Product Description
"Ptolemy's Universe" is a modern examination of the cosmological and philosophical dimensions of Ptolemy's thought as presented in his astronomical works. Claudius Ptolemy (second century AD) ranks as one of the most important figures in the history of science, especially renowned for his contribution to mathematical astronomy. Within astronomical works such as "The Mathematical Syntaxis", Ptolemy presented some of his views on natural philosophy, epistemology and ethics, and explained their pertinence to his astronomy. While much has been written about Ptolemy's mathematical work, few attempts have been made to understand his philosophical and cosmological ideas. In this book, Dr Taub shows how Ptolemy's conception of the celestial bodies as divine beings shaped his philosophical thinking, and how this in turn influenced his study of the heavens. Dr Taub's examination of the place of Ptolemy's ideas within the broader context of Greek philosophy, mathematics and culture, provides insights into the nature of Greek scientific thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An important contribution
Taub's work is a valuable contribution to our understanding of an important thinker of Late Antiquity, too often neglected for lack of biographical information. As Taub shows, however, through her patient andcareful analysis of Ptolemy's texts and likely sources, we can learnsomething of the Alexandrian astronomer - chiefly that he cannot bedismissed as just as the late-arriving mathematical straight-man to thewisecracking ancient philosopher Aristotle. The duo are often givensemi-equal billing for the cosmology which dominated in the West for morethan a thousand years, until the coming of Copernicus. Yet thecontradictions intrinsic to the so-called Aristotelian-Ptolemaicworld-system, repeatedly noticed by medieval astronomers, and an importantmotivation for the cosmological work of the sixteenth century, are suddenlymade less surprising when one realises that Ptolemy had a philosophy of hisown that was not quite Aristotelian. Helpful to all students of medievaland early-modern astronomy (particularly those who wish to understand theopening of Copernicus' De revolutionibus), this book is an essentialcompanion to Ptolemy's own works, helping bring the author of themathematically intimidating Syntaxis (or Almagest), the quirky Tetrabiblos,and even the list-based Geography to life. Clearly written, and clearlyargued, it clearly belongs on your bookshelf. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of my top three very most favorites...
My very most favorite audio CD's are the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Harry Potter Series, and Twilight Series in not any particular order because it's too hard to decide.

I found the entire Bartimaeus Trilogy about a quick witted, sarcastic Demon delightful. Jonathan Stroud has a good handle on delivering dry wit and it was made all the more enjoyable with the rich, mellow, baritone voice of Simon Jones who is, of course, one of my very most favorite narrators.I've listened to this trilogy many times and never tire of hearing his wonderful voice.I'm now anxiously awaiting the new Bartimaeus Novel: The Ring of Solomon coming out soon.

You might think you don't like demon stories, but I'll bet you will love this one!

... Read more

Product Description
As archaeologists recover the lost treasures of Alexandria, the modern world is marveling at the latter-day glory of ancient Egypt and the Greeks who ruled it from the ascension of Ptolemy I in 306 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra the Great in 30 B.C. The abundance and magnificence of royal sculptures from this period testify to the power of the Ptolemaic dynasty and its influence on Egyptian artistic traditions that even then were more than two thousand years old. In this book, Paul Edmund Stanwick undertakes the first complete study of Egyptian-style portraits of the Ptolemies. Examining one hundred and fifty sculptures from the vantage points of literary evidence, archaeology, history, religion, and stylistic development, he fully explores how they meld Egyptian and Greek cultural traditions and evoke surrounding social developments and political events. To do this, he develops a "visual vocabulary" for reading royal portraiture and discusses how the portraits helped legitimate the Ptolemies and advance their ideology. Stanwick also sheds new light on the chronology of the sculptures, giving dates to many previously undated ones and showing that others belong outside the Ptolemaic period. ... Read more

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Ptolemy Tompkins is the son of Peter Tompkins, former W.W.II spy, co-author of the cult bestseller The Secret Life of Plants, and one of the most colorful gurus of the '70s' New Age movement. As a boy, Ptolemy was granted the kind of freedoms his schoolmates could only dream of, as he came of age in a home overrun by a bizarre assortment of orgiasts, Yeti-hunters, alchemists, spaceship communicants, and charlatans of every stripe. But paradise can also be hell, as Tompkins proves in these riveting, outrageous, and wildly funny remembrances of life with his chrismatic, over the-top father: an intrepid investigator of things occult and miraculous who invited all manner of weirdness into his household; who, unabashedly and without warning, introduced a second mate into the family circle; and who in 1974, moved to Bimini with Ptolemy in tow to search for the lost continent of AtlantisAmazon.com Review
An obsession with states of grace--lost and regained--does notassure a person of finding grace, or happiness. What was it like togrow up as a son of the very avatar of the New Age? Ptolemy Tompkins'sfather, Peter, author of cult bestseller, The Secret Life ofPlants, believed fervently that the fulfillment of lost andmagical conditions were within one's grasp.

In the first chapter ofParadise Fever, 13-year-old Ptolemy ponders life from thebottom of the family's swimming pool. His father has equipped him withscuba tank and regulator that may be of use on their upcomingexpedition to the Caribbean to locate the lost continent ofAtlantis. A naked woman appears above him. That would be Cheryl, a"changeling," one of many seekers of his father's wisdom.

"In resolving to live a fuller, more realized life than he hadbefore," Ptolemy writes, "my father was acting in theservice of the spirit of the time--and the spirit of that particulartime was very much a communal one. From about 1972 onwards, the Barn(one of Peter's laboratories) became a way station for anextraordinary array of self-styled seekers, finders, and aspiringawakeners of the slumbering modern world. Yeti hunters, psychics,free-form visionaries, and reincarnated Atlantean alchemists--oneafter another they showed up at our door ... "You might thinkthat, to a child, this would be paradise. But as Ptolemy looks back, asingle, disruptive event defines his childhood. One night, Peterbrings socialite Betty Vreeland home to dinner, announcing that shewill become part of the family unit.

This is a fantastic andinformative tour of the occult, the movements it sprang from and inturn inspired, and the shadows that darken paradise. PtolemyTompkins's memoir inevitably includes the carving of his father'sgrandiose dreams down to size. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Couldn't put it down!
My mother gave me this book.She said it was fascinating... it is more than that.As a parent of young children, I was struck by the carelessness of the authors parents who clearly live for themselves and themselves alone.Using their son to allow their togetherness.It is somewhat shocking to understand that such a young child would be witness to so much adult behavior and not at all shocking that the end result would be alcoholism and heroin addiction.The author is a gifted writer, you are laughing at pages and then stunned at the next turn.I loved this book and hope that the author continues his story.

Feel the Fever
The Secret Life Of Plants author hs a lot to answer for.The movie version of Tompkins' book inspired a bizarre soundtrack by Stevie Wonder that completely derailed Stevie's career; and now come PARADISE FEVER, which describes what living with Peter Tompkins was like for a lonely, self-absorbed young boy at the dawn of the 1970s.Ptolemy Tompkins knows how to write, and he paints an affectionate portrait of his "stupid" mother--she called herself "stupid" seemingly to prevent anyone else from calling her that, but actually she was smarter than her husband in lots of ways.And even the father comes in for some sympathy.But mostly it was a case of too much, too soon.Peter Tompkins did some brave things in World War II, in Rome, as a spy in exile, and he specialized in garnering factoids from old libraries like the Vatican or the Library of Congress.Soon enough he was leading the complete gonzo lifestyle, investing heavily in new age philosophy and the boon of free love.Betty Vreeland moved in, Ptolemy's mom moved out--though not far, because she ws often needed.Mom and Dad called the little boy "Ptolly," which was bad enough.

Though the book has some interesting things to say about the 1970s, Tompkins lets it get away with him, when it comes to describing how in later life he became addicted to heroin and to booze.Then a great chasm of self-pity yawns, and so, ultimately, does the reader.

Incredible Story
My husband and I rarely like the same books, but we both loved this one--the most amazing story of a childhood like no other. Reading this book is a bit like watching a car wreck; you can't turn away. (That's acompliment, if you can't tell.)

Hilarious, haunting, and crazily balanced
By turns hilarious and haunting, this memoir about growing up on the furtherest fringes of the New Age achieves a crazy kind of balance--a tilt-a-whirl balance. It's not a simply an expose of New Ageself-absorption and infantilism (though it certainly is that). It's writtenby someone trying to make sense of his own wacky childhood experience, andtrying to capture what was wonderful and not-so-wonderful about hisfantastical father. What comes through is the author's basic sanity. Theelder Tompkins is completely at home in the subterranean, labyrinthinebyways of the occult. The author isn't--for all his drug and alcohol abuse,his feet are planted in this world. What struck me was how his feelings andattitudes and speculations about his father seemed so universal.Improbably, I saw my own, completely average, un-New Age dad in the elderTompkins. The author gets at the essential mysteriousness of our fathers.

A great new-age bowel movement.
There was something about the present new-age movement that always bothered me but I couldn't nail what it was; Ptolemy didn't have this problem and he articulates my sentiments perfectly.The final chapter was life-changing for me.eerie.real. ... Read more

Product Description
This easy-to-follow book offers a statistico-geometrical approach for dating ancient star catalogs. The authors' scientific methods reveal statistical properties of ancient catalogs and overcome the difficulties of their dating originated by the low accuracy of these catalogs. Methods are tested on reliably dated medieval star catalogs and applied to the star catalog of the Almagest. Here, the dating of Ptolemy's famous star catalog is reconsidered and recalculated using modern mathematical techniques. The text provides necessary information from astronomy and astrometry. It also covers the history of observational equipment and methods for measuring coordinates of stars. Many chapters are devoted to the Almagest, from a preliminary analysis to a global statistical processing of the catalog and its basic parts.Mathematics are simplified in this book for easy reading. This book will prove invaluable for mathematicians, astronomers, astrophysicists, specialists in natural sciences, historians interested in mathematical and statistical methods, and second-year mathematics students.Features: ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

great book
Few years ago I was a student of chemistry department, Moscow State University. I am sure hat 80% of students from chemistry department read this book and found it genius. Do not believe people who says that this book lies about statistics, these authors are great mathematicians.

Tough but true
This book is for prepared reader only, but I share all ideas discussed in this book.

Star wars with history
With this book a known mathematician A.T.Fomenko presents his outrageous conception of world history. This book may be recommended only to the prepared reader, who is ready to trace every speculation and calculation ofthe authors to find absence of common sense.

To date the catalogue ofstars containing 1028 stars from Chapters VII and VIII of the Almagest, theauthors select on the basis of obscure criterion in contradiction with thelogic of astronomical observations, and the words of Ptolemy himself only 8stars of "informational kernel" as they call it. From these 8stars only one - Arcturus has pronounced proper motion. As the systematicalerrors in latitudes of all stars in Bootes is very large, the authorsobtain their X-th century. Than the authors select 18 observations of lunareclipses which are provided by Ptolemy in the Almagest. Ignoring theprecise dates and other information and taking only phases and separationsin years, they find 18 medieval eclipses from which one third could not beobserved at all in eastern hemisphere! After that they try to calculate 4occultations of planets and find 4 dates with absolutely enormous errors indegrees. This immediately raises the question on the acquaintance of theauthors with elementary technique of astronomical calculations. In onlymore or less appropriate date for Venus (but the calculations show that thedistance was still 50 times (!) more than given) during the"occultation" in 2 degrees the Sun was shining!

It seems thatthe authors have read the book "How To Lie With Statistics" - byDarrell Huff very attentively, unfortunately that can not be said about theworks of generations of scholars studying the Almagest. ... Read more

Product Description
Heir of Ptolemy son of Lagus, Alexander the Great's general (who took Egypt over in 323BC), Ptolemy II Philadelphus reigned in Alexandria from 282 to 246. The greatest of the Hellenistic kings of his time, Philadelphus exercised power far beyond the confines of Egypt, while at his glittering royal court the Library of Alexandria grew to be a matchless monument to Greek intellectual life. In Egypt, the Ptolemaic regime consolidated its power by encouraging immigration and developing settlement in the Fayum. This book examines Philadelphus' reign in a comprehensive and refreshing way. Scholars from the fields of Classics, Archaeology, Papyrology, Egyptology and Biblical Studies consider issues in Egypt and across Ptolemaic territory in the Mediterranean, the Holy Land and Africa. ... Read more

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Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : Carnegie Institution of WashingtonPublication date: 1915Subjects: StarsAstronomyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Dublin Printed for the author by Ponsonby and WeldrickPublication date: 1893Subjects: Ptolemy, 2nd centCartographyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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"Grasshoff presents a detailed study of the catalog starting with its history and then details the various controversies over the catalog from Tycho through Dreyer and R.R. Newton. His analysis considers such questions as precession and solar theory, the methods of observations, and the internal errors of the catalog. The author concludes that Hipparchus' observations were incorporated into the Ptolemaic catalog but that Ptolemy, in the absence of any understanding of how to treat errors of observation, selected from a variety of observations those that best fit his theory. Charts of all the Ptolemaic stars and a catalog of their modern identifications are given."-Choice

"The author's purpose is to lay to rest an argument which has blazed for several centuries, the question at issue being this: did or did not Ptolemy plagiarize (from Hipparchus) some of his data, and fabricate some of rest? The author begins with a detailed review of the history of the argument, turns then to a close examination of the data itself, and concludes that the charges which have been brought against Ptolemy are rooted in anachronism and in misunderstanding of his scientific objectives. One of several appendices provides modern identifications of the stars which appear on Ptolemy's list. Very carefully argued and produced, with detailed references, many figures. Sensible, useful...but quite unlikely to achieve its objective."-Book News ... Read more

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Ptolemy was the most important physical scientist of the Roman Empire, and for a millennium and a half his writings on astronomy, astrology, and geography were models for imitation, resources for new work, and targets of criticism. Ptolemy in Perspective traces reactions to Ptolemy from his own times to ours. The nine studies show the complex processes by which an ancient scientist and his work gained and subsequently lost an overreaching reputation and authority.

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Using methods developed by ancient Astrologers, Lee Lehman works to strengthen techniques used by Astrologers today. The task of Classical Astrology today is twofold: to recover these techniques and to evaluate and understand them within a modern context. She presents both techniques and the logic behind them to radically improve all Astrology, regardless of whether the practitioner chooses to adopt a Classical or Neo-Classical approach. She analyzes the charts of several famous people and events to demonstrate the techniques and their effectiveness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Classical Astrology for Modern Living
This book is not for beginners or people who are new to Astrology.If you are already conversant in the subject and want to broaden your knowledge of more classical methods of interpretation, then this is a good book.The author has a maddening habit of using rather technical terms like "Sidereal Zodiac" without pausing to explain what they mean.I bought this book in hopes I could read her other book, "Essential Dignities" where I found you're supposed to already know key concepts because she doesn't give any explanation of them whatsoever.But there's useful stuff in here on Astrological topics that are not very much in use nowadays, but probably should be.The book is a bit arcane, but for a serious student of Astrology, I would have to recommend it.

Thorough, balanced analysis of classical concepts
Very good value for money, written with depth and clarity. Even somewhat more ineresting overall than the other book, Essential Dignities. ... Read more

Product Description
For over a millennium and a half, Egypt was home to at least two commonly used languages of communication. Although this situation is by no means exceptional in the ancient and medieval worlds, the wealth of documentary sources preserved by Egypt's papyri makes the country a privileged observation ground for the study of ancient multilingualism. One of the greatest contributions of papyri to this subject is that they capture more linguistic registers than other ancient and medieval sources, since they range from very private documents not meant by their author to be read by future generations, to official documents produced by the administration, which are preserved in their original form. This collection of essays aims to make this wealth better known, as well as to give a diachronic view of multilingual practices in Egypt from the arrival of the Greeks as a political force in the country with Alexander the Great, to the beginnings of Abbasid rule when Greek, and slowly also Coptic, receded from the documentary record.The first section of the book gives an overview of the documentary sources for this subject, which for ancient history standards are very rich and as yet under-exploited. The second part contains several case studies from different periods that deal with language use in contexts of varying breadth and scope, from its the ritual use in magic or the liturgy to private letters and state administration. ... Read more

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This book examines, for the first time, the scientific procedures devised by Ptolemy (second century AD) for investigating the structures underlying musical melody, a project that he conceived as closely related to astronomy. Ptolemy's account of his methods is unusually explicit, and he pursues them faithfully. By providing an analysis of Ptolemy's sophisticated theoretical apparatus, his strategies for integrating theory with observation, and his meticulous instructions for the design and conduct of experimental tests, the book offers historians of science a new starting-point for wider studies of ancient scientific method. ... Read more

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This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1902 edition by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., London. ... Read more

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Publisher: London : Kegan Paul, Trench, TrübnerPublication date: 1902Subjects: Egypt -- History To 640 A.DEgypt -- AntiquitiesNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Science of Foreknowledge, by Sepharial . To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597172. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more