Diurnal motion

“ And by considering their daily anticipation in rising and setting, together with the sun’s annual rising and falling in its noon day height, swiftest about the middle space, and stationary for some time when highest and lowest, he would be led to explain the whole by attributing a slow motion to the sun, contrary to the diurnal motion, along a great circle dividing the heavens into two equal parts, but obliquely situated with respect to the diurnal motion. ”

“ This perspective theory demands that the radiant point of a shower of meteors should rise, culminate and set by the earth's diurnal motion, precisely as the sun, or a star, rises, culminates and sets. ”

“ For if in length of time they should perceive some small retardation in the diurnal motion of a planet, occasioned by some resistance of a very subtle medium in which the heavenly bodies perhaps move, or, on the other hand, if there should be found an acceleration from some cause or other, they might then ascribe the alteration either to the diurnal motion of the earth, or to the gyration of the other planet, according as circumstances, or observed phenomena, should make one or the other of these opinions most probable. ”

“ Most of the appearances of the diurnal revolution can be explained, either on the supposition that the celestial sphere actually turns around the earth once in twenty-four hours, or that this motion of the heavens is merely apparent, arising from the revolution of the earth on its axis, in the opposite direction,—a motion of which we are insensible, as we sometimes lose the consciousness of our own motion in a ship or steam-boat, and observe all external objects to be receding from us, with a common motion. ”

“ The sun's diurnal motion arises from the earth's rotation on its axis from west to east in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and four seconds, the mean or equal time which elapses between the two consecutive meridian-transits of the same fixed star. ”

“ The Moon & the Earth, then, agree together in a double proportion of motion; & the Earth moves in the space of twenty-four hours, in its diurnal motion; because the Moon has a motion proportional to the Earth, but the Earth a motion agreeing with the lunar motion in a nearly double proportion. ”

“ Daily is not, however, held strictly to this use; a physician makes daily visits if he calls at some time within each period of twenty-four hours. Diurnal is more exact in all its uses; a diurnal flower opens or blooms only in daylight; a diurnal bird or animal flies or ranges only by day: in contradistinction to nocturnal flowers, birds, etc. A diurnal motion exactly fills an astronomical day or the time of one rotation of a planet on its axis, while a daily motion is much less definite. ”

“ Except this great diurnal motion, the vast majority 22of the bodies on the celestial sphere have no other movement easily recognisable, and certainly none which it is necessary for us to consider at present. ”

“ Only because you yourself undergo change more quickly than they. When you look at the clouds sweeping across the face of the moon, they seem to be at rest, and the moon in rapid motion; but, in fact, the clouds, as well as the moon, incessantly move on. ”

“ There is not a stone, not a leaf, not a cloud, over which light is not felt to be actually passing and palpitating before our eyes. There is the motion, the actual wave and radiation of the darted beam—not the dull universal daylight, which falls on the landscape without life, or direction, or speculation, equal on all things and dead on all things ”

“ The gleaming sun, so rounded in glowing calmness as he gently circles across the vaulted sky, is a raging mass of countless millions boiling, dashing, burning jets, in any one of which fiery Vesuvius would be lost as a dim spark. Myriads of starry spheres flecking the midnight sky, are mighty suns tortured by inconceivable convulsions. Far off beyond them the telescopic lens dips up from limitless space countless suns, all boiling, roaring and raging in unending, monstrous motion.
Motion evolves change. Change goes on everywhere, declares science! ”

“ WHEN we raise our eyes to the heavens on a clear night, thousands of bright objects claim our attention. We observe that all these objects move as if they were fastened to the inside of an invisible sphere. They are seen gradually ascending from the east, passing across the south, and in due course sinking towards the west. The sun and the moon, as well as all the other bodies, alike participate in this great diurnal movement. ”

“ Night, or sleeping—The head, with the eyes closed, is laterally inclined for a moment upon the hand. As many times as this is repeated, so many nights are indicated; very frequently the sign of the sun is traced over the heavens, from east to west, to indicate the lapse of a day, and precedes the motion ”

“ For myriads of years humanity has thus been flying by night. How did the fancied motion, having so little in common with any experience of active life, become a universal experience of the life of sleep?
It may be that memory-impressions of certain kinds of aerial motion,—exultant experiences of leaping or swinging, for example,—are in dream-revival [Pg 230] so magnified and prolonged as to create the illusion of flight. We know that in actual time the duration of most dreams is very brief. ”

“ From what has been previously said, it is evident that the sun has a twofold apparent motion—viz., a circular motion obliquely ascending from the horizon, which is explained by the rotation of the earth, and by our position, o, to the earth’s axis, p p ́, and also by a rising and setting motion between the solstitial points, S and S ́, which causes the inequality of the days and nights. ”

“ Every man who believes in the diurnal rotation of the earth, ordinarily speaks of sunrise and sunset. Can it be advanced as a serious argument against the existence of this rotation that the very language used disproves the theory? ”

“ The earth's diurnal rotation on its axis, its annual revolution in its orbit, and the moon's course in aecompanying the earth, are all wheels or orbits of God, which drop fatness, or produce fertility in the earth. ”

“ Surely, M'Allister, you must have forgotten that night is brought about by the earth's rotation on its axis, and that the part which is turned away from the sun is in darkness because its light is hidden by the solid body of the earth, while the earth's shadow darkens all the sky. When, by the earth's rotation, that part is again turned to the sun then it becomes daylight. ”

“ It is not surprising that that steady, rhythmical rise and fall suggested to some imaginative minds the breathing of a mighty animal. And even when man first became aware of the fact that this regular movement was somehow associated with the moon, was he much nearer an explanation? What bond could exist between the movements of that distant world and the diurnal variation of the waters of the earth? ”

“ At night the moon hung in the starless sky like a globe of blood, and day by day the dimness of the air increased. The cloud took no form of cloud, and not a sound came through it except for the voice of the water, and the occasional roll and clangour of the trains. ”

“ A change in the time of her diurnal rotation, as affecting the length of the day and night, must at once be followed by a corresponding modification of the periodicities of the nervous system of animals; a change in her orbitual translation round the sun, as determining the duration of the year, would, in like manner, give rise to a marked effect. If the year were shorter, we should live faster and die sooner. ”

“ Were we from the darkness of night at once exposed to the luminous rays of the Sun, it would dazzle our eyes and render them unfit to distinguish a single object.—It is only by a gradual transition from darkness to light that we are able to accustom our eyes to the brilliancy of noon. ”

“ For, I ask, since “day” declares not the stay only of the sun upon the earth, according to which day is one thing, night another, but also its entire circuit from east even to east,—according to which we say, “So many days have passed” (the nights being included when we say “so many days,” and their spaces not counted apart) ,—since, then, the day is finished by the motion of the sun, and by his circuit from east to east, I ask, whether the motion itself is the day, or the period in which that motion is completed, or both? ”

“ If the Lord of the terme of the Moon, and the Lord of the house of the Moon be increasing [To encrease in motion is, whenas lately a Planet had moved slowly, and now encreases his motion, or moves more quick; to encrease in number is, when the day subsequent he is found to have moved more minutes then the day or dayes preceding.] ”

“ With the approach of morning the air grows cooler, and slumber comes,—a slumber of exhaustion, dreamless and sickly; and perhaps when you would rise with the sun you feel such a dizziness, such a numbness, such a torpor, that only by the most intense effort can you keep your feet for the first five minutes. You experience a sensation that recalls the poet's fancy of death-in-life, or old stories of sudden rising from the grave: it is as though all the electricity of will had ebbed away,—all the vital force evaporated, in the heat of the night.... ”

“ By what way is the light parted in the morning, when, in an instant, it shoots itself into all the parts of the air above the horizon, as if the morning light flew upon the wings of an east wind, so swiftly, so strongly, is it carried, scattering the darkness of the night, as the east wind does the clouds? ”

“ And though the wind should cease for intervals of many months, we may have by the same power a uniform perpetual motion in a very simple way.”
“The weight of a clock being wound up gives us an image of reaction. ”

“ Every hour differs from the last. There is a time just between three o’clock and five when all the vibrations of the earth change. It seems the good-bye of the night and the awakening of the day. Day holds night in some subtle, lingering embrace that will not let go until the very gray of the dawn drives the reluctant darkness from the earth. ”

“ We have returned, at least in an astronomical sense, to the budding, happy, radiant spring; the sun, in its apparent course, crosses the equinoctial line; the duration of the day, transiently equal to that of the night, will augment in proportion as the great luminary describes above our horizon greater and yet greater arcs of a circle. Yet this is not the budding, happy, radiant spring of the poets. No, if it be spring according to the law of universal gravitation, it is winter still by the law of life. ”

“ Since the Earth herself would not choose to endure this so miserable and horrid appearance on both her faces, she, by her magnetick astral genius, revolves in an orbit, that by a perpetual change of light there may be a perpetual alternation of things, heat and cold, risings and settings, day and night, morn and eve, noon and midnight. ”

“ I knew that in a few minutes it would be—not dawn, but daylight. Because of its light atmospheric envelope there is no true twilight, or dawn on Mars. The sun just suddenly waxes into brightness in about the same length of time as it takes the glow in a television tube to wane into darkness. And so, in a few minutes, I would see my companion for the first time. ”

“ By the dispersive powers of this medium, sunlight is converted into daylight; and instead of unbearable, parallel rays illuminating brilliantly, and scorching up with heat those parts upon which they directly fall, leaving all other parts in the darkness of night, we enjoy the blessings of a diffusion of its rays, and experience the beauties of soft shades and slowly-deepening shadows. Without an atmosphere, the sun of the morning would burst upon us with unbearable brilliancy, and leave us suddenly, at the close of day, at once in utter darkness. ”

“ It is induced action on every plane, and that thing which does not move into radiant life it kills by the force of its own surging rays.
The moonlight, starlight and midnight are the great receptive forces and in their passive action something falls like a soft mantle over the tired life of the world,–no work at night can take on the wear and tear of the day to those who are in harmony with the forces of the hours. ”

“ But if the stimulation which this light exerts be added to the strong stimulus of daylight, we feel nothing of it, although we feel it distinctly when it unites itself with the feebler stimulation of the twilight. ”

“ The gradual transition from the light of day to the darkness of the night, and from the darkness of the night to the light of day, is called twilight, and is due to the diffusion of light from the upper layers of the atmosphere after the sun has ceased to shine on the lower layers at night, or before it has begun to shine on them in the morning. ”

“ Nor should we omit the harmony between the motion and phenomena of the moon, and their effects on lower bodies, which may be brought together by an accurate and honest selection from the experiments of agriculture, navigation, and medicine, or of other sciences. ”

“ Neither can I see reason to believe, that every motion or position of the heavenly bodies has a special signification in it: though serving in general to display the wisdom and power of God, in their regular courses. The sun, indeed, which is called the greater light, is said to rule the day, as it is by the appearance of his light, increasing and decreasing, that we measure the length of the day; and the moon likewise to rule the night, partly on the like account. ”

“ When once the sun has come near enough to the zenith, and remains above the horizon long enough, to give more warmth during one diurnal rotation than the counteracting cause, the earth’s radiation, can carry off, the mere continuance of the cause would progressively increase the effect, even if the sun came no nearer and the days grew no longer ”