1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: November 29, 2021, 08:02:07 PM »

2

Flat Earth Projects / Re: Untrustworthy quotation in the wiki

« on: November 28, 2021, 05:29:08 PM »

The margin of error for 1000 randomly selected people is only 3.2%. See the chart and links in the third and fourth posts of this thread.

3

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 24, 2021, 12:35:31 AM »

Actually, I said nothing about lying. The problem is that you have no real world data.

4

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 24, 2021, 12:25:43 AM »

No, I prefer a bi-polar model and don't think the sunlight necessarily takes those shapes. That type of behavior is the general argument for the Monopole model though.

The bi-polar model has the same issue with not agreeing with how solar noon is observed as the curved longitude model.  On the bi-polar model, the sun is not at it's closest distance to each location on a given longitude line.  Thus, solar noon would not be seen at the same time at all locations along a given longitude line the way it is observed to.

Who observed this? So far you have been unable to cite a single observation and keep referring to an online calculator which also does not cite any observations.

5

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 10:15:37 PM »

You are assuming that it's always circular for all times of the year. The wider Flat Earth community generally holds that light curves and behaves as if it were coming through a magnifying dome in the Monopole model, and that the daylight area sometimes changes shape upon the earth as the sun proceeds southwards:

That first video uses a hemisphere hunk of a glass magnifier, not a dome. If that is representative of reality we'd all be squashed by it. Better would be an upside-down glass bowl.

I didn't think you were a 'domer'. Are you?

No, I prefer a bi-polar model and don't think the sunlight necessarily takes those shapes. That type of behavior is the general argument for the Monopole model though.

6

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 10:00:31 PM »

You are assuming that it's always circular for all times of the year. The wider Flat Earth community generally holds that light curves and behaves as if it were coming through a magnifying dome in the Monopole model, and that the daylight area changes shape upon the earth as the sun proceeds southwards:



This is also the reason given for the southern celestial rotation as seen by the observer:

7

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 06:10:25 PM »

Incorrect. I didn't say that anyone is lying here. I said that the observations showing this are absent, and so therefore your argument is as well.

Where's your proof that Suncalc.org is false.  You know. You're own actual observations and data that show something different?  That's the point of your own post.  You've supplied no actual data, because you can't, that what is given on Suncalc doesn't match observations.  You simply say, "Suncalc is wrong."  It's a tired argument that no longer has merit.

And you'll continue to not address the issue of the lines of longitude curving the wrong way at sunset.

As far as I can tell sites like suncalc are not a collection of observations, and isn't claimed as such. Certainly, it would take a worldwide effort of prolonged observations and there is no record of such an effort. In fact, we once emailed timeanddate on the source of their information and they claimed it was proprietary.

From my own experience, using the live dynamic phone sun locator apps have always been off.

8

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 05:35:39 PM »

Incorrect. I didn't say that anyone is lying here. I said that the observations showing this are absent, and so therefore your argument is as well.

9

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 04:36:14 PM »

Actually the Wiki suggests that this is a better map for the Monopole model in regards to equinox and longitude discussions:

There's so much wrong with that it's hard to know where to start. I'll try...

Firstly, bending the lines of longitude like that hasn't fixed the problems I alluded to. The 45 degree circle centred on 0N 0W, for example, now lands on the eastern tip of Somalia. At 1200 UTC on next September's equinox in that place the sun will be around 35 degrees elevation, not 45.

The 90 degree circle still doesn't cover all of South America, so your model is saying it will be dark in places when it fact it will be very much daylight.

Next, in the process of trying to correct for some problems, you've introduced more problems. According to your EA model, you are suggesting that Polaris is 6000 miles overhead the North Pole. That means that everybody on a line of longitude running south from the North Pole should view Polaris directly north, at progressively lower elevations until the equator is reached. But now you've curved the lines, so people on, for example the 0 degree meridian won't see Polaris on the same heading. That is completely at odds with what we observe, what conventional science predicts, and what your initial explanation of EA would expect.

You need to back a horse here - you seem to be flitting from map to map as it suits. You can't have one map to explain one phenomenon and another for a different one - they all have to work the same way.

Actually the discrepancies you are attempting to point out with a circle are fallacious, as you have neglected to provide any real world observations of anything at all.

Further, you need to think about your arguments more.The direction of North to the observer wouldn't change if the longitude lines were curved. The North Star is still over the North Pole and traveling Eastwards or Westwards in relation to the North Star would take you in a circle. Likewise, if you travel East ot West in relation to the magnetic field lines which eminate from the North you would make a similar circle on that map, as East and West on a compass are at a right angle to North. The direction of North and the makeup of the longitude lines on the surface have nothing to do with each other.

Someone on 0,0 degrees at the equator is on a point. That point does not suggest where the other points of longitude are or where North is. The makeup of the longitude lines is determined by the time of day and time zones, are points unique to the observer's position, and has nothing to do with North.

10

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 23, 2021, 10:51:02 AM »

Actually the Wiki suggests that this is a better map for the Monopole model in regards to equinox and longitude discussions:

11

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Table of Contents and Outline

« on: November 20, 2021, 07:51:54 PM »

Some may have noticed that I have started thinking about this again. It took a while to circle around back to this. It took Rowbotham thirty years to come out with his final version, which I think is appropriate since a lot of this content is new and not built on a compilation or reiterations of earlier works, and would necessarily require thorough exploration, investigation, debate, and thought.

My goal at present will be to provide the commentary and philosophical and social arguments. We already have direct evidence and information about the Flat Earth and the models in the Wiki and that will be merged or rephrased into the work. I think this book should be split into three or four volumes. The first volume will focus on philosophical and social arguments. The second volume will focus on the evidence, which the reader can jump directly to if inclined. The third volume will focus on the Flat Earth models the community discusses.

The Wiki already contains much of the physical stuff, which will basically be merged or rephrased into the volumes two and three. I currently don't envision a section on history and would need someone like Dionysios to create a volume on the details of ancient Flat Earth history, so my current plan isn't to include much of that unless someone can contribute in that regard.

To complete the work a section on religion at the end seems oddly important, even though we don't really talk about that much. It's pretty important to the wider Flat Earth community though, and was important to previous FE societies. It can disclaim that not everyone connects FE to religion, but this is information on the subject. It can include an index on the flat earth quotes from scripture. Maybe it can include both the geocentric interpretation and the UA interpretation. It would be interesting to gather a few paragraphs of content from some of the bigger proponents on what Flat Earth means to them on religious grounds and include it into the book at the end.

Revised thoughts on a general outline:

Introduction (I would like to use this text)

Table of Contents
 -- + Instructions (Reader should jump around to their topic of interest)

Volume I - The Philosophy
 -- Prologue
 -- Reasons to Consider a Space Travel Conspiracy
 --
 --
 --

Volume II - The Evidence (mostly taken or rephrased from the Wiki)
 --
 --
 --
 --

Volume III - The Models (mostly taken or rephrased from the Wiki)
 --
 --
 --
 --

Volume IV - Religion ?
 --
 --
 --
 --

12

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: November 20, 2021, 04:55:51 AM »

13

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Re: Reasons to consider a Space Travel Conspiracy

« on: November 19, 2021, 07:21:53 AM »

A World Based on Lying

As we grow older we come to understand that our world is an onion with layers of lies, each more sinister than the last. On the surface the lies are indoctrinated and taught to be acceptable. We lie, we are told lies, and we are happy with lies.

When meeting a romantic interest a practice is to be a little less than honest with them by playing up a trait with flattery or by presenting yourself in a light somewhat inconsistent with reality. We have fake lawns, tell each other that we are “fine” even if we are not, and deny our own faults. We idealize those who tell us what we want to hear, even if it is disputable. We tell children outrageous like the existence of Santa Claus and find it to be perfectly palatable.

The entire concept of business is basically based on lying to customers. Buying a product for a low price and selling it for a higher price is fundamentally a lie; arguably unethical and not something you would do to a family member. Contrived “luxury” items, putting product on "sale", using models in advertisements to attract interest, uninvited pop-up advertising and on and on, are all arguably inherently unethical but accepted as standard practice.

Politicians use lies to garner public support and make promises that they know are unlikely to be fulfilled. They take money from business lobbying groups, promise the world, and once in power are often caught up in one scandal after the next. The banks lie with a fiat monetary system which involves lending out more money than they have in reserves. The news lies to you, framing events to drive you towards a certain editorial slant. In our pastime we will even entertain ourselves by deliberately watching lies to stimulate our emotions.

The Military is largely based on deception, and protecting those lies is considered to be honorable. Laws have been made to keep secrets secret, and allow the government to take down classified information and prevent news agencies from reporting it. We all know that if we post classified weapons plans onto the internet that we would face stringent penalties, risk our freedom, and the content won’t spread very far. State secrets are enforced by the rule of law, foreign cooperation, compliance of the media, and the bullet of a gun if necessary.

In a world of lies the US Government, which plays a lead role in NATO and the United Nations, is not above conducting secret wars (Pentagon Papers), protecting war criminals (Project Paperclip), and conducting medical experiments on you without your knowledge (MK-Ultra, Tuskegee), so what makes you think that they have qualms about lying to you about space travel? If the US wants it, if Russia wants it, if the entire human civilization wants it, wants tend to become reality.

Next: Pentagon Papers

14

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Re: Introduction Page - comments wanted

« on: November 19, 2021, 05:53:49 AM »

I still think this text I contributed is a good introduction. Now that I've brought the Wiki to a mature state, which is what I was focused on for the past few years since this book started, I'm increasingly coming back to this book. Like the original ENAG I think half of the book needs to be commentary and half of it needs to be physical. The Wiki contains a lot on the physical aspects, but there is not much commentary. After the Introduction there should be a Prologue which continues to engage the reader.

15

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Prosecution star witness confirms Rittenhouse self-defense

« on: November 18, 2021, 07:58:21 PM »

The video was unsharable and I was fixing my comment, here's another video. NBC followed the jury bus and has been banned from the courtroom

16

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Coronavirus Vaccine and You

« on: November 15, 2021, 11:00:06 PM »

What's wrong with the notion of booster shots?

Are you fully vaxxed against Tetanus? Whooping cough? Right after your jab for a number of years you can feel confident that you wouldn't get deathly ill but if your last dose was 10 years ago you might need to worry. Same with thus corona virus. Immunity wanes. Right after your first 2 doses you can be confident but leave it too long and you're not in a good place immunity wise. It's how your immune system works. How can you be so old, but be so clueless?

Actually I didn't say anything about the insufficiencies of any other vaccine. If you thought that you would be fully vaccinated from other vaccines you are also a dummie.

I am pointing out that many people thought that they would be fully vaxxed from their shots when in reality they would need to take boosters for the rest of their lives. We can see that you were likely one of these people, considering how triggered you were at that post.

17

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Coronavirus Vaccine and You

« on: November 15, 2021, 05:33:12 PM »

lol @ anyone who thought that they were, or ever would be, fully vaxxed

18

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Experiment to prove or disprove certain fact of FE theory

« on: November 12, 2021, 02:47:46 AM »

If you have two light rays arriving at your eyes from two equidistant objects at the same height, then they can move up and down all day long, but as long as they move together, the angle you see between them won't change.

Incorrect. If you have two golf balls, two inches apart from each other side by side, located at a distance of one foot away from your face horizontally and then increase their vertical height by two feet they are no longer one foot away from your face and the two golf balls will not maintain the same angular distance from each other.

The earth could be globe-shaped, and the stars could be a long, long way from us. That would work, would it not?

Considering that a circular startrail can be made elsewise this apparently is not the only conclusion possible.

19

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Re: Religious Views of the Enlightenment

« on: November 12, 2021, 01:24:34 AM »

These collected quotes on Copernicus and the Copernican Revolution are of interest here:

“ The Copernican revolution outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom. Since it changed the character of men's habitual mental operations even in the conduct of the non-material sciences, while transforming the whole diagram of the physical universe and the very texture of human life itself, it looms so large as the real origin both of the modern world and of the modern mentality, that our customary periodisation of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance. ”
                 —Historian Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science: 1300-1800, New York, The Free Press, 1957, pp. 7-8.

  “ The work, published in 1543, was called On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. It stated that the center of the universe was a spot somewhere near the sun...The scheme met the requirements of philosophical and theological belief in circular motion. In every other respect, however, Copernicus struck at the heart of Aristotelian and Christian belief. He removed the Earth from the center of the universe and so from the focus of God’s purpose. In the new scheme man was no longer the creature for whose use and elucidation the cosmos had been created. His system also placed the Earth in the heavens, and in doing so removed the barrier separating the incorruptible from the corruptible. ”
                  —James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed, p. 135

  “ If the people of Europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when the bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. If the writers of the various parts of the bible had known as much about the sciences as is now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been written. It was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended by its author. It has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge. A few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Descartes, Laplace, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, Science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the bible. The tables have been turned, and now, Religion is endeavoring to prove that the bible is not inconsistent with Science. The standard has been changed. ”
                  —Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

  “ Christianity is dead and rotting since Galileo cut its throat. ”
                  —Slote, The Winds of War

  “ Copernicus studied in Bologna under the Platonist Novara; and Copernicus’ idea of placing the sun rather than the earth in the center of the universe was not the result of new observations but of a new interpretation of old and well-known facts in the light of semi-religious Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas. The crucial idea can be traced back to the sixth book of Plato’s Republic, where we can read that the sun plays the same role in the realm of visible things as does the idea of the good in the realm of ideas. Now the idea of the good is the highest in the hierarchy of Platonic ideas. Accordingly the sun, which endows visible things with their visibility, vitality, growth and progress, is the highest in the hierarchy of the visible things in nature…Now if the sun was to be given pride of place, if the sun merited a divine status…then it was hardly possible for it to revolve about the earth. The only fitting place for so exalted a star was the center of the universe. So the earth was bound to revolve about the sun. This Platonic idea, then, forms the historical background of the Copernican revolution. It does not start with observations, but with a religious or mythological idea. ”
                  —Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, p. 187

  “ Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not solve an old problem, they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed. ”
                  —Ken Robinson

  “ It has often been noted that three major revolutions in thought have threatened the idea of human centrality. First, Copernicus demonstrated that Earth was not the center about which all celestial bodies revolved. Next, Darwin showed us that we were not central in the chain of life but, like all other creatures, had evolved from other life-forms. Third, Freud demonstrated that we are not masters in our own house-that much of our behavior is governed by forces outside of our consciousness. There is no doubt that Freud’s unacknowledged co-revolutionary was Arthur Schopenhauer, who, long before Freud’s birth, had posited that we are governed by deep biological forces and then delude ourselves into thinking that we consciously choose our activities. ”
                  —Irvin D. Yalom, The Schopenhauer Cure

  “ The superior simplicity of the Copernican theory was just as much of a myth as its superior accuracy. The myth of superior simplicity was dispelled by the careful and professional work of modern historians. They reminded us that while Copernican theory solves certain problems in a simpler way than does the Ptolemaic one. the price of the simplification is unexpected complications in the solution of other problems. The Copernican system is certainly simpler since it dispenses with equants and some eccentrics: but each equant and eccentric removed has to be replaced by new epicycles and epicyclets. . .he also has to put the center of the universe not at the Sun. as he originally intended. but at an empty point fairly near to it.....I think it is fair to say that the ‘simplicity balance” between Ptolemy’s and Copernicus’ system is roughly even. ”
                  —The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Imre Lakatos, pp 173-174

  “ The popular belief that Copernicus' heliocentric system constitutes a significant simplification of the Ptolemaic system is obviously wrong. The choice of the reference system has no effect on the structure of the model, and the Copernican models themselves require about twice as many circles as the Ptolemaic models and are far less elegant and adaptable!

Modern historians, making ample use of the advantage of hindsight, stress the revolutionary significance of the heliocentric system and the simplification it had introduced. In fact, the actual computation of planetary positions follows exactly the ancient patterns and the results are the same. The Copernican solar theory is definitely a step in the wrong direction for the actual computation as well as for the underlying kinematic concepts ”
                  —'On The Planetary Theory of Copernicus' - Otto Neugebauer 1968, p 103

  “ The personality of Galileo, as it emerges from works of popular science, has even less relation to historic fact than Canon Koppernigk’s…He appears…in rationalist mythography as the Maid of Orleans of Science, the St. George who slew the dragon of the Inquisition. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the fame of this outstanding genius rests mostly on discoveries he never made, and on feats he never performed. Contrary to statements in even recent outlines of science, Galileo did not invent the telescope; nor the microscope; nor the thermometer; nor the pendulum clock. He did not discover the law of inertia; nor the parallelogram of forces or motions; not the sun spots. He made no contribution to theoretical astronomy; he did not throw down weights from the leaning tower of Pisa and did not prove the truth of the Copernican system. He was not tortured by the Inquisition, did not languish in its dungeons, did not say ‘eppur si muove’; and he was not a martyr of science ”
                  —Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, p. 358.

  “ …in the Renaissance movement championed by Marsiglio Ficino, the doctrine came alive again, but in a somewhat altered form; one might say that what Ficino instituted was indeed a religion, a kind of neo-paganism. Copernicus himself was profoundly influenced by this movement, as can be clearly seen from numerous passages in the De Revolutionibus. ”
                  —Wolfgang Smith, The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology, p. 174

  “ In the middle of all sits Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful temple could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe: Hermes Trismegistus names him the Visible God, Sophocles’ Electra calls him the All-seeing. So the Sun sits as upon a royal throne ruling his children the planets which circle round him. The Earth has the Moon at her service. As Aristotle says, in his On Animals, the Moon has the closest relationship with the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth conceives by the Sun, and becomes pregnant with an annual rebirth. ”
                  —Nicolaus Copernicus , De Revolutionibus, Of the Order of the Heavenly Bodies 10.

  “ (Copernicus’) reasons for his revolutionary change were essentially philosophic and aesthetic,” and in a later edition he is more convinced that the “reasons were mystical rather than scientific ”
                  —J. D. Bernal, Science in History, 1st edition, London, Watts, 1954; 2nd edition, 1965).

  “ Actually neither this Galileo, nor his mentor Copernicus, had a shred of truly tangible and unequivocal evidence for their heliocentric belief – and well do historians, astronomers, and philosophers of science know it! As I recently found it succinctly expressed in a research paper “Since Galileo science has shed logical proofs in favour of plausibility.” (Chris Biebricher: ‘Evolutionary Research,’ in Vincent Brummer, Interpreting the Universe as Creation. Kampen Kok Pharos, 1991, p.93.) Indeed, by this “scientific method” of adding plausible explanations to plausible explanations astronomy has arrived at the present view of the cosmos. However, those who forget that “plausible” and “proven” are not synonyms inevitably will see their chickens come home to roost. ”
                  —Walter van der Kamp: The Cosmos, Einstein and Truth (1993), p.28.

  “ Among all the discoveries and convictions, probably not a single fact has had a deeper influence on the human spirit than the teaching of Copernicus ... Humanity has probably never been asked to do more; for consider all that went up in smoke as a result of realising this change: a second paradise, a world of innocence, poetry and piety, the witness of the senses, the conviction of a poetic and religious faith; small wonder that one did not want to give this up, that people in every possible way resisted such a doctrine, which those who accepted it justified and summoned to a so far unknown, yet unthought of freedom of thinking and greatness of vision. ”
                  —German poet Johann von Goethe (1749-1832), Geschichte der Farbenlehre, Chicago, University Press, p.67.

  “ Their cosmic quest destroyed the medieval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in Universe, with its fixed hierarchy of moral values, and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet. ”
                  —Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, Grosset & Dunlop, New York, 1963, p.13.

20

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Re: Religious Views of the Enlightenment

« on: November 11, 2021, 11:53:33 PM »

Curiously, despite Newton's label as "Father of Modern Science," not all physicists agree that he submitted a satisfactory manifesto on his system. On p.71 of Einstein’s Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius (NY 2008) its author, physicist Hans C Ohanian (bio), says that Newton was less than honest with us:

"A CAREFUL EXAMINATION of Newton’s writings has revealed
that some of the errors in the Principia were deliberate and dishonest
attempts to mislead. In the Principia Newton proposed that the exact
quantitative agreement between theory and observation was the ultimate
criterion of scientific truth. As he said in the preface, “He that works with
less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic; and if any could work with perfect
accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all.”17 And to con-
vince his audience that he was the “most perfect mechanic,” he proceeded
to fabricate the required agreement between theory and observation, by
fair means or foul. Newton faked some theoretical calculations and he
engaged in flagrant cherry-picking of observational data, discarding those
data that did not quite fit his calculations. Richard Westfall, one of New-
ton’s most incisive biographers, called this “nothing short of deliberate
fraud,” and he labeled Newton a master of the “fudge factor?”18

One example of Newton’s fakery is seen in his theoretical calculation
of the speed of sound. He correctly and perceptively identified sound as
an oscillation arising from the elasticity of air, and he recognized that the
speed of sound waves must depend on the ratio of the elasticity of air to
its density. But when he calculated the value of the speed from this ratio,
he found it was too low by about 20 percent, and to fix this discrepancy
between theory and observation he conjured up two fudge factors, both of
which were pure fiction.

First, he imagined that whereas sound travels at a finite speed in the
space between the air particles, it travels at infinite speed through the body
of any air particle it encounters, and he therefore inserted a correction fac-
tor that depends on the fraction of the air volume that is actually occupied
by the bodies of particles. Then he imagined that not all of the air that
surrounds us is “true air”; instead, some of it is “vapor,” which does not par-
ticipate in the propagation of sound and therefore, somehow, made sound
travel even faster, and for this he inserted another correction factor. With
these two fudge factors, his final theoretical value for the speed of sound
came to 1142 feet per second, which—surprise, surprise—agreed exactly
with the value of 1142 feet per second that had been recently measured in
experiments by his friend William Derham.19 “This passage,” commented
Westfall, “is one of the most embarrassing in the whole Principia, since
the adjustments rested on no empirical grounds whatever, and in their
manifest hollowness served only to cast undeserved doubt on the basic
analysis"20

Other examples of similar fakery are found in Newton’s theoretical cal-
culations of the precession of the equinoxes, the magnitude of the force
of gravity acting on the Moon, the height of the tides, and the size of the
equatorial bulge of the Earth.” In all of these cases, he had a good qualita-
tive understanding of the underlying physics, but inadequate mathemati-
cal tools and/or inadequate observational data for an accurate quantitative
analysis—and so he inserted fictional fudge factors into his calculations
and / or cherry-picked the data.

These instances of fraud by Newton are somewhat reminiscent of the
fraud that Galileo perpetrated with his theory of tides. But whereas we
might give Galileo the benefit of doubt and charitably regard his mistaken
theory of tides as an isolated case of self-delusion, no such excuse will
serve for Newton. His acts of fraud occurred repeatedly, much too often
to admit of self-delusion as a plausible explanation. In the perpetration of
fraud, Newton was a recidivist, deserving of no charity. Besides, we have
documentary evidence from letters between Newton and Roger Cotes, the
editor of the second edition of the Principia, that they engaged in collusion
to “mend” the numbers. Cotes would propose to Newton some fraudulent
adjustment of observational data, “to make that Scholium appear to best
advantage as to the numbers,” and Newton would do Cotes one better by
contriving some fudge factor that suited the occasion.

Newton's fraud did not receive wide attention because the Principia was
much admired but little read, and its influence on the development of
physics was indirect. Although most of the “Newtonian physics” found in
today’s physics textbooks is based on Newton’s ideas and results, very little
of it remains in the form presented by Newton in his Principia. Almost the
entire content of his book was reorganized and rephrased by his followers,
starting with the great Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler and continuing
with the French savants and mathematicians of the eighteenth century:
Pierre Maupertius, jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Joseph Louis Lagrange,
Pierre Simon de Laplace, Adrien Marie Legendre."