ecliptic.[1]’
I shall implement this immediately on the assumption you concur, but of course it may be tweaked and improved. I actually think some more explanation is required for this distinction as to why secondary spheres were required, and which could go in a footnote to the clause "that is, those spheres that contained all a planet's other secondary spheres within them," these secondary spheres being required to explain anomalies for the primary spheres alone.
OK ? -- Logicus ( talk) 11:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
And another problem about the number of spheres: Further to this, the following current two sentences
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres, but in Book 2 of his Planetary Hypotheses Ptolemy depicted circular bands rather than spheres as in its Book 1. One sphere/band is the deferent, with a centre offset somewhat from the Earth; the other sphere/band is an epicycle embedded in the deferent, with the planet embedded in the epicyclical sphere/band.”
are also surely puzzling inasmuch as the first sentence says a planet is moved by two or more spheres, but the second seems to presume there are only two and no more. I am currently not myself yet sure which is correct . But this surely needs sorting out. -- Logicus ( talk) 12:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres,..."
But this claim would seem to false insofar as it means some planets are moved by two spheres only, whilst some others are moved by more than two spheres. And that is surely what it must mean since otherwise if all planets are moved by more than 2 spheres then it is as perversely Pickwickian to say they are moved by 2 or more as to say they are moved by '1 or more' or '3 or more'.
But it is false that any planet is moved by only 2 spheres if the diagrams of a typical set of spheres for each planet in Ptolemy's cosmology such as Peuerbach's shown on this page, Grant's on p106, Lindberg's 2007 on p270, and Toomer's , for example, all of which show at least 3 spheres, namely (i) the primary containing sphere and the (ii) deferential and (iii) epicyclical spheres. Indeed Grant even refers to "the three-orb compromise" (p105-6), albeit his analysis of it seems highly confused. And in the extract from his PH given below, Ptolemy's himself identifies at least 3 orbs for a planet.
A better text might be
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is connected with three [or more] spheres,..."
once it is established whether any single planetary system has more than three spheres.
Also see the problem identified in the following section for this text's phrasing.-- Logicus ( talk) 15:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres,..." [My itals]
But Langermann's 1990 p20 quotes Ptolemy's PH to the contrary
"We hold that each one of the stars in its [individual] ranking possesses an animate power. It moves by itself, bestows motion upon the bodies naturally connected to it beginning with that which is close to it, and passes it on to that which is adjacent to it. For example, it bestows motion first on the epicyclic orb, then on the eccentric orb, and then on the orb whose centre is the centre of the world."
It seems that rather than being movers that move the planet, rather the spheres/rings function more like railtracks that constrain the planet's motive power and motion into specific orbital paths.
Consequently I shall double flag the claim requesting sources both for the claim of only 2 or more spheres for each planet, and also for the claim that the spheres move the planets rather than vice versa. Both claims may possibly be somebody's OR.
An interesting situation may arise if some secondary source does claim the spheres move the planets in Ptolemy when it is so flagrantly contradicted by what I regard as a secondary source in Langermann’s English translation of his PH but some may regard as a primary source. If so, should secondary source claims have to be supported by the primary source (-: ?
Logicus To McCluskey: Thanks for removing your OR about spheres moving planets which I believe contradicted your own Dynamics article stuff, and for flagging the two spheres claim. Please see my comments today above. -- Logicus ( talk) 18:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) defined geometrical predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest and extended them to a unified physical model of the cosmos in his Planetary hypotheses.[17]"
This surely suggests the spheres in his Almagest were not physically real spheres, but only empty disembodied geometrical figures rather than solids and that only became physically real solids in PH. But this is not so, as the following passages from the Almagest attest.
These passage seem to show that Ptolemy regarded the spheres of the Almagest as solid physical spheres, and also because, of all solids, spheres offer the least resistance to motion, and indeed offer no resistance to their motion whatever.
'...since the movement of the heavenly bodies ought to be the least impeded and most facile the sphere among solids offers the easiest path of motion; likewise that, since of different figures having equal perimeters those having the more angles are the greater, the sphere is the greatest of solid figures, and the heavens are greater than any other body.' Book1.2 [My paraphrasing]
"For there is no impeding nature in [heavenly things], but one proper to the yielding and giving way to movements according to the nature of each planet, even if they are contrary, so that they can all penetrate and shine through absolutely all the fluid media; and this free action takes place not only about the particular circles, but also about the spheres themselves and the axes of revolution. We see the complication and sequence in their different movements difficult and hard to come by for the freedom of the movements in the likely stories constructed by us, but in the heavenly thing never anywhere impeded by this mixture." Book 13.2
For those who regard an English translation of the Almagest as a primary source rather than a secondary source, that its spheres are real solid physical spheres on whose physical natures such as their not resisting their motion is backed up by Lindberg 2007 p104.
I do not necessarily think the quotes from Pedersen and Lindberg, and possibly Crowe, conflict with the fact that Ptolemy’s Almagest clearly is a work of mathematical physics in solid geometry + physical hypotheses, but I do think the article’s claim misrepresents them.
I am currently considering the following replacement text, but needs more thought:
'The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) dealt largely with the applied mathematics of his spherist models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest with little discussion of their physical natures, but he then dealt with them more in his Planetary hypotheses in hypothesising about their specific shapes for the construction of real instrument models of his cosmology.' -- Logicus ( talk) 15:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“One of the earliest intimations of celestial spheres is found in Plato's Timaeus , “
But in respect of positing any celestial sphere(s) Plato was preceded much earlier by some two centuries by Anaximander and then Xenophanes and Parmenides. Moreover Plato had bands/rings rather than spherist planetary models.
I propose a new beginning for this section along the following lines:
'In Greek antiquity the ideas of celestial spheres and rings first appeared in the cosmology of Anaximander in the early 6th century BC. [1] In his cosmology both the Sun and Moon are circular open vents in tubular rings of fire enclosed in tubes of condensed air that constitute the rims of rotating chariot-like wheels pivoting on the Earth at their centre, shaped rather like the space station in the film 2001. The fixed stars are also open vents in such wheel rims, but there are so many such wheels for the stars that their contiguous rims altogether form a continuous spherical shell encompassing the Earth. But according to Anaximander's cosmogony, all these wheel rims had originally been formed out of an original sphere of fire wholly encompassing the Earth that had disintegrated into many individual rings. [2] Hence in Anaximanders's cosmogony, in the beginning was the sphere, out of which celestial rings were formed, and from which the stellar sphere was then composed from some of those rings. The order of the distances of the wheel rims of the Sun, Moon and stars was: Sun highest, Moon next and then the sphere of the stars the lowest.
Following Anaximander, both Xenophanes and Parmenides held that the universe was spherical. [3] And much later in the fourth century BC Plato's Timaeus proposed that the body of the cosmos was made in the most perfect and uniform shape, that of a sphere containing the fixed stars.[8] But it posited that the planets were spherical bodies set in rotating bands or rings rather than wheel rims as in Anaximander's cosmology. However instead of bands Plato's student Eudoxus then developed a planetary model using geo-concentric spheres for all the planets, with three spheres each for his models of the Moon and the Sun and four each for the models of the other five planets, thus making 27 spheres in all ' [4] -- Logicus ( talk) 17:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"For medieval scholars, on the other hand, celestial spheres were actually thick spheres of rarefied matter nested one within the other, each one in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.[5]" ( = Lindberg p251)
But in Lindberg’s diagram of the 3 orb system neither the deferential nor epicyclical spheres R & I are in complete contact with the spheres they are each nested in, R for I and S for R.
I suggest either delete the last clause or replace it with the following clause
‘and each of the primary spheres for each planet that contained all its other spheres such as deferential and epicyclical spheres was in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.’
Another issue here or elsewhere is that Lindberg 2007 claims p259 "No interstices or gaps existed within individual spheres." But both ring R and epicycle I appear to be empty spheres, and S may be partly empty, unless black indicates some filling material. His model says epicycle I rolls through ring R, which suggests R must be empty. And what does the thickened spherical space S that contains the hollow ring R consist of, what does it contain if not empty ? The issue is whether there is an Aristotelian plenum or not.
I shall delete last clause pro tem pending plenum issue being sorted, because otherwise the point made seems pointless.
Logicus to McCLuskey : Your Lindberg page refs are to first edition. I think p251 in 1st edition may be 259 in second. Could you please check Steve ? I don’t have first edition. -- Logicus ( talk) 18:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
-- Logicus ( talk) 19:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"By using eccentrics and epicycles, [Ptolemy’s] geometrical model achieved greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy than had been exhibited by earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos.[26]."
and cites "Taliaferro, Translator's Introduction to the Almagest, p,1" as a verifying source.
But in fact Taliaferro only says
"The works of the greatest Greek astronomers - Eudoxus, Heraclides of Pontus, Aristarchus of Samos, Apollonius of Perga, and Hipparchus - are lost for the most part, and we only know their contents from this treatise and other very meagre sources. For detail, completeness and perfection the 'Composition of Ptolemy' might be said to contain all those which preceded it; ..." [My italics]
Now the two italicised words of this passage simply suggest Polemy's work might include/express the detail, completeness and perfection of all the 5 preceding works listed. But it does not say Ptolemy's work 'achieved any greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy' than "earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos" did. And the only (geo) concentric model listed is that of Eudoxus. Ptolemy's work may at best only have equalled the detail and predictive accuracy of all those preceding works listed without superseding it, or even have been less accurate in some respect(s). And moreover it would obviously be very silly for Taliaferro to make any such comparative accuracy claim given his admission that these preceding works are mostly lost.
As for the 2 Dreyer refs to pp160 and 167, on neither page could I see any such claim that Ptolemy’s geometrical model achieved greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy than had been exhibited by earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos by using eccentrics and epicycles.
So is this claim OR or can some source possibly be found ?
It needs explaining here what any greater math detail and predictive accuracy over concetrist models possibly was.
And the more interesting issue here is whether Ptolemy achieved greater predictive accuracy than all preceding models. But this issue is probably indeterminable. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Notwithstanding its comments on the Spindle of Necessity, the Sirens and the Fates, the following current claim:
"One of the earliest intimations of celestial spheres appears in Plato's "Myth of Er," a section of the Republic, which describes the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity, attended by the Sirens and turned by the three Fates."
does not actually evidence Plato was a spherist, rather than merely a bandist as in Timaeaus.
Unless Plato's alleged spherism can be documented, I propose its deletion.-- Logicus ( talk) 15:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I hereby propose to restore the original text of my previous contribution to this article’s section on the celestial spheres in the middle ages, imperiously and invalidly removed by Leadwind on 4 May 2009, and put in a new article Dynamics of the celestial spheres. See my comments on the rank invalidity of Leadwind’s action @ User Talk:Leadwind.
At least for the record, below here I also re-present Steve McCluskey’s mistaken objections to my contribution, posted on the Talk:Dynamics of the celestial spheres page of the article created by Leadwind, and at least to give McCluskey the opportunity to strike them out as invalid if he does not wish to resurrect them to try and justify removing my contribution to this article yet again.
Logicus also proposes McCluskey should add his most welcome useful valid contributions to the ‘Dynamics of the celestial spheres’ article to this article, where they most properly belong.
McCluskey’s objections to Logicus’s contribution to the topic of the dynamics of the celestial spheres in the middle ages
Anachronisms in the article One of the central problems with this article is its formulation of ancient and medieval discussions of dynamics in terms of mathematical equations. Such relationships were not used by any of the authors under discussion and to present their discussions in this form falsely leads the reader into the assumption that the logical conclusions one can readily draw from the mathematical formulations could be drawn from the ancient and medieval verbal expressions.
Furthermore, an article about ancient and medieval dynamics should be stated in terms of ancient and medieval concepts. The modern term "force", F in the article, was not clearly defined and generally accepted until sometime after Newton's articulation of the concept in his Principia; attributing that concept to Aristotle and his followers is profoundly misleading. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 22:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Major rewrite I spent some time looking over this article with an intent to edit it and it soon became clear that mere editing won't suffice; a complete rewrite is called for. The central problems of the old version concern lack of balance; as it stood it failed to give the reader the broad overview of the topic expected in an encyclopedia.
There may still be some things of value in the prior version of the article, which is available in the article's history. Other editors may wish to mine it for appropriate material, while retaining the article's encyclopedic balance.
-- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 16:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
--
Logicus (
talk)
03:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Closer's note. Content RfCs do not need to be validated. Consensus is that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material, due to the interpretive nature of the material. Removal from active article space is necessary per Wikipedia's no original research policy, pending acquisition of secondary sources to support it. Suggest userfication of that portion. If no secondary sources exist it is possible to generate that by publishing in a reliable vetted venue, then citing that source at Wikipedia. When that is done properly the update becomes uncontroversial. Durova 371 17:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus note on Closer’s note: There was no consensus of the ten respondents that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material. Of those ten respondents only Finell is even remotely interpretable as expressing such an opinion in his following comment of 2 November rebutted by Logicus on 20 November: “A majority of the sources that are cited are primary.”. So even if Deor himself also expressed this opinion, that is at most only 2 out of 11 involved in the RfC who do.
So if consensus were decided by some kind of majority vote of respondents to the RfC, the opinion that primary sources are insufficient verification for the disputed material was at best an extremely small minority opinion.
And on the question of whether the material is OR, only 6 out of 11 say it definitely is, a maximally slim simple majority.
But as explained by Logicus in the archived RfC, consensus is anyway not decided by votes according to Wikipedia policy.
The outcome of this meritless RfC, raised in breach of Wikipedia dispute resolution policy that the disputant must first discuss the issue with the editor before raising an RfC. is that Logicus anway as always offers to revise material that is defective or breaches policy once the complainant has identified where and why the material is in breach. But neither Deor nor anybody else has ever done so in this case except Wilson, in accusations of Original Synthesis that Logicus has responded to with proposed revisions posted below on 30 November. But Wilson refuses to discuss them, apparently revealing bad faith that he was never interested in constructively helping improve the material, which appears to be true of the whole coterie of editors involved in this RfC. Thus it seems negotiatons to remedy the material by revision are locked in refusal to do so.
And any charge of irremediable OR remains unproven.
Logicus to Closer: Would you please kindly explain what your following comments mean.
“Content RfCs do not need to be validated” Does it mean that if OR is alleged, nevertheless valid substantiation of the claim is not required ?
“Suggest userfication of that portion.”
“Removal from active article space is necessary per Wikipedia's no original research policy, pending acquisition of secondary sources to support it.” The material already has some secondary sources that support it. So what further secondary sources are required and where ?
And would you please be so kind as to explain by what authority or policy rule you parachute in here to ‘close’ this RfC with your apparently unfounded opinions on consensus, rather than its initiator or a bot closing it ?
Final;ly, you might like to give comment on the following defect of Wikipedia consensus policy raised on its Talk page: ‘This key Wikipedia policy article as currently written crucially fails to specify what constitutes a consensus. Is it a unanimous or a majority agreement of some community ? And what is the relevant community ? Dictionary definitions of consensus typically say it is either unanimity or else majoritarian agreement. So it is clearly important to decide which it is. But such definitions also leave open the further question of whether it is at least a simple majority (i.e. at least 51%) or at least a great majority (i.e. two-thirds) of the relevant community. But the more basic problem here is the article’s failure to identify what the relevant community is. And even more basically, we are told consensus is not even decided by votes anyway. Thus the Wikipedia fundamental policy of editing by consensus is surely in effect empirically empty, whatever all its rubrics about discussion and procedure ? ‘
Thanks you for your interest in this RfC
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Logicus (
talk •
contribs) 19:26, December 1, 2009
BTW I should say I do not agree with Kamm's critique and wish to see Wikipedia flourish, but I do now think it is profoundy rotten and in urgent need of reform. I may write a critique of Kamm's elitist anti-amateur critique.-- Logicus ( talk) 17:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Does the material added to the article in this edit constitute original research based on primary and selected secondary soures; and, more broadly, does it give undue weight to a particular approach to the topic of the article, overwhelming the encyclopedic treatment of the celestial spheres in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance? Deor ( talk) 15:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to Deor:
I have deleted the RfC tag you put here as illegitimate, principally for the reason that your procedure is in apparent breach of the following dispute procedure guideline by virtue of your having bypassed its first step required before seeking outside opinion:
“Before asking outside opinion here, it generally helps to simply discuss the matter on the talk page first. Whatever the disagreement, the first step in resolving a dispute is to talk to the other parties involved.“
To recap what has happened here, first of all you reverted my restoration of my contribution on the ground that it defied a consensus that it does not belong here. and you said that if I reverted it you would begin dispute-resolution procedures to ensure it stays reverted, thus apparently revealing your prior prejudice of not being open to discussion about the outcome.
Thus you gave the impression the dispute was about my breaching some alleged Wiki policy consensus rule, albeit you failed to state what that policy rule was. And the material disagreement you raised was about where my contribution belongs, not whether it is Wiki OR or has undue weight. It seemed you maybe thought it belonged to the Dynamics of the celestial spheres article instead.
I then reverted your reversion, and as it happened, before I saw your comments about consensus etc. on the Talk page. I just responded to your Editorial comment ‘no consensus for this addition; seek consensus on the talk page if you want’ by pointing out in my Editorial comment that consensus on the Talk page for an addition is not required. In fact boldness policy is explicitly against any such rule. It seems you just invented a bogus rule to get your own way.
However, you did not revert my reversion, but rather McCluskey did, also in his Talk page comments repeating his usual cavalier allegations of OR and disruptive editing against Logicus, which he has previously notably failed to substantiate.
You then posted an RfC on the Talk page within a few hours of your warning of starting dispute-resolution, before I had responded to your complaints on the Talk page about consensus and where my text properly belongs, and notably not even responding to my Editorial point that your justification for reversion was invalid by demonstrating some rule it breached
But the RfC you posted did not ostensibly concern any dispute about relevancy nor consensus, but rather a quite different dispute about whether my contribution to this article is OR or not, and whether it commits some sin of undue weight.
Thus I had had no prior notification from you that you now regard this contribution as OR and having undue weight, and therefore no opportunity to discuss these two charges with you, and so to find out what OR rule you now claim it breaches and where, and hence to consider whether your two charges have any substance whereby I should somehow revise or withdraw my proposed contribution.
So can you please rewind the tape, and clarify exactly what your beef is before proceeding to the second stage of dispute resolution in seeking outside opinion in an RfC?
Are you complaining that my contribution to this article, which was previously accepted by you and previously stood unedited for most of a year before its invalid removal to another article by Leadwind last May, (1) should have less weight in this article, or (2) should not be in this particular article at all, rather than in some other, or (3) that it is entirely irrelevant to the subject of the dynamics of the celestial spheres, or (4) that it is OR that should not be in any Wikipedia article at all ?
I note the only issues the RfC attempted to raise were those of OR and undue weight.
Therefore in the first instance could you please kindly review what dispute(s) you wish to raise with me out of all these four different disputes you seem to have raised in one way or another.
Then if you wish to initiate dispute-resolution about some dispute, would you please kindly first proceed to its advocated first stage of discussing your complaint(s) with me first, rather than completely omitting that stage and proceeding directly to an RfC , its specified second stage ?
May I also advise you to review whether you wish to invoke dispute-resolution in good faith without prior prejudice to its negotiated outcome, or rather have decided in advance of any discussion and negotiation that the only acceptable outcome is ‘to ensure my contribution stays reverted’. -- Logicus ( talk) 14:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Please stop removing the RfC tag User:Logicus. I would notify you on your talk page, but you are now editing (perhaps inadvertently) from an IP address at the British Library. This is considered to be disruptive editing, and you can be blocked for it if you persist. 71.182.189.125 ( talk) 19:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
It is junk replete with weasel words and mystical claptrap. Of course it is possible to discuss mystical claptrap long since discredited. Someone who offers this must reasonably say who (the medieval authorities who offered such claptrap as unqualified truth). At the least it must name names of its proponents.
That is separate from the concept of "original research", which the section is. Such claptrap cannot be the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation. The writing is amateurish enough to be original. -- Pbrower2a ( talk) 05:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus’s critical comments on the responses to this illegitimate RfC:
I have inserted my comments in emboldened text within square brackets in each respondents text below:
1) * The issue raised by Deor is just one more example of a fairly widespread pattern of disruptive editing on pages relating to the history of science, philosophy of science, and even physics. For some examples look at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Logicus and his Block log. [McCluskey has never managed to substantiate any of his repeated charges of DE against Logicus, even just once, in spite of much sadly unprobative verbiage attempting to do so in his entirely failed and illegitimate RfC of February 2007, on which Logicus commented on his User Talk page on 10 July 2008, explaining possibly why such as McCluskey make such invalid accusations of OR and DE. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Turning to the specifics of this incident, I agree totally with Deor's analysis. The lack of balance uses this article as an attempt to advance Logicus's idiosyncratic historical interpretation. [ But what is Deor's analysis? Because Deor has bypassed the first stage of dispute-resolution in failing to talk to Logicus first about his latest complaints, we have yet to hear his beef and analysis. Thus McCluskey's comments are void and irrelevant, establishing neither the OR claim nor the undue weight claim. What is the due weight for analysis of the origin of key concepts of 17th century dynamics in medieval celestial dynamics ? Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
2) I am not commenting on Logicus's editing behavior one way or the other. However, one RfC in February 2007 (which attracted very little comment) and one 24-hour block in October 2008 (with no block before or after that one) does not demonstrate a pattern of disruptive editing. Please confine comments here to the issue raised, not the editor. Thank you. —Finell (Talk) 16:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC) [Correct, except for the fact that the RfC attracted no comment rather than little comment ! But unfortunately Finell's comments below are not confined to the two issue raised. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
3) * Comment: Without full refs the edit in question would appear to be WP:OR. But most, if not all Wikipedia articles are not fully referenced, and there is no policy rule that they should be. References are only required when an unsourced claim is challenged. Deleting articles just because not all its propositions are referenced would delete virtually all Wikipedia articles. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] More to the point and more relevant: [No, irrelevant to the RfC raised Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] the text as presented is too big, too obscure and too dense to benefit the general reader. It's not readable, not accessible and therefore not encyclopedic. Wikipedia is WP:NOT PAPER. [These points are beside the points at issue and so irrelevant, but thanks for the style criticism ! But do try reading the many huge, obscure, dense, unreadable and inaccessible Physics articles, for example, that do not benefit the general reader, and then try mine again for some relatively light relief (-: For example, try reading Hamiltonian mechanics. And please note that it is almost completely unsourced, and commits all the sins you cite, and so must be deleted on the logic of such as yourself, Deor and McCluskey etc., as probably must most Physics articles. Also take a look at Quantum Mechanics Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] --Whoosit (talk) 22:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
4) * Comment: The test is quite simple. Does this analysis appear in published sources elsewhere? ['But what analysis is "this" specifically ? Analysis of the origin of key concepts of 17th century inertial and impetus dynamics as being in medieval celestial dynamics ? If so the answer to this question is Yes ! Just see the sources provided in the text Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] If the answer is yes, then references to these published sources must be made clear, and attribution should be given. If the answer is no, then it is original research. I am very suspicious that this analysis is an entirely original synthesis, though, given the near complete lack of supporting sources, [There is no "near complete lack of supporting sources". Many are supplied. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] as well as the overall pattern of behavior of the section's sole proponent. I would like to add that the section under dispute in this RfC has other non-OR problems with it. First, by itself it exceeds the maximum recommended length of an encyclopedia article (see WP:LENGTH). [And what is that maximum recommended length in words ? I did not see one in a quick look at WP:LENGTH. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Secondly, it clearly does not observe summary style: there is already an article Dynamics of the celestial spheres. If this content could be made to conform to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (doubtful as it seems), then surely it would belong there instead of here, if anywhere. Thirdly, why are all of the equations displayed in bold face type? At the very least it should be made to conform with the Manual of Style (mathematics). 71.182.189.125 (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I now see that indeed what happened was that the material was already moved to Dynamics of the celestial spheres and subsequently edited to conform to Wikipedia's core principles. Recreating the earlier material here is a clear WP:POVFORK. 71.182.189.125 (talk) 19:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
(5) * (after edit conflict): This contribution is clearly original research, among other problems. Long passages have no cited sources. [Even were this true, there is anyway no policy ban on such and this is certainly true of very many articles. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] A majority of the sources that are cited are primary. [Even were this true, there is anyway no policy rule that a majority of sources cannot be primary. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Where secondary sources are cited, it is often an evaluation of the source or a comparison of one versus another. [Even were this true, there is no policy ban on evaluation or comparison of secondary sources. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] In Wikipedia, secondary sources should be used for what they say, not for commentary about the sources. [There is no such policy rule. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] The contribution also favors one scholar's point of view over the others. [Which scholar? But anyway there is no policy ban on such, and the very many articles that only cite the view of just one scholar to justify a claim, but not of all scholars, inevitably do so. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] Also, this contribution is way too long and is not written in summary style; it reads more like a philosophy paper. [But are there any policy rules against such? At least it does not read like a bad history paper like many Wikipedia history of science articles do, as mindless and boring collections of dessicated facts, one damned idea after another without rhyme or reason. And if Bolingbroke and Hegel are right that history is just philosophy fabricating examples, then history should indeed read like a philosophy paper, and especially history of science and ideas (-: Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)] —Finell (Talk) 16:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC) [So much for Finell's Wiki-barrack-room-lawyering inventing bogus rules ! Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(6) * Clearly inappropriate here. I leave it to other editors whether the reformed version at Dynamics is still original research, essay, and undue. - 2/0 (cont.) 08:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC) [But Deor notably did not raise any RfC about appropriateness, having apparently ceded that complaint in our discussions last year: see above. Hence this is an entirely irrelevant comment Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(7) It is junk replete with weasel words and mystical claptrap. Of course it is possible to discuss mystical claptrap long since discredited. Someone who offers this must reasonably say who (the medieval authorities who offered such claptrap as unqualified truth). At the least it must name names of its proponents.
That is separate from the concept of "original research", which the section is. Such claptrap cannot be the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation. The writing is amateurish enough to be original. --Pbrower2a (talk) 05:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC) ['??? Since when was OR that which is not "the result of experiment, a simple and straightforward calculation, or of personal observation" ? This is just very confused ranting. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
(8) * Agree with removal of section. We can debate whether this is original research, a violation of NPOV, a content fork, tendentious editing, or (most likely) all of the above, but the bottom line is that it doesn't improve the article. And the tl;dr wikilawyering above by Logicus doesn't help either. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC) [Irrelevant! The RfC did not ask for opinion on removal of the material, but rather opinion on whether it is OR. Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus will deal with Wilson's late response later, but notes he has already begun the strikethrough of its many blunders, and hopefully awaits his strikethrough of the rest of it to save Logicus the tedious task of pointing out its various defects. -- Logicus ( talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I have tabulated the comments raised within the discussion concerning Logicus's edits:
WP:NOR | WP:WEIGHT | Other Negative Comments | Other Positive Comments | |
SteveMcCluskey | Yes | Yes | Disruptive Editing | |
Whoosit | Yes | Too big, too obscure, and too dense | ||
71.182.189.125 | Yes | WP:SYNTH; WP:LENGTH, WP:POVFORK | ||
Finell | Yes | POV, Length, incivility | ||
2/0 | Clearly inappropriate here | |||
David Wilson | Yes | Yes | NPOV, citation fails verification | |
Pbrower2a | Yes | weasel words and mystical claptrap | ||
David Eppstein | likely | likely | wikilawyering | |
Sławomir Biały | Yes | WP:V, Disruptive Editing, WP:TLDR | ||
Logicus | Unproven | Unproven |
Perhaps this will assist us in arriving at a consensus on the RfC. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 16:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC) --updated 19:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC); further update 19:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus's Alternative Summary: The following alternative Counter Summary to the above McCluskey Summary summarises the pertinent outcome of the 10 responses so far to the RfC question of whether the material is “OR based on primary and selected secondary sources”:
1) Respondents who say material is ‘OR based on primary and selected secondary sources’ - - 0/10
2) Respondents who claim the material is definitely OR - - - - - - - - - - - - 5/10
3) Respondents who say where and why the material is OR - - - - - - - - - 1/10
4) Respondents with valid proofs of OR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0/10 ?
The question mark in 4 questions whether all Wilson’s efforts to prove where and why the material is OR are now refuted by Logicus’s response of 25 November, or any remain standing. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
And contrary to McCluskey's suggestion otherwise, there may be no resulting consensus if the two disputing parties do not agree.
Nor have I promised a reply to Wilson’s reasons for claiming the material is OR as McCluskey says. Such a reply is not relevant UNLESS the disputant Deor actually adopts any of them himself. The purpose of an RfC is surely not to create even more disputes with a number of other editors in conflict escalation, but rather to help settle the dispute with the editor in question ? -- Logicus ( talk) 19:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
— David Wilson ( talk · cont) 15:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus apparently now wants to claim that the material on page 170 of Marshall Clagett's book Greek Science in Antiquity vitiates the objections I have raised here against some of the material in his disputed edit. I'm afraid the claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The disputed edit's treatment suffers from several serious defects which I have already indicated, and which are nowhere to be found in Clagett's. Some of the more significant are:
Finally, I should like to clear up some further misunderstandings. Logicus wrote:
But nowhere in the disputed edit was anything cited from "the literature" to support its apparently defective version of this practice. All that was cited was an English translation of Aristotle's works which quite clearly did not directly support much of the material, as is required by
the Wikipedia policy I have already cited.
Next
This puts words which I never uttered into my mouth. Nowhere did I make any judgement about what Clagett's analysis would or would not "condemn as OR". If Logicus could find some reliable source which actually did support all of the material in the disputed edit that I have objected to (which—except for the mathematical travesties—I have already acknowledged as a possibility
here) then that text would of course not be
original research. Nevertheless, in view of the differences I have pointed out between Clagett's exposition and that of the disputed edit, it would, however, still be giving a
non-neutral point of view which would therefore have to be balanced by some acknowledgement of those differences.
Nor has Logicus demonstrated any mistake on my part, let alone a "major blunder". In my struck out statement I gave force, weight and resistance as examples of magnitudes which I believed Aristotle would have regarded as being of different kinds, and therefore not capable of forming ratios. But nowhere that I can see does Clagett contradict this. When Clagett himself uses such a ratio (F/R) on page 170 he says explicitly that "of course, Aristotle does not do this", so there is no contradiction whatever between this statement of Clagett's and the belief that Aristotle would have regarded forces, weights, and resistances as magnitudes of different kinds that are incapable of forming ratios.
—
David Wilson (
talk ·
cont)
19:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to Wilson: I find this quite beside the main point I intended, which was not that Clagett's text verifies my text as it stands as you imply, but simply that Clagett's text shows that reconstructing Aristotle's dynamics as having a general law of motion v α F/R is not OR on my part, but a standard practice of historians of science.
And I would kindly ask you to seriously consider whether your points here are now anything more than rather nitpicking objections which may be easily avoided by a few revisions. So let me offer some revisions of my text that I hope will render it no longer OR in your view.
As far as I can determine, your criticisms amount to claiming the following four sentences are OR, namely (i) Para 1 Sentences 1 & 2, (ii) Para 6, Sentence 3, (iii) Para 10, Sentence 3 and (iv) Para 13. I therefore offer the following revisions of them for consideration.
1) Para 1 Sentence 2 to have a footnote to become of the following ilk:
'However, the motions of the celestial spheres came to be seen as presenting a major anomaly for Aristotelian dynamics, and as even refuting its general law of motion v α F/R[ref> According to this law all motion is the product of a motive force (F) and some resistance to motion (R), and whose ratio determines its average speed (v).[ref> This is strictly intended as a law for motions, and not for rest when there is no motIon because the motive force is too small to overcome the resistance(s) to motion. Although Aristotle did not express his dynamical rules of motion in terms of this algebraical summary formula, historians of science have traditionally interpreted his various rules of motion articulated in Physics 4.8 and 7.5 as effectively endorsing a general mathematical law of motion that is expressible as v @ F/R (where v = s/t, s = distance travelled and t = time taken) without misrepresenting any of his logical conclusions. For example, see Clagett's 1955 Greek science in antiquity p170. [/ref>'
2) Para 6 Sentence 3 to become of the following ilk with a footnote:
'Yet in dynamically similar terrestrial motion, such as in the hypothetical case of gravitational fall in a vacuum,[4]driven by gravity (i.e. F = W > 0), but without any resistant medium whereby R = 0, Aristotle's rules of motion predicted the movement would take place instantaneously, or, in terms of the formula v @ W/R, v would go to infinity as R goes to zero and so v is unbounded and hence the speed is infinitely fast).[ref> See Clagett's 1955 Greek science in antiquity p170. In Aristotle's terms, the resistance to motion of a medium is measured by its density D, and for the same motive force and distance travelled in two different media of different densities D1 and D2, T1:T2 = D1:D2 where T is time taken. Hence when D1 = 0 as in a vacuum, then T1 = 0. See pp351&3 Aristotle Physics Books I-IV Wicksteed & Cornford Loeb 1996 [/ref>'
3) Para 10 Sentence 3 to become of the following ilk:
'The prediction of the speed of the spheres' rotations in Aristotelian celestial dynamics is given by the following logical argument with three premises:
[ (i) v α F/R & (ii) F > 0 & (iii) R = 0 ] entails the motion is instantaneous.
4) Para 13 to become of the following ilk:
Hence the alternative logic of Averroes' solution to the refutation of the prediction of Aristotelian celestial dynamics
[ (i) v α F/R & (ii) F > 0 & (iii) R = 0 ] entails the motion is instantaneous
was to reject its third premise R = 0 instead of rejecting its first premise as Philoponus had, and assert R > 0.'
OK ? Satisfied now ? Would such a revised text mean that those respondents who have produced valid proofs of OR in such material would now be 0/10 ?
-- Logicus ( talk) 18:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
The style of discussion on this talk page is not typical. Many of the posts are in the style of a "letter" from one editor to another, in the form Editor A to Editor B. Typical talk page discussion topics address a particular issue concerning the article, rather than a message from one editor to another. Collaborative editing and building consensus would be better served by discussion of the issues, rather than personal messages from one editor to another; that is, discuss the issue(s) rather than the editor(s). Also, some posts are excessively long, and the extensive use use of boldface type looks like shouting. — Finell (Talk) 15:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
This talk page is quite long and retains some very old discussions. Unless other editors object, I intend to implement automatic archiving of this talk page. — Finell (Talk) 16:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I've downplayed the role of Eudoxus in the creation of the Celestial spheres. As Dreyer says in his History of Planetary Astronomy..., pp. 90-1:
A similar view of the lack of a mechanical model in Eudoxus and Callippus is expressed by G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle..., p. 150.
-- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 18:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
(undent)
Logicus to Wilson: Thanks for this sort out. But I don't accept the Pederson reference. It only refers to 'the abstract geometrical character of the theory', but not of the spheres themselves. A failed verification ? Are the other 2 refs any better ? -- Logicus ( talk) 15:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey: Pederson would be wrong in claiming the Almagest is completely free of any reference to the physical properties of the universe, and his claim that its tables are is obviously irrelevant since all astronomical tables are anyway. But even if the Almagest were completely free of any references to the physical properties of the universe, which it is not, that would still not entail the spheres are only mathematical fictions without any physical substance, unless it positively says so. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus: Thanks for all this, which I have not yet digested to see whether I agree or not. But can I just simplify things here by cutting to the following chase.
There has always been a major problem in the literature with the instrumentalist thesis that Ptolemy’s spheres, or just his spheres in the Almagest but not in PH, were just mathematical fictions without any physical reality. It is this. If the spheres are just fictions, but the stars and planets are real as they surely are in the Almagest, then they must surely just be whizzing around in empty space according to Ptolemy. Hardly !
Are we happy to promote this conclusion by the current text ? It says:
“The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) defined geometrical predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest and extended them to a unified physical model of the cosmos in his Planetary hypotheses.”
This surely implies the spheres in the Almagest were not physically real. So what filled space then ?
I suggest it be replaced by something of the following ilk:
'The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) dealt just with the applied mathematics of his predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest with hardly any discussion of the physical nature of its spheres, but which he then dealt with in his Planetary hypotheses in hypothesising about their specific shapes.'
I just came across this explanation of Ptolemy's tambourines in Andrea Murschel, "The Structure and Function of Ptolemy's Physical Hypotheses of Planetary Motion," JHA, 26(1995) at p. 40:
Murschel goes on to point out that in creating this model Ptolemy also aimed "to provide instrument makers with a description of instructional models of celestial motion. Unlike a set of full shells, an instrument composed of rings allows the student to view planetary positions through the shells, just as the semi-fixed armillary spheres of the renaissance were constructed to teach the rudiments of astronomical coordinates."
It seems Ptolemy's motives in the Planetary Hypothesis were physical both cosmologically and "instrumentally" (not in the philosophical sense but in the sense of describing a physical instrument). Things don't appear to be simple with Ptolemy. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 15:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Ptolemy's Ptambourines
I am pleased to see you are following up my research into Ptolemy's tambourines with this Lisa and Andrea stuff, and look forward to the restoration of something about them in the article before I have to start beating them again (the tambourines that is, not Andrea and Lisa)(-:
But what is the relevance of this to the issue here of whether the Almagest was a purely geometrical work which denied there are any physically real spheres rather than a work of mathematical physics on the mathematical aspects of real spheres ? A purely mathematical description of entities does not in itself entail they are physically unreal purely mathematical entities as the article currently implies.
As a result of my reading on Ptolemy's planetary rings, Plato's planetary rings and pre-Socratic wheels/rings/spheres cosmologies from 6th century BC Greece I am beginning to think the article itself needs to be re-titled 'Celestial rings/spheres'. And there are many important issues involved in the crucial differences between rings and spheres. For one thing note that on the rings cosmology space is mostly empty rather than an Aristotelian plenum. And note that on the principle of material economy rings are much more rational than spheres, if not on the principle of mechanical connectedness inasmuch as rings that are not the rims of wheels have nothing within which their poles can be held as axles, even if there is a celestial sphere within which such poles could be embedded. And I used to think the empirical rationale of the spheres was that on a clear night in the Med the stars actually look just like the inner concave surface of a sphere, and this empirically based perception was then extended to the planets, albeit 'irrational' because there was no empirical reason to put the single planets on whole spheres rather than just on single wheels or rings once it had been decided they were nearer than the stars rather than also on the stellar sphere. But it seems I was wrong because the rationale was the opposite, with at least Sun and Moon being on wheel rims/rings and the stellar sphere itself built up out of rims/rings i.e. rings preceded spheres.
I suggest such things should go into improving the article where possible.
And I am delighted to see you are coming to realise what an interesting and beautifully poetic great African scientist Ptolemy was, and maybe even the greatest scientist and cosmologist of all time in terms of longevity and predictive power ? -- Logicus ( talk) 16:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey: Will comment on your OR later. But meanwhile could you please kindly provide the Crowe quotations that supposedly verify the claim made about Almagest just geometrical ? -- Logicus ( talk) 16:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims:
"For medieval scholars, on the other hand, celestial spheres were actually thick spheres of rarefied matter nested one within the other, each one in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.[5] Since each sphere was perfect and only spun around in place, it always occupied the exact same space.[5]"
But this is surely false going on such as the article's Peuerbach diagram and the illustration on p106 of Grant’s Foundations..... . For the deferent spheres are not in complete contact with the spheres in which they are embedded and nor do the epicyclical spheres always occupy the same absolute space as they rotate around on the deferent. See Dennis Duke’s animated Ptolemy’s cosmology @ http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~dduke/ptolemy.html These two sentences must surely be deleted. -- Logicus ( talk) 15:54, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Logicus to McCluskey:As I have noted and I think you agree, there is conflict and confusion in the article about the number of spheres in the middle ages because of a failure to distinguish between the popular simplified (essentially Eudoxan concentric) model with at most only about a dozen or so spheres and the much more complex scientific model with over two dozen by virtue of its eccentric deferential and epicyclical spheres. I therefore propose a distinction be introduced between the primary spheres for each planet and its secondary and tertiary etc spheres contained within them. In short, a primary sphere for a planet should be defined as its containing sphere that contains all its other spheres.
I therefore propose the following current text:
“In Ptolemy's geocentric model adopted in the middle ages, the planetary spheres (i.e. those that contained planets) were arranged outwards from the spherical, stationary Earth at the centre of the universe in this order: the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The planetary spheres were followed by the stellar sphere containing the fixed stars; other scholars added a ninth sphere to account for the precession of the equinoxes, a tenth to account for the supposed trepidation of the equinoxes, and even an eleventh to account for the changing obliquity of the ecliptic.[1]”
should be replaced by this text:
‘In Ptolemy's geocentric model adopted in the middle ages, the planets were arranged outwards from the spherical, stationary Earth at the centre of the universe in this order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The seven primary planetary spheres for each of these, that is, those spheres that contained all a planet's other secondary spheres within them, were followed by the stellar sphere containing the fixed stars; other scholars added a ninth sphere to account for the precession of the equinoxes, a tenth to account for the supposed trepidation of the equinoxes, and even an eleventh to account for the changing obliquity of the ecliptic.[1]’
I shall implement this immediately on the assumption you concur, but of course it may be tweaked and improved. I actually think some more explanation is required for this distinction as to why secondary spheres were required, and which could go in a footnote to the clause "that is, those spheres that contained all a planet's other secondary spheres within them," these secondary spheres being required to explain anomalies for the primary spheres alone.
OK ? -- Logicus ( talk) 11:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
And another problem about the number of spheres: Further to this, the following current two sentences
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres, but in Book 2 of his Planetary Hypotheses Ptolemy depicted circular bands rather than spheres as in its Book 1. One sphere/band is the deferent, with a centre offset somewhat from the Earth; the other sphere/band is an epicycle embedded in the deferent, with the planet embedded in the epicyclical sphere/band.”
are also surely puzzling inasmuch as the first sentence says a planet is moved by two or more spheres, but the second seems to presume there are only two and no more. I am currently not myself yet sure which is correct . But this surely needs sorting out. -- Logicus ( talk) 12:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres,..."
But this claim would seem to false insofar as it means some planets are moved by two spheres only, whilst some others are moved by more than two spheres. And that is surely what it must mean since otherwise if all planets are moved by more than 2 spheres then it is as perversely Pickwickian to say they are moved by 2 or more as to say they are moved by '1 or more' or '3 or more'.
But it is false that any planet is moved by only 2 spheres if the diagrams of a typical set of spheres for each planet in Ptolemy's cosmology such as Peuerbach's shown on this page, Grant's on p106, Lindberg's 2007 on p270, and Toomer's , for example, all of which show at least 3 spheres, namely (i) the primary containing sphere and the (ii) deferential and (iii) epicyclical spheres. Indeed Grant even refers to "the three-orb compromise" (p105-6), albeit his analysis of it seems highly confused. And in the extract from his PH given below, Ptolemy's himself identifies at least 3 orbs for a planet.
A better text might be
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is connected with three [or more] spheres,..."
once it is established whether any single planetary system has more than three spheres.
Also see the problem identified in the following section for this text's phrasing.-- Logicus ( talk) 15:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“In the Ptolemaic model, each planet is moved by two or more spheres,..." [My itals]
But Langermann's 1990 p20 quotes Ptolemy's PH to the contrary
"We hold that each one of the stars in its [individual] ranking possesses an animate power. It moves by itself, bestows motion upon the bodies naturally connected to it beginning with that which is close to it, and passes it on to that which is adjacent to it. For example, it bestows motion first on the epicyclic orb, then on the eccentric orb, and then on the orb whose centre is the centre of the world."
It seems that rather than being movers that move the planet, rather the spheres/rings function more like railtracks that constrain the planet's motive power and motion into specific orbital paths.
Consequently I shall double flag the claim requesting sources both for the claim of only 2 or more spheres for each planet, and also for the claim that the spheres move the planets rather than vice versa. Both claims may possibly be somebody's OR.
An interesting situation may arise if some secondary source does claim the spheres move the planets in Ptolemy when it is so flagrantly contradicted by what I regard as a secondary source in Langermann’s English translation of his PH but some may regard as a primary source. If so, should secondary source claims have to be supported by the primary source (-: ?
Logicus To McCluskey: Thanks for removing your OR about spheres moving planets which I believe contradicted your own Dynamics article stuff, and for flagging the two spheres claim. Please see my comments today above. -- Logicus ( talk) 18:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) defined geometrical predictive models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest and extended them to a unified physical model of the cosmos in his Planetary hypotheses.[17]"
This surely suggests the spheres in his Almagest were not physically real spheres, but only empty disembodied geometrical figures rather than solids and that only became physically real solids in PH. But this is not so, as the following passages from the Almagest attest.
These passage seem to show that Ptolemy regarded the spheres of the Almagest as solid physical spheres, and also because, of all solids, spheres offer the least resistance to motion, and indeed offer no resistance to their motion whatever.
'...since the movement of the heavenly bodies ought to be the least impeded and most facile the sphere among solids offers the easiest path of motion; likewise that, since of different figures having equal perimeters those having the more angles are the greater, the sphere is the greatest of solid figures, and the heavens are greater than any other body.' Book1.2 [My paraphrasing]
"For there is no impeding nature in [heavenly things], but one proper to the yielding and giving way to movements according to the nature of each planet, even if they are contrary, so that they can all penetrate and shine through absolutely all the fluid media; and this free action takes place not only about the particular circles, but also about the spheres themselves and the axes of revolution. We see the complication and sequence in their different movements difficult and hard to come by for the freedom of the movements in the likely stories constructed by us, but in the heavenly thing never anywhere impeded by this mixture." Book 13.2
For those who regard an English translation of the Almagest as a primary source rather than a secondary source, that its spheres are real solid physical spheres on whose physical natures such as their not resisting their motion is backed up by Lindberg 2007 p104.
I do not necessarily think the quotes from Pedersen and Lindberg, and possibly Crowe, conflict with the fact that Ptolemy’s Almagest clearly is a work of mathematical physics in solid geometry + physical hypotheses, but I do think the article’s claim misrepresents them.
I am currently considering the following replacement text, but needs more thought:
'The astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 AD) dealt largely with the applied mathematics of his spherist models of the motions of the stars and planets in his Almagest with little discussion of their physical natures, but he then dealt with them more in his Planetary hypotheses in hypothesising about their specific shapes for the construction of real instrument models of his cosmology.' -- Logicus ( talk) 15:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
“One of the earliest intimations of celestial spheres is found in Plato's Timaeus , “
But in respect of positing any celestial sphere(s) Plato was preceded much earlier by some two centuries by Anaximander and then Xenophanes and Parmenides. Moreover Plato had bands/rings rather than spherist planetary models.
I propose a new beginning for this section along the following lines:
'In Greek antiquity the ideas of celestial spheres and rings first appeared in the cosmology of Anaximander in the early 6th century BC. [1] In his cosmology both the Sun and Moon are circular open vents in tubular rings of fire enclosed in tubes of condensed air that constitute the rims of rotating chariot-like wheels pivoting on the Earth at their centre, shaped rather like the space station in the film 2001. The fixed stars are also open vents in such wheel rims, but there are so many such wheels for the stars that their contiguous rims altogether form a continuous spherical shell encompassing the Earth. But according to Anaximander's cosmogony, all these wheel rims had originally been formed out of an original sphere of fire wholly encompassing the Earth that had disintegrated into many individual rings. [2] Hence in Anaximanders's cosmogony, in the beginning was the sphere, out of which celestial rings were formed, and from which the stellar sphere was then composed from some of those rings. The order of the distances of the wheel rims of the Sun, Moon and stars was: Sun highest, Moon next and then the sphere of the stars the lowest.
Following Anaximander, both Xenophanes and Parmenides held that the universe was spherical. [3] And much later in the fourth century BC Plato's Timaeus proposed that the body of the cosmos was made in the most perfect and uniform shape, that of a sphere containing the fixed stars.[8] But it posited that the planets were spherical bodies set in rotating bands or rings rather than wheel rims as in Anaximander's cosmology. However instead of bands Plato's student Eudoxus then developed a planetary model using geo-concentric spheres for all the planets, with three spheres each for his models of the Moon and the Sun and four each for the models of the other five planets, thus making 27 spheres in all ' [4] -- Logicus ( talk) 17:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"For medieval scholars, on the other hand, celestial spheres were actually thick spheres of rarefied matter nested one within the other, each one in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.[5]" ( = Lindberg p251)
But in Lindberg’s diagram of the 3 orb system neither the deferential nor epicyclical spheres R & I are in complete contact with the spheres they are each nested in, R for I and S for R.
I suggest either delete the last clause or replace it with the following clause
‘and each of the primary spheres for each planet that contained all its other spheres such as deferential and epicyclical spheres was in complete contact with the sphere above it and the sphere below.’
Another issue here or elsewhere is that Lindberg 2007 claims p259 "No interstices or gaps existed within individual spheres." But both ring R and epicycle I appear to be empty spheres, and S may be partly empty, unless black indicates some filling material. His model says epicycle I rolls through ring R, which suggests R must be empty. And what does the thickened spherical space S that contains the hollow ring R consist of, what does it contain if not empty ? The issue is whether there is an Aristotelian plenum or not.
I shall delete last clause pro tem pending plenum issue being sorted, because otherwise the point made seems pointless.
Logicus to McCLuskey : Your Lindberg page refs are to first edition. I think p251 in 1st edition may be 259 in second. Could you please check Steve ? I don’t have first edition. -- Logicus ( talk) 18:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
-- Logicus ( talk) 19:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The article currently claims
"By using eccentrics and epicycles, [Ptolemy’s] geometrical model achieved greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy than had been exhibited by earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos.[26]."
and cites "Taliaferro, Translator's Introduction to the Almagest, p,1" as a verifying source.
But in fact Taliaferro only says
"The works of the greatest Greek astronomers - Eudoxus, Heraclides of Pontus, Aristarchus of Samos, Apollonius of Perga, and Hipparchus - are lost for the most part, and we only know their contents from this treatise and other very meagre sources. For detail, completeness and perfection the 'Composition of Ptolemy' might be said to contain all those which preceded it; ..." [My italics]
Now the two italicised words of this passage simply suggest Polemy's work might include/express the detail, completeness and perfection of all the 5 preceding works listed. But it does not say Ptolemy's work 'achieved any greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy' than "earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos" did. And the only (geo) concentric model listed is that of Eudoxus. Ptolemy's work may at best only have equalled the detail and predictive accuracy of all those preceding works listed without superseding it, or even have been less accurate in some respect(s). And moreover it would obviously be very silly for Taliaferro to make any such comparative accuracy claim given his admission that these preceding works are mostly lost.
As for the 2 Dreyer refs to pp160 and 167, on neither page could I see any such claim that Ptolemy’s geometrical model achieved greater mathematical detail and predictive accuracy than had been exhibited by earlier concentric spherical models of the cosmos by using eccentrics and epicycles.
So is this claim OR or can some source possibly be found ?
It needs explaining here what any greater math detail and predictive accuracy over concetrist models possibly was.
And the more interesting issue here is whether Ptolemy achieved greater predictive accuracy than all preceding models. But this issue is probably indeterminable. -- Logicus ( talk) 19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
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