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Ptolemy

Ptolemy

0

Near balanceFormula-derived score

Alexandrian mathematician whose Almagest, Geography, and Tetrabiblos reach the public through Toomer, Heiberg, Loeb, and PAL. Documented harms: geocentric lock-in, printed astrology, longitude stretch, catalogue-audit. He did not typeset 1984.

Mathematical geocentric astronomy as a later school authorityjudicial astrology as a printed predictive officesource-limit honesty on a missing observing log

Impact

Not rated yet: the verified records linked to this person, without a numeric impact.

Editorial assessment (context, not the score)

The page is not a marble astronomer and not a verified 127 CE observer’s diary. The heaviest documented costs in public English are printed judicial astrology, geocentric computational lock-in, stretched Geography longitudes, and a catalogue-audit of medium confidence. The offsets are Toomer, Heiberg, PAL, Gallica, and the printed geometric method. He did not file 1984. Editors and academies did that work. Confidence is high on those pages, medium on Hipparchus-reuse.

Indicators affected

Indicators this person’s verified facts reach. No score contribution is assigned; the observed state is the indicator’s own reading.

Accountability & contradictions

Claims against the record, the type of responsibility, and what is disputed.

Claimed

What happened

Responsibility

What could change this assessment

  • 7 linked facts have no assessed welfare direction yet.
  • Lifetime coverage has not been assessed: the record reflects stored facts only (0127–0151).

Causal path

Person → Fact → Driver → Indicator. Select a path to inspect its factors; the full network opens on demand.

  1. PersonPtolemy
  2. FactThe Geography presents a public coordinate grid and map-making method
  3. DriverDigital Learning Access
  1. PersonPtolemy
  2. FactThe Harmonics presents a mathematical music treatise as elite acoustic theory, not a popular songbook
  3. DriverSocial Cohesion
  1. PersonPtolemy
  2. FactAn Optics treatise under Ptolemy’s name survives as a lacunose transmission whose Greek is lost
  3. DriverPersonal-Data Protection

Timeline

The most relevant dated facts, newest first.

  1. 1 January 151 · Digital Learning Access

    The Geography presents a public coordinate grid and map-making method

  2. 1 December 150 · Social Cohesion

    The Harmonics presents a mathematical music treatise as elite acoustic theory, not a popular songbook

  3. 1 November 150 · Personal-Data Protection

    An Optics treatise under Ptolemy’s name survives as a lacunose transmission whose Greek is lost

  4. 1 October 150 · Digital Learning Access

    Analemma treats sundial geometry as a public instrument-text

  5. 1 September 150 · Personal-Data Protection

    The Geography presents a coordinate gazetteer whose Mediterranean longitudes are systematically too large

  6. 1 August 150 · Digital Learning Access

    Planisphaerium presents stereographic projection as a public instrument-text

Evidence & methodology

How the record is sourced and how the score is derived.

16 of 16 linked facts verified, drawing on 9 distinct sources (0127–0151).

Sources include Encyclopaedia Britannica, Internet Archive / Princeton University Press reprint, American Philosophical Society, Princeton University Press, Harvard University Press, NASA Astrophysics Data System, University of St Andrews.

Sources (showing 8 of 9)

  1. 1.Britannica — Ptolemy, Planetary HypothesesEncyclopaedia Britannica
  2. 2.Toomer, Ptolemy's Almagest — public library copyInternet Archive / Princeton University Press reprint
  3. 3.Britannica — Ptolemy’s GeographyEncyclopaedia Britannica
  4. 4.American Philosophical Society — A. Mark Smith editions of the OpticsAmerican Philosophical Society
  5. 5.Berggren and Jones, Ptolemy's GeographyPrinceton University Press
  6. 6.Loeb Classical Library — Ptolemy, TetrabiblosHarvard University Press
  7. 7.NASA ADS — modern papers on the Almagest and star catalogueNASA Astrophysics Data System
  8. 8.MacTutor — Claudius PtolemyUniversity of St Andrews

The score is formula-derived (Factrail formula v1, version 1.0.0), not an editorial verdict. Read the methodology.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed · Sources: 9

Expert analysis

An excerpt; the full analysis opens on request.

The first fact about Ptolemy in a public catalog is a missing observing book and a printed astrological office, not a marble scientist. MacTutor at https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Ptolemy/ (opens in a new tab) and Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ptolemy (opens in a new tab) state that later manuscripts, not a Mouseion diary, are the file. Loeb Tetrabiblos at https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674994799 (opens in a new tab) and Perseus https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0168 (opens in a new tab) print a four-book predictive treatise. That is an opacity path: geometry used as a licence for fate. Princeton Toomer at https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691002606/ptolemys-almagest (opens in a new tab) prints a completed geocentric kinematic factory. Berggren and Jones at https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691092591/ptolemys-geography (opens in a new tab) print a gazetteer whose Mediterranean longitudes are too large in the received reconstruction. NASA ADS at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/ (opens in a new tab) hosts the catalogue-audit debate with Hipparchus (https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hipparchus/ (opens in a new tab)). Heiberg’s Opera, as later archived, and PAL at https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/ (opens in a new tab) print Handy Tables and Planetary Hypotheses as further lock-in. Stanford’s ancient astronomy entry at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/astronomy-cosmology-ancient/ (opens in a new tab) is independent texture, not a causal dataset. The offsets are also URLs. The same Toomer book is a teachable method. PAL opens Arabic and Latin transmission. Gallica at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ (opens in a new tab) and the World Digital Library at https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-digital-library/ (opens in a new tab) show later manuscripts. Neugebauer’s HAMA (Springer) is a technical audit. Historic Cairo’s 1979 listing at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/89/ (opens in a new tab) conserves a later copying city, not a 2nd-century house. What the score must not say: that he suppressed Copernicus; that 1616 is his decree; that the star-catalogue debate is a criminal conviction; that a 1984 Princeton book is 150 CE. Complex contribution is the honest type. Confidence is high on Toomer, Loeb, PAL, and MacTutor as public objects, medium on Hipparchus-reuse and Canobic authenticity, low on unique later-GDP coefficients. Related people are Hipparchus, Theon, later translators, Heiberg, Toomer. 1984 is not 150. 1475 is a printed atlas. 1979 is UNESCO. The useful question is which later public pages still move computational authority, astrology, and map-error under his name. Later Loeb, UNESCO, and encyclopedia pages are evidence, not additional acts. Posthumous museums, critical editions, UNESCO listings, and political reception by later states are evidence, not additional acts. Related 2024–2025 news about COP, NATO, or a German chancellorship is not a relation.

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