Newton and the Origin of Civilization Newton and the of Origin Civilization Jed Z. Buchwald & Mordechai Feingold princeton university press princeton and oxford 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 his 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 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: he Propagation of Mankind before and ater the Deluge 164 6 Newtonian History 195 7 Text and Testimony 222 8 Interpreting Words 246 9 Publication and Reaction 307 10 he War on Newton in England 331 11 he War on Newton in France 353 12 he Demise of Chronology 381 13 Evidence and History 423 Appendix A Signs, Conventions, Dating, and Deinitions 437 Appendix B Newton’s Computational Methods 441 Appendix C Commented Extracts from Newton’s MS Calculations 447 vi Contents Appendix D Placing Colures on the Original Star Globe 464 Appendix E Hesiod, hales, and Stellar Risings and Settings 468 Bibliography 489 Index 515 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1. he evening sky over Cambridge at 5:20 PM on Dec. 10(20), 1664. 37 Figure 1.2. he 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. he cross-staf, 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’ rootop observatory platform. 68 Figure 2.5. Hevelius’ six-foot sextant (let); 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) he 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 ater the Flood. 168 Figure 5.2. Petty’s doubling table. 175 Figure 5.3. King’s irst 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 (let) and Burnet’s centuries. 182 Figure 5.7. Whiston’s irst (let) 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. hornhill ceiling. 253 Figure 8.3. Tycho, Kepler, and Newton. hornhill ceiling. 256 Figure 8.4. he Farnese Globe, from Bianchini, 1752 (top), and Roman mosaic, North Africa, ca. 150–200 CE. Scorpio on let, Libra on right. 258 Figure 8.5. Top: Twelth-century MS with Cancer and Leo to the let, and Libra and Scorpio to the right (Voss. MS Lat. Q92, fol. 101 recto & verso). 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. Let: 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 (let) and Flamsteed’s (right) Gemini. 263 Figure 8.9. Uraniborg 1587 (let) 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 (let) and Hevelius’ renditions of Eridanus (Hevelius, 1687 (1690)). 280 Figure 8.14. he 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 irst 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. he Senex celestial globe. 334 Figure 10.2. Newton’s equinoctial circle (let) and colure on the Senex globe. 335 Figure 10.3. Bayer’s igure for Centaurus. 345 Figure 10.4. Bayer’s igure for Hydra. 347 Figure 10.5. he 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 (let) 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 (let) and Hevelius’ maps for Aries. 364 Figure 11.4. Fréret’s coniguration for Chiron ca -1470 (top), with no star in Aries either on the colure or at zero longitude, and (bottom) the coniguration 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 ind 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 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 coniguration (top). Riccioli’s diagram (bottom let), and Newton’s method. 473 Figure E.5. he efect of refraction on Arcturus. 477 Figure E.6. he efect 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