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Re: The circumnavigator's paradox. was: Benetnasch and Alkaid revisited

From: Herbert Prinz (no email)
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 18:58:17 EDT

  • Next message: George Huxtable: "Re: Using any star for a lunar"
    Bill wrote: 
    But I'm a bit puzzled when Bill writes-

    
    Around 1377 Oresme wrote his Traitié du ciel et du monde, a French
translation and commentary of Aristotle's De caelo et mundo, in which he
again discussed the circumnavigator's paradox.
      
    Is he saying here that it was originally Aristotle, before Oresme, who had
posed and resolved the circumnavigator's paradox?
    
    
George

I only wish my writing was a scholarly.  The entire piece after my forward,
complete with alternate or misspellings, was copied directly from the
internet.
    Well, then why not reveal the source? Obviously, the text comes from the excellent article on the international date line on Robert van Gent's web site that is probably well known to most members of this list. I do not see any misspellings in there.

    I can see how the sentence

    Around 1377 Oresme wrote his Traitié du ciel et du monde, a French translation and commentary of Aristotle’s De caelo et mundo, in which he again discussed the circumnavigator’s paradox.

    could be misunderstood when quoted in isolation. From the context, however, it is perfectly clear that "he" refers to Oresme and not to Aristotle. (Otherwise the Syrian prince in the first paragraph could hardly have been the first!?)

    This kind of confusion shows how much more economical it is to just link to an article, instead of filling up our mailboxes with incomplete copies. It saves bandwith not only in our computers, but in our brains as well; by enabling us to check with the original author, rather than having to speculate what he could have meant. Besides, it is in better style to give credit where credit is due.

    Herbert Prinz


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