Robert Russell Newton, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Robert Russell Newton

American astronomer

Date of Birth: 07-Jul-1918

Place of Birth: Tennessee, United States

Date of Death: 02-Jun-1991

Profession: astronomer, physicist, historian

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Robert Russell Newton, also R.
R.
Newton (July 7, 1918 – June 2, 1991) was an American physicist, astronomer, and historian of science. Newton was Supervisor of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.
He was known for his book The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy (1977).
In Newton's view, Ptolemy was "the most successful fraud in the history of science".
Newton showed that Ptolemy had predominantly obtained the astronomical results described in his work The Almagest by computation, and not by the direct observations that Ptolemy described. Distrust of Ptolemy's observations goes back at least as far as doubts raised in the 16th century by Tycho Brahe and in the 18th Century by Delambre.
Arthur Berry made similar remarks in about 1899.
R.
R.
Newton also made a charge of conscious falsification. Newton was also known for his work on change of the rotation rate of the earth, and historical observations of eclipses.