Somebody Ought to Write a Poem for Ptolemy
Somebody ought to write a poem for Ptolemy,
So ingenious in being wrong, he was almost a poet.
Can anyone follow his configurations?
How he cut a tortured path for every planet
Until his numbers matched what he could see,
Every one spectacularly wrong.
You would think, in all those years of calculations,
He would, at least, have suspected a simpler way,
Maybe he even knew it all along--
The stationary sun, ellipses, everything--
But kept it to himself as too unseemly
Or to save his pregnant wife from all that spinning
And wait beside her in a quiet place
That he, himself, had rendered motionless.
I am giving a presentation on this poem tomorrow for my literature class, was wondering if any Steemians had any thoughts/questions regarding this poem. It's always good to hear new viewpoints.
My understanding of the poem is that Jacqueline Osherow mentions Ptolemy to warn against ignorance which can even afflict a brilliant scholar like Ptolemy. Ptolemy created an extremely detailed model of the universe according to the prevailing theory that the Earth was the center of the universe. Not much is known about Ptolemy beyond his writings, which summarize astronomical knowledge around 100AD. Osherow mentions Ptolemy to illustrate the length that one man will go to preserve his understanding of the world, thereby depicting how ignorance can lead to a lifetime of wasted potential.
Would love to discuss this if anyone has different ideas please comment them I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!