On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:04:26 -0700, Richard Clark
wrote:
Ptolemy (85-165)
Something from his Almagest, Book 1, that is vaguely descriptive of
someone we all know and love:
"Well do I know that I am mortal, a creature of one day.
But if my mind follows the winding paths of the stars
Then my feet no longer rest on earth, but standing by
Zeus himself I take my fill of ambrosia, the divine dish."
This epigram follows the table of contents as something of a
self-dedication (also a mannerism we are familiar with).

Ptolemy also reduced much of his theory of Astronomy and Optics to
geometric construction techniques in many Handbooks and offered scads
of tables of observations - some of which were condemned by Newton:
"[Ptolemy] developed certain astronomical theories and discovered
that they were not consistent with observation. Instead of
abandoning the theories, he deliberately fabricated observations
from the theories so that he could claim that the observations
prove the validity of his theories. In every scientific or
scholarly setting known, this practice is called fraud, and it is
a crime against science and scholarship."

There still remain some high Q resonances with that condemnation.

Well, the validity of that accusation has to be judged in light of
Newton's own flamboyant fudging of "observed" times for the speed of
sound forced-fit into his own theoretical work. Those errors are so
stunning that Isaac must've thought no one would ever discover them
while reading his sleeping pill.

There've been a lot of grave robbers that have come down the pike
since that fall from grace in the garden.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC