Talk:Q935

Dates of birth and death

For reference:

• Julian: 25 December 1642 - 20 March 1726 (Annunciation style, year begins 25 March)
• Julian: 25 December 1642 - 20 March 1727 (modern style, year begins 1 January)
• Gregorian: 4 January 1643 - 31 March 1727

This page explains the time datatype Special:ListDatatypes

Modified 01:36 UT 11 September 2015 Jc3s5h

Country of citizenship

The value given for country of citizenship (P27) is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which, if I understand correctly, did not even exist yet. Does anyone know what the actual country of citizenship was, if any? --Yair rand (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Wrong birth and death dates

Since the Julian calendar was in effect in England while Newton was alive, his birth and death dates are normally stated in that calendar. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/newton_isaac.shtml

However, Wikidata gives dates in the Gregorian calendar. In the Gregorian calendar Newton was born 14 January 1643 and died 11 April 1727. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

As per enwiki: At Newton's birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus his birth is recorded as taking place on 25 December 1642 Old Style, but can be converted to a New Style (modern) date of 4 January 1643. By the time of his death, the difference between the calendars had increased to eleven days: moreover, he died in the period after the start of the New Style year on 1 January, but before that of the Old Style new year on 25 March. His death occurred on 20 March 1726 according to the Old Style calendar, but the year is usually adjusted to 1727. A full conversion to New Style gives the date 31 March 1727. I have corrected the entry. Periglio (talk) 05:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Priglio's birth/death date edits are wrong. For example, consider this edit. Notice the date/time after the change:

+00000001642-12-25T00:00:00Z

Be aware that ISO 8601 dates and Wikidata date/time objects are ALWAYS in the Gregorain calendar. Wikidata now states that Isaac Newton was born 25 December 1642 of the Gregorian calendar, which is false. The user interface for viewing data items is broken, so it puts "Julian" next to the Gregorian date without converting the Gregorian date. Nonetheless, the stored date is wrong. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted for now. Can you point me in the direction where I can read more about the broken viewer. Periglio (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

It appears you have reverted the birth date change but not the death date change.

As for the broken viewer, I am unable to recall where that has been discussed. But if you look at the proposal for date of birth you should find that it is further documented at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/DataModel under the "Dates and times" heading. There you will see exactly is stored in the database. By comparing these components of the TimeValue structure to what you see in a diff, you can tell what is being changed and what it means. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

All dates were reverted, For me, they show (4 January 1643 Julian & 31 March 1727 Julian) which are the correct Gregorian dates according to Wikipedia. Thanks for the links Periglio (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I just realised you have been quoting 11 April as a death date which seems to have been converted to Gregorian twice. For reference, I have added what I believe to be the correct dates to the top of this page. As it is a bit of trivia that Newton was born on Christmas day, I am sure this is not the first time the dates will be changed! Periglio (talk) 06:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘User:Succu has reinstated the false information with https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q935&diff=next&oldid=189346608

Jc3s5h (talk) 09:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Julian or Gregorian

I have reverted the last reversion! I suggest we keep this as Gregorian until Julian dates are handled correctly. Periglio (talk) 09:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Religion

Since various editors have added conflicting claims about Newton's religion, and none have added a reference to support their claim, I have removed all claims about religion and will continue to do so until a reliable source is included to support whatever claim might be added. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Newton was an antitrinitarian heretic, see en:Isaac Newton#Religious views. en:WP:RANDY should not change it back to Anglicanism, Netwon hated the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church. He considered that Triniarianism was the pus which infected Christianity and he thought that Church Fathers were like murderers. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:00, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Newton was born into the Anglican church and publicly conformed to it. At about thirty, he convinced himself that Trinitarianism was a fraud and that Arianism was the true form of primitive Christianity. Newton held these views, very privately, until the end of his life. On his death bed he refused to receive the sacrament of the Anglican church.

—galileo.rice.edu

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:15, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I won't give the links here for copyright concerns, but at YouTube you may watch BBC documentaries upon Newton's Antitrinitarianism. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Anti-Trinitarianism was illegal. It was outlawed. In principle, you could be put to death for it. This was a dreadful secret that Newton was at desperate pains to conceal all his life.

Quoted from Isaac Newton: The Last Magician, BBC, 2013. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Very early in life Newton abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity. At this time the Socinians were an important Arian sect amongst intellectual circles. It may be that Newton fell under Socinian influences, but I think not. He was rather a Judaic monotheist of the school of Maimonides. He arrived at this conclusion, not on so-to-speak rational or sceptical grounds, but entirely on the interpretation of ancient authority. He was persuaded that the revealed documents give no support to the Trinitarian doctrines which were due to late falsifications. The revealed God was one God.

—Keynes, 1946

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Saying that Newton was an Anglican is same as saying that Richard Sorge was a Nazi. I mean he behaved like one; he had to. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:59, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

No need to restore country of citizenship (P27)

The same as Pope Francis has no country of citizenship (P27) field (because he is not married and he is not supposed to marry in the future), Isaac Newton does not need it (because he was not married and he is not supposed to marry in the future). Xabier Armendaritz (talk) 16:21, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I think you mean P26, but "novalue" is the correct way to express it. Please don't change it. Pope Francis doesn't have a statement as he is still alive.
--- Jura 17:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Reference removed due to web attack

I have removed the reference for the date of birth that cited the website that contained, as part of the domain, "heritage-history", because Norton Security Suite reported an intrusion attempt when I clicked the link. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:00, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

thesis

Of course, Newton has no thesis and no director of thesis (nor phd students). Totally anachronic and meaningless. The use of the website math genealogy for people before the 20th century has been discussed several times. --Cgolds (talk) 19:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@Cgolds: Really? When? Where? I doubt Newton (Q65971487) Is notable according to WD:N. --Succu (talk) 21:35, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

It is notable among historians of science and academics, as a real source, professional and serious, yes. I could have quoted any recent biography of Newton by a professional historian of science. Now, the WD:N-notability question of having an element for this Newton (Q65971487) : well, as far as I understand, sources/references for data are to be created as elements : this is the case 3 for the creation of elements explained here. If I am wrong, sorry, but then how do we enter serious references for data (most of them are in books, still) ? As far as Newton is concerned, the issue was not that Barrow could have been his phd advisor (nothing like that), but that he could or not have been his teacher (!). The reference I gave explains why it has been discredited. Mathematics Genealogy mixes all these things for earlier authors, but WD has master/student as well as phd advisor/phd student and there is a difference between these two couples of properties. As far as Math Genealogy is concerned, see for instance [1]. All the best, --Cgolds (talk) 22:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I support the removal of the thesis directions as well. MathGen is rather accurate for recent times but largely unusable before the 20th century for the reasons recalled by Cgolds : the wide majority of academic genealogies before 1900 do not link doctoral student with doctoral supervisor, simply because the direction of thesis did not exist or was very different. Besides, in numerous case the student/master link is far from well established. Clearly MathGen was never meant to be an authoritative historical database but a community service for several scientific disciplines. Here, the right approach would be to combine student of (P1066) with sourcing circumstances (P1480) whenever the source casts some doubts (this is apparently the case here). Alexander Doria (talk) 23:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can tell Newton was student of (P1066) of Benjamin Pulleyn (Q2893710). And the role of Isaac Barrow (Q207718) was that of a patron (maybe patron of the arts (Q15472169)?). --Succu (talk) 18:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

What about using significant person (P3342) with qualifier about his role? --Infovarius (talk) 11:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

A strange property. Is Robert Hooke (Q46830) a significant person (P3342) to Isaac Newton (Q935) or is the reversal true? Maybe both? --Succu (talk) 21:25, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, I suppose yes, in this direction at least. Robert Hooke (Q46830) has founded inverse-squares law which leads Isaac Newton (Q935) to the world fame. --Infovarius (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Regarding inverse-square law (Q333094), Infovarius, what exactly is your point. --Succu (talk)

No doctoral advisor

Hello Succu! Cgolds added several information about the doctoral advisor but you have reverted these information indicating "doubtful source". Could you be more precise? From my opinion, this source is fully reliable. At least much more than the genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu website that states that "Barrow was NOT a formal advisor but probably had the greatest influence on the young Newton". Pamputt (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

See above. --Succu (talk) 05:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Succu: this is not an answer! For now, there is 3 people saying that the MGP is not a good source (and from experience, this source is often not fully reliable) and that Newton (Q65971487) is a good reference. Without more argument or explanation, your revert seems unjustified. Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 06:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I do not speak French. My jugdement (doubtful source) was based on this version which leads me to this web page. --Succu (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I still do not see why it could be considered as a doubtful source. Anyway, I restored the Cgolds information. Pamputt (talk) 08:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

@Pamputt: Newton never graduated. The highest degree he obtaint was that of a B.A. So what is the sense of this statements, especially doctoral advisor (P184) = novalue. --Succu (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

The meaning is that one source claims that he has never had any doctoral advisor. Because this information is debated, this is an useful information. Pamputt (talk) 19:17, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

It seems that we are speaking of two different things. The "content" : Newton had no Ph D advisor. I gave a (serious) source for this, in fact the source even says that Barrow was not his teacher (which apparently was the reason why Math Genealogy put this name as Ph advisor in the first place!). Now, the second thing : what to do on Wikidata with this ? Well, two weeks ago, I would simply have erased the "Barrow" as phd advisor (and the whole property, which is meaningless for Newton). In your last answer, Suru, it seems that you proposed this. I would be delighted, but I tried to do exactly this for an analogous case (the mathematician Charles Hermite, no thesis at all either) and I was told that I should put this as "obsolete" and certainly not delete it. Ok, but I also tried to put something which would alert people that there cannot be any correct, up-to-date, answer (ergo the "no value" and the source). Personally, if I had a free choice, I would say "phD advisor" should NEVER been used for people before, say 1800 (perhaps 1750) and only carefully after, under certain constraints. Quite frankly, I think more generally that there is a problem of anachronisms with several properties and this is something which should be solved one day. If somebody knows the real correct solution for this discussion on Newton, I shall be happy to use it instead of what I tried to do, and to apologize for my mistake. But at the moment, the incorrect "Barrow" appeared on the Infobox on WP-fr and this is really bad. All the best, --Cgolds (talk) 20:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Maybe adding reason for deprecated rank (P2241) to the deprecated value would be of some help. For Newton (Q65971487) having page(s) (P304) would give some more confidence. Having quotation (P1683) on both could clarify why we have this situation. --Succu (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Sir Isaac Newton

I have carefully read Help: Aliases. It says nowhere that a name preceded or followed by title or function should (could) be included in the aliases. Please be more precise about the location of this implication if I am mistaken. --Sapphorain (talk) 09:07, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

No. I understand very well that « John W. Smith » can be an alias for «  John Smith ». But Help:Aliases, very correctly, doesn’t suggest in any way that « Mr John Smith » (or «  Dr John Smith », or « John Smith, Esq. » ) can be. This would indeed be quite ridiculous. But I will not fight for this, against an apparent majority of contributors, who don’t even want to look in a dictionary for a correct definition, who have decided once and for all that « alias » means « related to », and who threaten those that don’t agree. --Sapphorain (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2021 (UTC)