quote · Source-linked selection
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.
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.
Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Leonardo da Vinci
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1486 AD · medieval
author lifetime midpoint (1452–1519); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Thoughts on Art and Life (1906 English edition) (1906 AD)
Thoughts on Science, complete printed unit 35; Maurice Baring translation; Boston: The Merrymount Press,1906
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Represented by the complete source-numbered selections in Thoughts on Art and Life, Maurice Baring’s1906English translation, edited by Lewis Einstein. The catalogue records1452–1519; the historical collection is a selection from notebooks, not a continuous book composed by Leonardo or independent authentication of every attributed passage.
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