Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/191

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must be greater than the opaque body which causes it.

35.

Measure how many times the diameter of the sun will go into its course in twenty-four hours. And thus we can see whether Epicurus was correct in saying the sun was only as large as it appeared to be; for as the apparent diameter of the sun is about a foot, and as the sun would go a thousand times into its course in twenty-four hours, it would have travelled a thousand feet, that is, three hundred arms' length, which is the sixth of a mile. Thus the course of the sun during twenty-four hours would have been the sixth part of a mile, and this venerable snail, the sun, would have travelled twenty-five arms' length in an hour.

36.

They say that the sun is not hot because it is not the colour of fire but whiter and clearer. And the answer to this is that when molten bronze is hottest it resembles the colour of the sun, and when it is less hot it has the colour of fire.

37.

It is proved that the sun is by nature hot and not cold, as has already been stated. If rays of fire play on a concave mirror when it is cold, the rays refracted by the mirror will be hotter than

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