Newton and the Origin of Civilization

502 Pages·2012·21.88 MB·English

by  Jed Z. Buchwald

Newton
and the
Origin Civilization
of
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Newton
and the
Origin Civilization
of
Jed Z. Buchwald Mordechai Feingold
&
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
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Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
Jacket art: Gli Astronomi, inv. 269; Niccolò Tornioli.
Courtesy of the Galleria Spada, Rome.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buchwald, Jed Z.
Newton and the origin of civilization / Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-15478-7 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727.
2. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727—Philosophy. 3. Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727—Public
opinion. 4. Scientists—England—Biography. 5. Philosophers—England—Biography. 6. Newton,
Isaac, Sir, 1642–1727. Chronology of ancient kingdoms amended. 7. Chronology, Historical—
History—17th century. 8. Civilization, Ancient—Philosophy. 9. Europe—Intellectual life—17th
century. 10. Public opinion—Europe—History—17th century. I. Feingold, Mordechai. II. Title.
QC16.N7B93 2012
530.092—dc23 2012024733
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Minion Pro and Centaur
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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CONteNts
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1
Troubled Senses 8
2
Troubled Numbers 44
3
Erudition and Chronology in
Seventeenth-Century England 107
4
Isaac Newton on Prophecies and Idolatry 126
5
Aberrant Numbers: The Propagation of Mankind
before and after the Deluge 164
6
Newtonian History 195
7
Text and Testimony 222
8
Interpreting Words 246
9
Publication and Reaction 307
10
The War on Newton in England 331
11
The War on Newton in France 353
12
The Demise of Chronology 381
13
Evidence and History 423
Appendix A Signs, Conventions, Dating, and Definitions 437
Appendix B Newton’s Computational Methods 441
Appendix C Commented Extracts from Newton’s MS Calculations 447
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vi Contents
Appendix D Placing Colures on the Original Star Globe 464
Appendix E Hesiod, Thales, and Stellar Risings and Settings 468
Bibliography 489
Index 515
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IllustratIONs
Figure 1.1. The evening sky over Cambridge at 5:20 PM on Dec. 10(20), 1664. 37
Figure 1.2. The comet of 1664/1665 at times of several of Newton’s observations
(top), and, accompanied by dates of observations, as drawn in by an
unknown contemporary hand on a 1603 Bayer. 40
Figure 1.3. The cross-staff, as depicted by Gunter. 41
Figure 2.1. Hooke’s parallactic telescope. From Hooke, 1674b, pp. 1–2. 46
Figure 2.2. Hooke’s test of visual acuity. 50
Figure 2.3. A page from Hevelius’ manuscript for the Catalogus Fixarum
containing multiple observations for Ursa Major. 67
Figure 2.4. Hevelius’ rooftop observatory platform. 68
Figure 2.5. Hevelius’ six-foot sextant (left); measuring stellar distances with
Elizabeth (center); the azimuthal quadrant (right). 69
Figure 2.6. (Top) From Hevelius’ manuscript showing asterisks next to distances
to Regulus for two stars in the constellation Ursa Major located in
the zodiacal sign Leo. (Bottom) The same listing, unaltered, in the
printed Pars Posterior. 70
Figure 2.7. Iceland spar’s double refraction. 73
Figure 2.8. Newton pressed his eye some time ca. 1666. CUL MS 3975, fol. 123v. 77
Figure 2.9. Object, prism, and eye. CUL MS 3996, fol. 122. 78
Figure 2.10. Descartes’ color-generating prism, exit-aperture, and attached screen. 81
Figure 2.11. Smith’s illustration of Cotes’ procedure for replacing a series of
immersed weights by their center-of-gravity. 102
Figure 2.12. Newton’s MS corrections of Hipparchus’ equinoctial data. Yahuda
MS 24. 104
Figure 4.1. Newton’s genealogy for Egyptian deities. 147
Figure 5.1. Petavius’ table for sons born after the Flood. 168
Figure 5.2. Petty’s doubling table. 175
Figure 5.3. King’s first correlations. 176
Figure 5.4. King’s second attempt. 177
Figure 5.5. King’s lowered rate of doubling. 178
Figure 5.6. Cumberland’s numbers (left) and Burnet’s centuries. 182
Figure 5.7. Whiston’s first (left) and second series. 185
Figure 6.1. Newton’s theory for the origin of civilization. 196
Figure 7.1. Newton’s dog-eared page on Sesostris from Marsham’s Canon. 225
Figure 8.1. Precession of the summer solstice. 251
Figure 8.2. Flamsteed. Thornhill ceiling. 253
Figure 8.3. Tycho, Kepler, and Newton. Thornhill ceiling. 256
Figure 8.4. The Farnese Globe, from Bianchini, 1752 (top), and Roman mosaic,
North Africa, ca. 150–200 CE. Scorpio on left, Libra on right. 258
Figure 8.5. Top: Twelfth-century MS with Cancer and Leo to the left, and Libra
and Scorpio to the right (Voss. MS Lat. Q92, fol. 101 recto & verso).
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viii Illustrations
Center: Ninth-century Aratea with Gemini (Voss. Lat. Q79, fol. 16v).
Bottom: Zodiac from the Piazza San Marco, Venice. 260
Figure 8.6. Schiller’s 1627 depiction of Gemini as Saint James 261
Figure 8.7. Bootes. Left: from a 1640 Blaeu globe now at the library of the
University of Utrecht (photo by JZB). Center: Bayer atlas. Right:
Hevelius atlas. 262
Figure 8.8. Bayer’s (left) and Flamsteed’s (right) Gemini. 263
Figure 8.9. Uraniborg 1587 (left) and Uranometria 1603 Cassiopeia. 264
Figure 8.10. Bayer’s star map and image for Perseus. 267
Figure 8.11. Bayer’s star map and image for Cetus. 278
Figure 8.12. Section of Bayer’s star map and image for Sagitta. 279
Figure 8.13. Bayer’s (left) and Hevelius’ renditions of Eridanus (Hevelius, 1687
(1690)). 280
Figure 8.14. The sun (black circle) setting in southern Grecian latitudes on the
day of the vernal equinox in 939 BCE, the year when Newton
thought Chiron delineated the first celestial sphere. 290
Figure 8.15. MS list of regnal lengths for the kings of Judah and Israel. 302
Figure 9.1. Genealogy of French kings from Hugh Capet through Louis XV. 320
Figure 10.1. The Senex celestial globe. 334
Figure 10.2. Newton’s equinoctial circle (left) and colure on the Senex globe. 335
Figure 10.3. Bayer’s figure for Centaurus. 345
Figure 10.4. Bayer’s figure for Hydra. 347
Figure 10.5. The Senex globe with Newton’s colures. 349
Figure 11.1. Longitudes of prima and alpha at three dates: the circles that represent
prima are “east” of the ones that represent alpha: alpha trails prima
as time progresses. 359
Figure 11.2. Souciet’s illustration (left) and a rendition of what he had in mind,
showing that, though prima is always east of alpha in longitude, in
-143 it was west of it in right ascension. 360
Figure 11.3. Souciet’s equinoctial colure (heavy black line) added to Bayer’s (left)
and Hevelius’ maps for Aries. 364
Figure 11.4. Fréret’s configuration for Chiron ca -1470 (top), with no star in
Aries either on the colure or at zero longitude, and (bottom) the
configuration at the time of Hipparchus, with prima Arietis on the
equinoctial colure. 369
Figure 11.5. From Flamsteed’s 1729 atlas, showing the head of Cetus near the
center of Aries. 372
Figure 13.1. Newton’s tomb at Westminster inscribed with his colure. 435
Figure B.1. Locus of an unknown object (C) given two known ones (S ,S ) and
1 2
their distances to the unknown. 445
Figure B.2. To find the midpoint M between stars S and S 446
1 2.
Figure C.1. Newton’s MS star locations and coordinates for the colure through
the “back” of Aries. 453
Figure C.2. Newton MS calculation for Hesiod, post-1709. 457
Figure C.3. Newton MS calculation for Hesiod, 1726. 458
Figure D.1. Solstitial colures. 465
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Illustrations ix
Figure D.2. Equinoctial colures. 465
Figure D.3. An MS colure computation. 466
Figure E.1. Solar motion through the zodiac. 469
Figure E.2. Winter solstice ca. 1700 (A  !7°44′33″). 470
L
Figure E.3. 60 days past winter solstice ca. 1700. 471
Figure E.4. Illustration of the configuration (top). Riccioli’s diagram (bottom
left), and Newton’s method. 473
Figure E.5. The effect of refraction on Arcturus. 477
Figure E.6. The effect of refraction on the sun. 478
Figure E.7. Top: schematic for the morning setting of the Lucida Pleiadum.
Bottom: star chart of the Pleiades setting at sunrise on October
25, -616. 485
Figure E.8. Armillary sphere, Flemish ca. 1550. 487
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