Talk:Ptolemy

Son-in-law of Simon Maccabeus

In the article on Simon Maccabeus, the first Prince, Nasi, of the re-established Judean Nation, it is told, that Ptolemy (in 135 B.C) was about to be instigated on the throne, I suppose, by his father-in-law when a coup occured, in which Simon and two of his sons, except the third son John (Hyrcanus I). Who is told was absent at the time. If Ptolemy would have accessed the throne he would most likely have been proclaimed King of a re-united Israel and Judeah (a.k.a Messias/Christ). Thus it is peculiar that it is held that Ptolemy has become a major suspect for the coup/coup-attempt. I'm curious about what happened to Ptolemy during this event. In stead the third son John apparantly took the regnal name Hyrcanus upon his accession to power, establishing Judeah as a Kingdom ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty, although obviously not a United Kingdom. The matter of curiousity is what Ptolemy's historicians are saying about the issue. --Xact (talk) 19:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Stadia

This text was added, while accidentally blanking the page. Not sure where it goes so have put it here.

, in the Geographia Ptolemy uses 500 stadia. It is highly probable that these were the same stadion since Ptolemy switched from the former scale to the latter, between the Syntaxis and the Geographia and severely readjusted longitude degrees accordingly. If they both used the Attic stadion of about 185 meters, then the older estimate is 1/6 too large, and Ptolemy's value is 1/6 too small, a difference recently explained as due to ancient scientists' use of simple methods of measuring the earth, which were corrupted either high or low by a factor of 5/6, due to air's bending of horizontal light rays by 1/6 of the earth's curvature. See also Ancient Greek units of measurement and History of geodesy.

OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The Greek question

I figured I would check Morris Kline's "History of Mathematical Thought", vol. 1. Surely if the vast majority of sources referred to Ptolemy as Greek, then Kline would doubtless follow suit. Interestingly, Kline unabashedly refers to Ptolemy as Egyptian, without qualification, although in a section on "Greek" trigonometry. This would, at least, seem to suggest that his status as "Greek" is not entirely uncontested, even by fairly mainstream sources. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 01:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

the point is not his irrelevant and unknown ancestry but the tradition he worked in (sure, some day we might get rid of such labels as "Greek astronomy/mathematics", "Islamic astronomy/mathematics", "modern European astronomy/mathematics" but the literature still makes use of them). the pro-"Egyptian" or pro-"Greek" crowds are fraught with modern (also irrelevant) anxieties. since you're familiar with the literature, read (e.g.) Neugebauer on the subject as well.

p.s. I checked the Kline too and he calls him an "Alexandrian Greek" and an "Egyptian" in different sections. see what I'm getting at? 87.203.193.22 (talk) 11:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Greek or ethnic Egyptian is probably unanswerable. There will always be arguement. In light of the uncertainty regarding this issue, best to just mention his citizenship: Roman.Catiline63 (talk) 15:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of the prior discussion on Ptolemy's origin which is precisely why I wrote that the was "an Egyptian-born Greek with Roman citizenship" which seems to capture the relevant points of his background. If a better phrase can be written it should be, but to discard any of the three countries is not only misleading but smacks of nationalism. Ptolemy wrote in Greek and in the Greek tradition. He wrote in that language expanding the treatises of prior Greek philosophers (Euclid and Apollonius) and his family name was of Greek origin. To not mention this is to throw away important and interesting content. It is also important and interesting that he was born in Egypt and lived his life there. It is also an important to know that he had Roman citizenship. All three are important to a discussion of the man. Calling him "Roman" in English is quite misleading. Merely referring to him as "Roman" without explanation connotes to a native speaker of English, a person born in Rome and operating under the Roman traditions. There were Roman citizens from England to Egypt at the time and many of them in history are indeed not referred to first as "Romans". If person from Finland moves to Japan and gets Japanese citizenship, he is not referred to as "Japanese". The article should be clear on these points, they are all relevant and there nothing to be gained by deleting any one of Egypt, Greece or Rome.

1. All three of his origins are important and interesting and none should be deleted, if a better phrase than "an Egyptian-born Greek with Roman citizenship" can be written, it should be
2. A careful writer should not mislead his readers by using the term "Roman" but instead should refer to his Roman citizenship
3. I find no scholars or references that simply call him "Roman" and to do so is against WP:No Original Research
4. It is not necessary, desirable or accurate to refer to him by only one of his three heritages, they should all three be mentioned BobKawanaka (talk) 13:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the points I have raised on your talk page:

Ptolemy's ethnicity is ambiguous: it is not certain whether he was ethnically Greek or Egyptian. Calling him simply "Roman" in the lead is thus not only factually correct but also counters this uncertainty and prevents edit warring between those who'd claim him solely for Greece, and those who'd claim him solely for Egypt. (Similar unending and nationalistic edit wars are seen also on the Pyrrhus and Alexander the Great pages.) Outside the lead - in the main body of the article - there are ample references made to his Greek and Egyptian influences/facets. See the piece on his name, for example, which touches upon the whole Roman/Greek/Egyptian issue.

"Ptolemy wrote in Greek and in the Greek tradition". In an bilingual empire, the language one wrote in meant relatively little: many 'proper' Romans (those whose first language was Latin) also wrote in Greek, and the phenomenon went as far back as the Republic. So to the "Greek tradition": there wasn't much else to follow!

"His family name was of Greek origin". I think you'll find that his family name - Claudius (a nomen gentilicium) - is Roman. Granted his cognomen was of Greek origin, but at this point in history, cognomina did not tend to be strictly hereditary.

"A careful writer should not mislead his readers by using the term "Roman" but instead should refer to his Roman citizenship". I fail to see how calling a Roman citizen "Roman" is misleading. I also fail to see why calling a Roman citizen a "Roman" is "nationalistic"!

"I find no scholars or references that simply call him "Roman" and to do so is against WP:No Original Research". Which scholars and references are you refering to? Writers on mathematics perhaps should not be adduced as qualified in the intricacies of Roman citizenship: no doubt they call Ptolemy "Greek" or "Egyptian" merely because of his cognomen and birthplace. There are many sources on Roman citizenship and associated Roman naming conventions, but see also Sherwin-White The Roman Citizenship. See also the section in the article regarding Ptolemy's name.

"If person from Finland moves to Japan and gets Japanese citizenship, he is not referred to as "Japanese".": You're confusing ethnicity with nationality. For example, just as there are many people of ethnic African and Asian origin who are correctly called British or American, if a Finn took up Japanese citizenship it would indeed be correct to call him Japanese. Japanese would be his nationality; Finnish his ethnicity. Catiline63 (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit request from Claud.ptolemy, 19 September 2010

{{edit semi-protected}}

Texts and translations

Ptolemy's Almagest, Translated and annotated by G. J. Toomer. Princeton University Press, 1998 Claud.ptolemy (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC) Claud.ptolemy (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)Claud.prolemy

Done elektrikSHOOS 22:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

Diffs for each edit made by Jagged 85 are listed at Cleanup4. It may be easier to view the full history of the article.

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• Ptolemy: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]

Johnuniq (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Geocentricity is...

I would like to point out an opportunity for the improvement of this article in its "Astronomy" section.

While this article mentions the importance of the Ptolemaic system in the next millenia and a half after its contrivance, it lacks a proper explanation for geocentricity. The article does mention that Ptolemy was not the first to ascribe to the geocentric model of the heavenly bodies, but more must be said about the defining attributes of Ptolemy's system that provided for its immortalization.

Geocentricity is based on Aristotlean physics, which implies that the earth moves along a linear path and the motion of the heavens is circular. Plato was the first to establish the idea that the earth was fixed at the center of the universe and the heavenly bodies moved in a circular fashion around it. Hipparchus expanded this idea to account for the "apparent retrograde motion of the planets" by introducing epicycles, circles within circles, and eccentrics, which are deviations in a planet's circular orbit. Ptolemy expanded Hipparchus's idea even further to account for the way Mars seems to change speed in the course of its orbits. Ptolemy proposed that the earth was not the center of the orbit of Mars, or the "deferent" of Mars, but was seated just slightly off kilter. He also introduced the "equant," which is the line from the earth, through the center of Mars' deferent, to the center of Mars' epicycle. According to Ptolemy, the epicycle of Mars traveled around the earth at the distance of its equant at a uniform rate. To him, this solved the problem of Mars' nonuniform motion at certain points in its orbit without deviating from the perfection of circular motion.

This is the difference between the Ptolemaic system and earlier forms of geocentricity. While the most basic form of geocentricity describes the simple earth-centered system, the Ptolemaic system describes a complex network of epicycles, deferents, eccentricities and equants. It was Alphonso X, King of Castile in A.D. 1221-1284, who reportedly said in response to learning of the Ptolemaic system, "That if God had asked his Advice when He made the world, he would have given him good counsel."

AgoLaetus (talk) 00:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is all very important information that should be touched on more in the main article. I'm confused
as to why the accomplishments of people on Wiki are made into entirely different pages rather than as 
sub-categories on their main page. It is interesting how the ideas of geocentricity evolved overtime 
between mathematicians. Your quote is great! 
199.245.238.2 (talk) 04:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)Kelsey, History of Mathematics student at Saint Martin's University

 Seeing as though he was the author of many books and subjects...Word on the street is that his peers
 scoffed at him because they felt he should focus on one subject and master it. Do you know if his 
 knowledge was limited because he took on so many subjects or was his works on par or if not better than
 his peers? Do you feel that its possible for a person to master multiple subjects just as good as the
 "next guy" who only specializes in 1?
 Morgantw (smu student, history of math...)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by       Morgantw (talk • contribs) 05:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC) 

   Hopefully some of this content will be integrated into the main page. Also, unfortunately, not much is
   known about Ptolemy's personal life or peer reviews. What is known is gleaned from a fragmented 
   collection of his own writings. His studies were revolutionary in both astronomy and geology. According
   to the source in my fourth citation, Ptolemy's Geographia did for geography what his Almagest did
   for astronomy.AgoLaetus (talk) 05:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

What AgoLaetus suggested above is a great idea and I hope s/he, or someone else is able to develop that. As it stands, the first paragraph of the astronomy section is weak and requires further attention. We need a citation for the opening statement: "The Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy". I also have concerns over the comment:

"Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations.[19]"

I have read Ptolemy's Almagest and this doesn't seem to me to be a reliable assesment. For the most part it is obvious where Ptolemy is forwarding the respected opinions of illustrious predecesors, and where he is contributing from his own experience. Because there is a lack of reference it is not clear which claim this comment is specifically referring to. I'm writing from memory without access to the Almagest tonight but I assume it is where he talks about having access to Babylonian eclipse records that go back to the 8th century BC (?) and yet that is easily proven to be true, so perhaps it refers to something else that I don't recognise.

In any case, reference number 19 which qualifies this comment does not link to a reliable source that meets the policy guidleines of Wikipedia. It leads to a very informal and controversial discussion based on one person's research, and published on an individual's webpage.

Does anyone feel strongly attached to keeping this remark? If not, I suggest removing it and keeping the content focussed on non controversial information which gives a straighforward account of known and verifyable facts. Zac Δ talk 20:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Astrology section edits

I am currently looking critically at the text in the astrology section of this article, to ensure that the information is reliable and properly referenced. I've started introducing some citations and hope to bring this section up to standard over the next 2-3 weeks.

I propose the deletion of this comment regarding his Tetrabiblos:

"That it did not quite attain the unrivaled status of the Almagest was perhaps because it did not cover some popular areas of the subject, particularly electional astrology (interpreting astrological charts for a particular moment to determine the outcome of a course of action to be initiated at that time), and medical astrology, which were later adoptions."

Whatever Ptolemy put in or left out of the Tetrabiblos is not the reason why it never attained the status of the Almagest. This comment exagerates the scientific significance of the astrological text compared to the indisputable importance of the astronomical one. I will give some thought to the best way to clarify this point in a nutshell. In the meantime, if anyone objects the deletion of this comment, please open a discussion here.Zac Δ talk 09:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Eilidhrosach, 10 August 2011

To the list of Ptolemy texts and translations please add: Smith, A.M. (1996) Ptolemy's theory of visual perception: An English translation of the Optics with introduction and commentary. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 86, Part 2. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society. Lejeune, A. (1989) L'Optique de Claude Ptolémée dans la version latine d'après l'arabe de l'émir Eugène de Sicile. [Latin text with French translation]. Collection de travaux de l'Académie International d'Histoire des Sciences, No. 31. Leiden: E.J.Brill.

Eilidhrosach (talk) 15:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Favonian (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)