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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Newton and Halley
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2007 Nov 18, 07:01 -0000
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2007 Nov 18, 07:01 -0000
I apologise in advance to those list members who might find this rather prolonged correspondence of little interest. They should delete now. However, there's some unfinished business between me and Mike Daly that needs sorting out. It involves proper treatment of historical evidence, and proper citing of quoted sources, and has little navigational content. First, let's deal with the unsourced quotations that I mentioned before. For the first, he has (somewhat ungraciously) acknowledged that he can offer no references. The other two, greatly to my surprise, he attributes to my own pen! Here's one, which relates to Halley, with my own comment in square brackets- "If he did use lunar distances, it is often suggested that he used Newton's," [Often, by whom?] and he tells me now- "You, for starters. See comment below on sources." I've never, to my recollection, even suggested that Halley used lunar distances. All his observations that I've examined have been of lunar appulses with stars, to determine the Moon's position, and have involved no measurement of lunar distance at all. So not me, ever, Mike. Who else, "often"? and here's the other- "If folks are saying "Halley used Newton's original instrument", then that means the statement is false" [Who was saying that?] to which his reply is- "Unless you don't read your own posts, I'll point out that this is exactly what you are saying." I've never made the slightest distinction between Newton's "original instrument" (a term coined by Mike Daly) and any successor or modified version or Mark 2 that may or may not have followed it. It's all one to me. Mike seems to be building some extra meaning into Newton's phrase "mended of some faults". No, Mike, not me that time either. What other "folks", then? Or have you simply built a straw man in order to knock him down? ====================== As I've said before, it's of little importance whether or not Daly accepts that Halley used the Newton instrument. But in the process, he attempts to discredit the written record in the Royal Society Journal Book. | "It was written by a third person - which in legal | terms means - hearsay." It was written at the time as a formal official record of the Royal Society gathering by the Secretary appointed to do so, and subject to later scrutiny as being a true record. Hearsay? Absurd! Does he contend, then, that Newton didn't say what the Secretary wrote? Or that, for some reason, Newton was lying? Does Mike Daly know better, then? In a previous posting, he proposed instead, with no evidence whatever, that Halley used an unworkable instrument of Halley's own design, but suitably modified according to Daly's precepts (including a second mirror) to render it effective. Complete fantasy! Compare his demand for rigour, when wishing to discredit a conclusion that's unpalatable to his preconceptions, with his relaxed attitude to the EGR Taylor statement that he believes might support them, referred to in another posting. George. contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222) or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---