NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Newton and Halley
From: Nicol�s de Hilster
Date: 2007 Nov 20, 11:46 +0100
From: Nicol�s de Hilster
Date: 2007 Nov 20, 11:46 +0100
My ISP upgraded my mailbox by adding a spam-filter and as I do not use webmail I missed quite some posts (all with the subject "Newton and Halley" after my post with the diagonal scale design). Today I found out and read all of them (and killed the spam filter in the meanwhile). In NavList 3895 George Huxtable wrote on my speculation on Newton's diagonal scale: > But the problem is that you can't assume ANYTHING about that engraving. It > WASN'T Newton's drawing, which had been lost. It had been drawn by an > artist for the Royal Society, and then engraved, long after Newton's death > (and after Halley's). It had been drawn from the words of Newton's note. > Newton gave the dimensions of the telescope (as three or four feet) but said > nothing about the size of the brass plate. It was no more than the > imagination of the artist (and then the engraver) that made the plate the > same size as the telescope. We are free to interpret the words of Newton's > today as we think best, just as the Royal Society artist was free in 1742. > And if we think a brass plate of three or four feet across to be impossibly > unwieldy (which it would be) then we can make it, say, half the length of > the telescope, or whatever we choose. What I am saying is that the engraving > that Nicolas is going by is not a document that has any authenticity in > itself. > > Yep, I did realize that all too good, but found the coincidence (that there was enough space for my design) too good to be true. Besides that I was curious if I could design such a diagonal scale and what it would look like. > It may be, of course, that the original instrument still existed, and was > available to be drawn, in 1742. But if it was, I am pretty sure we would > have heard about it. > > None of this detracts, much, from Nicolas' speculation about how it might > have been divided. > > Thanks --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---