Talk:Edmond Halley

1694 censure
A paragraph in the Publications and inventions section that was introduced back in 2013 states:

I'm pretty sure that the statement about Halley being censured is incorrect; the source for it, The cosmic serpent by Clube and Napier (which can be borrowed from archive.org), makes no mention of censure. The same statement has been made online, in a paper, and even a book, but all of these look to have been published after the 2013 edit to Wikipedia  and are similarly worded so it's likely they were just lifted from this article.

There were no doubt people at the Royal Society who took issue with Halley's comments but I haven't found a single reliable source to back up the claim that he was censured by them. I believe this actually stemmed from a note published alongside a reply to the lecture text:

It would also be a good idea to get rid of the easter egg link and to mention the other hypothesis which has been compared with Halley's thoughts. Essentially, I think the paragraph should be reworked to something like this:

There's a chance that I've missed something though so it would be great to get a second pair of eyes on this!

Aluxosm (talk) 14:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * With all the above, and this sort of thing, in mind:
 * "The Royal Society censured Halley for suggesting in 1694 that the story of Noah's flood might be an account of a cometary impact. A similar theory was independently suggested three centuries later, but is generally rejected by geologists."


 * Might it be worth considering a link somewhere in this article to Wikipedia's entry for The Analyst?


 * "Alciphron was widely read and caused a bit of a stir. But it was an offhand comment mocking Berkeley's arguments by the 'free-thinking' royal astronomer Sir Edmund Halley that prompted Berkeley to pick up his pen again and try a new tack. The result was The Analyst, conceived as a satire attacking the foundations of mathematics with the same vigour and style as 'free-thinkers' routinely attacked religious truths." CatNip48 (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Place of Birth/Death
An anonymous editor (LDS20) wants to change the places of birth and death from England to Kingdom of England. I find this both ridiculous and superfluous. Kingdom of England is a political entity, England is a geographical one. Ones place of birth/death is geographical, hence England not Kingdom of England. Are we going to go through hundred of thousands or even millions of Wikipedia articles changing places of birth/death to the relevant political entities, instead of geographical locations? Halley, of course provides another problem. When he died he no longer lived in the Kingdom of England, the Act of Union having taken place in 1707, He, however, still lived in the geographical location England! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thony C. (talk • contribs) 07:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Nothing about me is anonymous. And I find it quite silly this notion of "geography". You can look at the info boxes for any other high-profile person be it a sports coach, politician, high profile murderer, and yes even scientists and it will have an appropriate link to the nation / political entity of birth and death. On no other occasion have I seen that (that I can think of) where it just says the geographic location (with exceptions to overlinking a specific link). An example being George Washington. His place of birth is linked appropriately to "Popes Creek, Virginia, British America" not the latter with no links and with an arbitrary location such as just "America". I find it just bizarre why there would be such resistance to a non-vandalizing addition such as what I've been attempting to add here to no avail. And yes, I will go through as many articles as I can fixing this because isn't that the point of this website? To provide as much relevant information as possible to the articles of this site? Or are we just cherry picking what makes the cut into an article now? LDS20 (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Halley Infobox
I believe there is an error in the HALLEY INFOBOX. (Died 25 January 1742 [O.S. 14 January 1741] (aged 85) Greenwich, Kent, England) Shouldn't that be (Died 25 January 1742 [O.S. 14 January 1742] (aged 85)? DMc75771 (talk) 17:02, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Halley Infobox
Vol.6 of Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972) has Halley's birth date as 29 October 1656[?] and death date as 14 January 1743. What gives? DMc75771 (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Size of Paramour disagreement
The length of sailing ship Paramuour is listed as 52 ft 6 gun pink (sailship). For the voyages it performed (almost a year of sailing in the Atlantic a 16 m sailship would IMO be hard pressed to load all provisions for 20 people crew, and in HMS Paramour (1694) article lenghth is 64 ft. I suppose 52 feet is a typo here, but did not yet clheck/verify by sources. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 23:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)