h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I did this research last year when I was studying History of Western Ideas.
I was looking at the growth of knowledge in astronomy during the 15th 16th and 17th century in relation to what was believed in ancient times.
I feel the process of discovery and acceptance is relevant to how we think and accept knowledge right up to the present time.

It is very informative and mostly well-written. However, please proofread your article. The grammatical errors (and there are several) distract from the very good information you present there.

Wampus

I have re read my article, and read it again out loud and I could not find the several grammatical errors you were talking about. Could you be a little more specific.
Realising that in writing any article the writer is usually too close to see much of what is obvious to others.
Thank you

Okay. I'll put everything I find, even the ambigious nitpicky stuff.

2nd paragraph:
-We're at the beginning of the 21st century, not the end of the 20th century.
-"rotating on there own axis" should be "rotating on their own axis"
-"...And the earth is not the centre of the universe..." is a sentence fragment. I would replace "And" with "Also we know that"

3rd paragraph:
-"...but rather a view, which challenged establishment." Should not have the comma there; it breaks up a perfectly good phrase.
-"...In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published a painstaking mathematical analysis of Ptolemy's astronomical observations, Copernicus..." Should have a period there instead of a comma, making a new sentence. Also, there should be a comma after that last "Copernicus."
-"...the Sun and not the Earth, was the centre of the universe..." Either (1) remove the comma or (2) put one after "sun" and eliminate "and."
-"...Copernicus also wondered weather the sequence..." In this case, "weather" should be spelled "whether."
-"...their Saints days..." Saints should be Saints'
-"...they were forced to rely, like Aristotle on there senses and there reason..." Put a comma after "Aristotle" and change "there" to "their."
-"...Aristotle and Ptolemaic had..." Ptolemaic should be Ptolemy
-"...revolved round the Sun. Yet Copernicus..." Change the period to a comma and un-capitalize "yet"

4th paragraph:
-"...affirmed both Copernican's theory..." Copernican's should either be Copernican or Copernicus'; you can't have it both ways.

5th paragraph:
-"Galileo in a personal letter written to Kepler in 1596..." Put a comma after "Galileo"
-"...devotion to science Galileo differed from..." Put a comma after "science"
-"Though his astronomical discoveries had roused the interest and support of the Church." That's a sentence fragment; to fix it, you could remove "though," and attach "In particular some Cardinals and then later Pope Urban VIII" to form one complete sentence.
-"...his passionate defence of the Copernican system of the universe..." The word "his" should be the start of a new sentence.
-"In it he compared the Ptolmic/Aristotilian" Ptolmic should be spelled "Ptolemiac"
-"...He attempted, in his book, to make his support for the Copernican view diplomatic..." Remove the commas.
-"...the planets could surly orbit the Sun..." Surly should be surely

6th paragraph:
-"...the works of Aristotle 384 - 322 BC and..." Should read "...the works of Aristotle from 384 to 322 BC and..."
-..."Galileo attracted him The young Newton applied himself to learning Aristotelian..." Should have a period after "him"
-"...that Kepler's areal law was a consequence..." I've never seen the word "areal" before. Is it spelled correctly?

7th paragraph
-Most of this paragraph belongs before the 6th paragraph. It doesn't make much sense to talk about Copernicus, then Newton, then jump back to Copernicus again.
-"...in astronomy classes moreover, the new Gregorian..." The word "moreover" should be the start of a new sentence.
-"...It was antagonism from the Protestant reformers that aroused first and most forcefully...." The way the sentence reads, the antagonism is the subject and aroused is the verb. But what did the antagonism arouse? I think you mean to say "that WAS aroused first..."
-"...He finished his condemning to house arrest..." That phrase doesn't make sense. Who is he? How does one finish condemning to house arrest?

8th paragraph:
-"Although Aristotle's picture of the universe was not the correct picture as we know it now, he was the first man to systematise formal logic; also metaphysics, which tries to answer such questions as "What is the world we Know", and "How do we know it"." The part about "also metaphysics..." is an incomplete phrase. It would be better to start a new sentence with, "He also created metaphysics," or something to that effect.
-"...Aristotle represented for most of us an icon of difficult or abstruse philosophical thinking..." "for most of us" should have commas around it. Also, what does "abstruse" mean? Did you mean to say abstract, or obtruse? I don't think you can combine those words.
-"...He invented the science of logic the rules of thinking..." Should have an "and" after "logic."


Whew. Anyway, don't feel bad. I used to be a newspaper editor, so I got all these comma and sentence rules drilled into my head. Also, many of these errors you wouldn't find by reading out loud.

Wampus

Well the first of your points is ambiguous, depending on whether we're going for the Pedant's Millennium (in 2001, the start of the 21st century) or the Moron's Millennium (2000, which looks better but means you can't count) (j/k about the moron thing BTW...)

Thank you Wampus for putting so much time and energy in to pointing out the bad grammar, I am inclined to get a little long-winded, even in conversation.
I do apologise about the century, I wrote it last year and forgot that we had changed.
Thank you again and I will fix things up

I have changed the date and the spelling mistakes, I think and most of the punctuation marks. But I have not moved the 7th paragraph as I conceder it to be different to the previous paragraphs. It is looking at the consequences on the different scientists' developments. That is structure and that is the way I wanted it to read.

Wampus you are a gem, how delightful it must be to be able to pick up spelling and punctuation mistakes so easily.
I'm working in a 5000 word essay on Kepler at the moment, should I run it past you before I submit it.

Well, I used to be a newspaper editor, like I said.

You can run your essay past me, but I'm not going to read it.

Wampus

That is your choce,

hahahahahahah

http://www.h2g2.com/A431236

Hmm.

What's the focus of this entry? I feel that the title is a little misleading - most of these views are not new, but very old - Newtonian gravity, for example, has been superseded by Einstein - so it's scarcely "new"...

This'd be good as an entry on "The Copernican Revolution", I think - but you need to decide what the point of the entry is - and what you're trying to say.

Personally, I love this sort of history of science stuff - and you write well - so I hope we can make this into a wonderful edited entry...

Hi!

I'm really glad that you're writing an entry about this stuff. I'm a big fan of the history of science. I'd like to make some general comments and then there's some proofreading stuff that I noticed - I'm fairly compulsive about that.

Generally, good entry! You tell a good story, which is how history should sound. Your entry is well organized, but it would be easier for the reader to see that organization if the paragraphs had "headers" on them. The second one is obviously about Copernicus, the third about Kepler, etc. You could just add little titles in the blank space between paragraphs, and it would make reading easier. Or, if you know any GuideML, you can use it to make nice looking Headers. If you don't, not to worry, the subbies can do it in a snap.

I agree with Lucinda that the title is a bit broad and doesn't really tell a reader what the entry will focus on. You cover a progression in world views from Aristotle to Newton... I dunno, there's lots of good titles out there, and you'll find the right one.

There's a lot of proofreading stuff, but it's just cosmetic; the content is solid!

Proofreading stuff:

Opening quotation (which I'm not counting as a paragraph):
*"compliment" should be "complement"

1st Para:
*1st sentence: "an elliptical path" and "axis" should be plural - "elliptical paths" and "axes".
*3rd sentence: "people *knew* that the sky was made of crystal spheres" - shouldn't "knew" be "believed" or "thought"?
*4th sentence: "fourth" is misspelled.

2nd Para:
*sentence beginning "Copernicus' work": I see "Copernicus’s work" - some code that got garbled?
*sentence beginning "As long as men": "there senses" should be "their senses"
*This paragraph is long! Can it be broken up?
*Last sentence: "I must emphasize" - change to "It should be emphasized" or something that doesn't use 1st person.

3rd Para:
*The first five words ("It is noted that the...") add nothing. Delete them.
*sentence beginning "Kepler showed": "an elliptical orbit" should be "elliptical orbits"
*sentence beginning "He also showed": "the planet" should be "each planet"; "the planets" should be "that planet"... or something
*last sentence: "insist in" should be "insist on"

4th Para:
*sentence beginning "Except for this": insert comma between "science" and "Galileo".
*"His astronomical discoveries had roused the interest and support of the Church In particular some Cardinals and then later Pope Urban VIII." - uh, one sentences, not two, right? Insert a comma after "Church", make "In" lower case, and add a comma after "Cardinals".
*"Galileo also used the telescope to observe the planet of Jupiter, he also discovered the four moons of Jupiter." - that's a run-on sentence; how about, "...the planet Jupiter, discovering its four moons." Actually, it has more than four. Maybe "...its four largest moons".
*Last sentence: get rid of the "also" near the beginning.

5th Para:
*"At Cambridge University in 1661 Newton studied the core curricula based on the works of Aristotle from 384 to 322 BC and on Medieval and Renaissance commentators on and expositors of Aristotelian doctrines." - long... hard to read... all those prepositions... how about: "...Newton studied the works of Aristotle from 384 ot 322 BC and also the Medieval...".
*2nd sentence is missing a full stop at the end.
*sentence beginning "This work was": "that stood" should be "that had stood".
*"Newton by his own account found a proof that Kepler's law was a consequence of a centrifical forces, and he also showed that if the orbital curve is an ellipse under the action of central forces, then the radial dependence of the force is inverse square with the distance from the centre." - "Kepler's law was" should be "Kepler's laws were"; "centrificial" should be "centripetal"; "central" should be "centripetal"; final clause should be "then the force must vary inversly with the square of the distance from the center." Good ol' Newton!
*sentence beginning "Isaac Newton's work": it's a run-on... Why not turn the first comma into a full stop and delete the second one?

6th Para:
*"Newton as an extremely religious man who believed that just as human artisans designed and ordered the intricate mechanical clocks, printing press, wind and water mills, so the deity had created a world-machine and set it in motion in ways that human beings could learn to understand." - sentence fragment (long one!). Should be "Newton, as an extremely religious man, believed that ... printing press, and wind and water mills, so ..."
*2nd to last sentence: "reviled" is definitely the wrong word here. Typo?

Well! That's what I saw. Again, good entry - a real pleasure to read! A little tidying up, and it should be a great addition to the Edited Guide!

Hey, Moondancer -- are you still working on this one?


Mikey

Hi Mickey,

I have not been on h2g2 for ages. I get so depressed when I come here there is so much stuff that has been taken off and I dont know why. My poems are gone, and there is no colour in the place.

And I dont think I have any friends left here any way

I will fix up the spelling and other things that need correcting

See ya sometime

Does anyone have any helpful comments on this one? It seems to have become stuck in the sludge at the bottom of Peer Review.


Mikey

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to '"New Views of the Material world"'.

This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review Forum because your entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

You can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

I'm pleased to inform you that this entry has been recommended for the Edited Guide. It will go to the sub-eds for minor tweaking, and you'll be notified via e-mail when it's due to appear. Thank you for writing such a great article - please keep up the good work!

Lentilla