NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Bauer's book, was Re: Newton and Halley
From: Scott Owen
Date: 2007 Nov 24, 00:03 -0600
From: Scott Owen
Date: 2007 Nov 24, 00:03 -0600
Wolfgang K�berer wrote: > Robert wrote: > > "Bauer's book was not intended to be an exhaustive treatise on the history > of the development of the sextant. The chapter in question was intended to > give the reader a brief historical and contextual overview which would lead > into the meat of the book: which is sextant maintenance and repair. If you > want a history book, consult the local university or write the damn thing > yourself, otherwise don't expect to get this kind of exhaustive information > from what was essentially meant to be a practical handbook for practical > mariners." > > Do I get that right: in a book that is meant to inform about sextant > maintenance and repair you may include factual errors in the section about > the history of the sextants and its forerunners and you are not to be > corrected because you are a practical sailor? > > That seems to be a strange notion as far as historical sciences are > concerned. > > Wolfgang > Wolfgang, The Title of Chapter 1 is "A Short History", SHORT being the operative word. It was never intended to be a comprehensive historical compendium of the sextant or astronomical navigation. Only to give the reader a BRIEF historical perspective. Clearly, you haven't read the chapter or the book. I was going to respond to Nicholas earlier today but had a social engagement and couldn't get to it. Frankly, I was glad to see Robert stick up for a good book on maintenance and repair of sextants. Fact is I didn't even read chapter 1 when I bought the book as I was more concerned with actual care and maintenance than history. Practically, I don't care about sextant history. Intellectually, I think it is worth noting and putting facts in perspective. I don't think CDR Bauer published anything in his book that he thought or knew to be in error. Any factual historical errors would have been systemic errors in whatever historical sources he used. Wolfgang and what factual errors are you referring to exactly in his book? [and don't name the one error that Nicholas referred to in his earlier post] --Scott --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---