Next message: Frank Reed: "Re: Sumner and the Smalls lighthouse."
Bill, you wrote:
"It did, and does not, come to me as a surprise that the obvious can be
totally ignored for much longer than a century. In the first stages of
Koestler's book we go from bizarre models of the solar system/universe (by
current thinking), to functional models of the solar system (Aristarchus of
Samos & Herakleides) but continued to ignore the obvious and kept trying to
pound an elliptical peg into a round, or square, hole for over a 1000 years.
(A tip of the hat to my personal high-entertainment-value favorite for the
past several decades, the remaining flat earthers)."
Just bear in mind that "The Sleepwalkers" is Arthur Koestler's personal
opinion of how science operates, and many consider it anti-science. His
"evidence" from history was chosen to match his opinion. Koestler was an amateur
historian.
Harvard astrophysicist and historian of science Owen Gingerich recently
wrote of Koestler's opinion of Copernicus:
" 'De Revolutionibus' was branded 'the book that nobody read' by Arthur
Koestler in his best-selling history of early astronomy, 'The Sleepwalkers'.
Koestler's highly controversial account, published in 1959, greatly stimulated my
own interest in the history of science. At the time, none of us could prove
or disprove his claim about Copernicus' text. Clearly, however, Koestler, a
consummate novelist famous for his gripping 'Darkness at Noon', saw the world
in terms of antagonists. Creating a historical vision with Kepler as hero
demanded villains, and Koestler placed Galileo and Copernicus in those roles.
Copernicus became his hapless victim."
Gingerich wrote this in the preface to his recently published book on the
actual influence and history of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus". Not
suprisingly, it was in fact widely read by the astronomers of the day. Gingerich even
borrowed Koestler's expression for his title. It is "The Book Nobody Read:
Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus".
But getting back to Sumner's method, if it was so useful, why wasn't it
adopted universally? Why were navigators on merchant vessels shooting Noon Sun
and time sights as late as the 1940s. I think there are plenty of reasons, but
I don't think it has much to do with navigators' failure to see.
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
