Talk:Scaphe

This Page is Under Construction

 * I am going to edit this page for an assignment in a History of Science class at the University of Oklahoma.

--Gaurd.vanforlife (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

A Few Issues
Hi,

I notice a few issues with this page. Nothing major, but still, I wanted to address them and see if anyone could help me fix them—and maybe expand the page itself.

First, the mention that “the adjacent image is an accurate image of what [Aristarchus’ scaphe] might have looked like” is inaccurate. The following sentence mentions “a vertical gnomon,” while the image clearly shows a slanted/tilted gnomon.

Then, there’s a mention of Eratosthene using one to measure “the length of Earth's meridian arc,” but without a mention of how this was done or how the scaphe was involved. The later part, “Relevance,” also fails to indicate how Eratosthenes used the scaphe in his experiment.

Next, the part about the “Inventor” is more of a biography of Aristarchus and, in my opinion, doesn’t belong in this page, but instead in the article about the Greek philosopher (where it is also found, in different words). Nothing in this section even mentions the scaphe or how Aristarchus thought of it, designed it, built it, or used it. The image of a stone scaphe has no legend that would relate it to the text, which would be impossible anyhow, as it’s of Aramean origin, and the main texts only mentions Greek/Roman scaphes.

The “History” section barely mentions any historical facts about the scaphe. The first two paragraphs do that, and seem indeed history-related, but pertain only to a very short period of history (Greco-Roman times). The third paragraph talks about “projecting the three-dimensional scaphe dial upon a vertical or horizontal plane,” but fails to explain why this would need to be done. It sounds almost like an abstract for the article it references (Allen 1993).

Finally, as mentioned above, the ”Relevance” section doesn’t mention the scaphe. The articles it references and the bibliography works briefly mention it, yes, but this mention should be in the Wikipedia page, not in external references.

I intend the above remarks as constructive criticism, and it is far from my intention to belittle the work previously done on this page by my fellow Wikipedians. I am willing to collaborate in an effort to develop the page and add to it—as a matter of fact, I will fix a few minor things in the next minutes. I believe that together, we can raise this article to a higher level.

CielProfond (talk) 02:20, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Removing references to Eratosthenes
I removed the reference to Eratosthenes using this instrument, since it is based on the misplaced assumption that Eratosthenes measured the Earth's meridian with the angle of the gnomon's shadow in Alexandria. This is a misconception because that method was not the one used by Eratosthenes, who therefore did not need a scaphe. --PostaDiDonna (talk) 16:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)