Isaac Newton

[Jim Eshelman]

(In response to a question about contradictory information on Isaac Newton's birth time.)

He was born January 4, 1643 NS, Colsterworth, England (specifically Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England, 52N48'35'', 0W37'43''). Solar Fire comes preloaded with what they classify as B data, a 2:05 AM birth time credited to Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer by Michael White, as saying, "Sometime soon after 2 a.m. on Christmas morning..." (This would be Local Apparent Time, i.e., sundial time. LMT didn't come in for almost 200 years.

Retracing your steps through Astro.com, we see that Arthur Blackwell quoted F. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, as "born an hour or two after midnight" (suggesting approximately 1 AM until approximately 2 AM, kinda sorta: This is exactly the same as Ebertin saying "between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM). Arthur rectified this to 1:38 AM, but I'm not really interested in the rectification, just the sourced times. Similarly, I don't care about Starkman's rectification for an hour later than Blackwell's.

I don't see much difference here. We have two biographical sources. One, from 1968, says "about an hour or two after midnight" and another from 1997 says "sometime soon after 2:00 AM.) I don't know which is right. If both of these books are scholarly, one usually finds that a newer, later work either copies the best information from the past or introduces new documentary findings. I don't know whether these are scholarly books or what sources they used. However, Amazon claims that, "Michael White was a science lecturer and director of studies at... Oxford for ten years before becoming a full-time writer and journalist. He is the co-author (with John Gribben) of the best seller, Stephen Hawking: A Life In Science... He is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, GQ, Focus and New Scientist, writing on subjects ranging from pure science to music." He probably understands proper research methods.

Were one to go by logic (which isn't always the best clue to birth times), the 1997 item is both later and more specific. ("Shortly after 2" is a more specific subset of "an hour or two after midnight.") One might be inclined to trust this on principle, though we don't know if it's correct.

[Jim Eshelman]

Were I to pick a starting place, then, I'd say he was born January 4, 1643 NS, Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England, 52N48'35'', 0W37'43'', reportedly soon after 2 a.m. on Christmas morning (LAT). At 2:00 AM LAT, Sun would be 30°00' in RA earlier than IC (150°00' greater RA than MC).

At 2:00 AM LMT, Sun was RA 284°53', so at 2:00 AM LAT we'd expect an RAMC of 134°53'. The RAMC of the 2:00 AM LMT chart is 133°28', or 1°25', so (to the nearest minute) we need to add 6 minutes to LMT to get the equivalent LAT.

Therefore, being born "soon after 2 AM" LAT means he was born "soon after" 2:06 AM LMT - whatever "soon after" means. (For example, would 12 minutes later still be "soon after"? Probably. That's when Uranus squared MC. But I shouldn't speculate without events.)