FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • More 'Parallax' Quotes from Famous Books

... had been ignorant of the mode in which the distance which separates the moon from the earth is calculated. They took advantage of this fact to explain to them that this distance was obtained by measuring the parallax of the moon. The term parallax proving "caviare to the general," they further explained that it meant the angle formed by the inclination of two straight lines drawn from either extremity of the earth's radius to the moon. On doubts being expressed ...

— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... saves himself by flight. There is, to be sure, an arcanum of prosodic theory which is the province of specialists. It has its place in the scheme of things; but it is no more necessary for the genuine enjoyment of Milton (or the 'moderns') than a knowledge of the formulae for calculating the parallax of Alpha Leonis is necessary for enjoying the pillared firmament. We must then compromise with a system which reveals the existence of all the phenomena and tries to suggest their ...

— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... space &c 180; remoteness, farness^, far- cry to; longinquity^, elongation; offing, background; remote region; removedness^; parallax; reach, span, stride. outpost, outskirt; horizon; aphelion; foreign parts, ultima Thule [Lat.], ne plus ultra [Lat.], antipodes; long range, giant's stride. dispersion &c 73. [units of distance] length &c 200. cosmic distance, ...

— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... years he assisted his father in teaching the parish-school at Jedburgh, and in the evenings he went to Inchbonny to study astronomy with James Veitch, who always called him Davie. They were as much puzzled about the meaning of the word parallax as I had been with regard to the word algebra, and only learnt what it meant when Brewster went to study for the kirk in Edinburgh. They were both very devout; nevertheless, Brewster soon gave up the kirk for science, and he devoted himself especially ...

— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... was a very brilliant object, equal to Venus at its brightest for the rest of November, not falling below the first magnitude for another four months, and remaining visible for more than a year afterwards. Tycho wrote a little book on the new star, maintaining that it had practically no parallax, and therefore could not be, as some supposed, a comet. Deeming authorship beneath the dignity of a noble he was very reluctant to publish, but he was convinced of the importance of increasing the number and accuracy of ...

— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... measuring does not, however, take us very far away in the heavens. There are only a few hundred stars within five hundred trillion miles of the earth, and at that distance the "shift" of a star against the background (parallax, the astronomer calls it) is so minute that figures are very uncertain. At this point the astronomer takes up a new method. He learns the different types of stars, and then he is able to deduce more or less accurately the distance of a star of a known type from ...

— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... of the observer, and is then called parallactic motion, or it may be caused by a real motion of the star. From the parallactic motion of the star it is possible to deduce its distance from the sun, or its parallax. The periodic parallactic proper motion is caused by the motion of the earth around the sun, and gives the annual parallax ([pi]). In order to obtain available annual parallaxes of a star it is usually necessary for the star ...

— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier

... Bevis to Mr. Witchell, the latter gentleman compared it with an observation at Oxford, by the Rev. Mr. Hornsby, on the same eclipse, and thence computed the difference of longitude respecting the places of observation, making due allowance for the effect of parallax, and the prolate spheroidal figure of the earth. It appears from the Transactions that our navigator had already obtained the character ...

— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... is involved. For such, a different geometry may and will be applicable; but for the tridimensional conditions of our activity the proposition is necessary and absolute. No measurement of any stellar parallax, however minute and whatever the result might be, could have any bearing on its truth. Geometry is the science of the pure forms of our motor activity amidst ...

— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... well?—increase the difference between aphelion and perihelion, and give those that still like a changing climate a chance, while incidentally we should see more of the world—I mean the solar system—and, by enlarging the parallax, be able to measure the distance of a greater number of fixed stars. Put your helm hard down and shout 'Hard-a-lee!' You see, there is nothing simpler. You keep her off now, and six months hence you let ...

— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... determined the place of the sun's apogee as well as its mean motion. Their calculations on the eccentricity of the moon prove that they had a rectilinear trigonometry and tables of chords. They had an approximate knowledge of parallax; they could calculate eclipses of the moon, and use them for the correction of their lunar tables. They understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of predicting eclipses; they ascertained ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... altitude is still tolerably rapid, and, therefore, not later than 10 o'clock—take an altitude of the sun, an assistant, at the same moment, marking the time shown by the watch. The altitude so observed being properly corrected for refraction, parallax, &c., will, together with the latitude of the place, and the sun's declination, taken from the Nautical Almanac, enable us to calculate the time. This will be the solar or apparent time, that is, the ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... astronomers differed in an argument on the parallax of a lyrae—the one maintaining that it was three seconds, and the other that it was only two seconds. On being told of this discussion, and that the astronomers parted without arriving at an agreement, Plunket quietly remarked: "It must be a very serious quarrel ...

— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... recorded by reading off at short intervals of time the position of the glass filament on the graduated arc. In order [page 332] to avoid errors of parallax, all readings were made by looking through a small ring painted on the vertical glass, in a line with the joint of the leaflet and the centre of the graduated arc. In the following diagrams the ordinates represent the angles which the leaflet made with ...

— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... energy, seldom averse to enlightenment, and all professing to seek nothing else. When men of these qualities, aiming at the same or a like object, meet to compare their respective admeasurements of its parallax made from as many different points, they cannot fail to approach accuracy. Faith is a first element in all great undertakings. It removes mountains at Mont Cenis, as it walked the waves with Columbus. In our century even faith is progressive, and does not shrink from elbowing ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax,[211] without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary ...

— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Witchell, the latter gentleman compared it with an observation at Oxford, by the Rev. Mr. Hornsby, on the same eclipse, and thence computed the difference of longitude respecting the places of observation, making due allowance for the effect of parallax, and the prolate spheroidal figure of the earth. It appears from the Transactions that our navigator had already obtained the character of being ...

— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... to the Atheneum at 9.30, and having decided that I would take the Newark and Cambridge places of the comet, and work them up, I did so, getting to the three equations before I went home to dinner at 12.30. I omitted the corrections of parallax and aberrations, not intending to get more than a rough approximation. I find to my sorrow that they do not agree with those from my own observations. I shall look ...

— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... remained fixed, had he drifted away from her. Albert felt this. However painful his emotion was, as he sat there casting furtive glances at Helen's face, there was no regret that all relation between them was broken forever. He was not sorry for the meeting. He needed such a meeting to measure the parallax of his progress and her stagnation. He needed this impression of Helen to obliterate the memory of the row-boat. She was no longer to remain in his mind associated with the blessed memory of little ...

— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... sliding domes, in each of which is an equatorial sector, made by Sisson, and a clock, by Arnold, with a three-barred pendulum, which are seldom used but for observing comets. The celebrated Dry-well, which was made to observe the earth's annual parallax, and for seeing the stars in the day-time, is situated near the south-east corner of the garden, behind the Observatory, but has been arched over, the great improvements in telescopes having long rendered it unnecesary. ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... continual spray thrown up by the dashing of the water, and when the sun shines the figure of a rainbow may be seen through it. Sometimes there are two or three of them to be seen, one above the other, according to the brightness of the sun and its parallax. There was now more water than usual in consequence of its having rained hard for several days, and the snow water having begun to run down from the ...

— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... called in the Zend, the Sanscrit, and the Chinese ven, van, and phen) of 180 years by another period of 144 years;—who reckoned the sun's distance from the earth at 800,000,000 of Olympic stadia; and who must, therefore, have taken the parallax of that luminary by a method, not only much more perfect than that said to be invented by Hipparchus, but little inferior in exactness to that now in use among the moderns;—who could scarcely have made a mere guess when they fixed the moon's distance from its primary planet ...

— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... calling us up he began with the A's, following down the class in alphabetic regularity. While Brooks was reciting, it was easy for Brown, sitting next, to open his book, and calculating narrowly the parallax, to hold it concealed below the rail, while he diligently conned the page following. In his turn he rose well-primed, and spouted glibly, and so on down the class. Rumour went that our childlike professor declared ...

— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... the parallax of Arcturus," Leigh explained. "The atmosphere is clearer in winter, ...

— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... having perceived that instead of one there are two concentric rings separated by a dark space. He also discovered four of the planet's satellites—viz. Japetus, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys. He made a near approximation to the solar parallax by means of researches on the parallax of Mars, and investigated some irregularities of the Moon's motion. Cassini discovered the belts of Jupiter, and also the Zodiacal Light, and established the coincidence of the nodes of the lunar equator ...

— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... Veitch; in his early years he assisted his father in teaching the parish-school at Jedburgh, and in the evenings he went to Inchbonny to study astronomy with James Veitch, who always called him Davie. They were as much puzzled about the meaning of the word parallax as I had been with regard to the word algebra, and only learnt what it meant when Brewster went to study for the kirk in Edinburgh. They were both very devout; nevertheless, Brewster soon gave up the kirk for science, and he devoted himself especially to optics, in which he made ...

— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... observations. A star-picture along the ecliptic. An hour's run on interplanetary drive—no overdrive field in use. Another picture. The two prints had only to be compared with a blinker for planets to stick out like sore thumbs, as contrasted with stars that showed no parallax. Sirene I—the innermost planet—was plainly close to a transit. II was away on the far side of its orbit. III was also on the far side. IV was in quadrature. There was the usual gap where V should have been. VI—it didn't matter. They'd ...

— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... a slight degree of variability. It is evidently a star of enormous actual magnitude, for its parallax escapes trustworthy measurement. It can only be ranked among the very first of the light-givers of the visible universe. Spectroscopically it belongs to a peculiar type which has very few representatives among the bright stars, and which has been thus described: "Spectra in which the ...

— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... distance; space &c. 180; remoteness, farness[obs3], far-cry to; longinquity[obs3], elongation; offing, background; remote region; removedness[obs3]; parallax; reach, span, stride. outpost, outskirt; horizon; aphelion; foreign parts, ultima Thule[Lat], ne plus ultra[Lat], antipodes; long range, giant's stride. dispersion &c.73. [units of distance] length &c. 200. cosmic distance, light-years. V. be distant &c. adj.; extend to, stretch to, reach to, spread ...

— Roget's Thesaurus

... a moment too soon, for, as if the previous proofs had not been sufficient, each of the motions of the earth was now absolutely demonstrated anew, so as to be recognised by the ordinary observer. The parallax of fixed stars, shown by Bessel as well as other noted astronomers in 1838, clinched forever the doctrine of the revolution of the earth around the sun, and in 1851 the great experiment of Foucault ...

— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... in the more complicated problems of mathematical astronomy. Give a woman ten minutes and she will describe a heliocentric parallax of the heavens. Give her twenty minutes and she will find astronomically the longitude of a place by means of lunar culminations. Give that same woman an hour and a half with the present fashions, and she can not find the ...

— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... think, will tax My intellectual organ till it cracks; The Association British isn't wanted to be skittish, Wear the motley, nor to run a race in sacks; But 'twas getting awkward rather when my youngest asked his father What the President implied by parallax. ...

— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various

... be, it is none the less detrimental. The intellect loses, for there is assuredly no more effectual method of clearing up one's own mind on any subject than by talking it over, so to speak, with men of real power and grasp who have considered it from a totally different point of view. The parallax of time helps us to the true position of a conception, as the parallax of space helps us to that of a star. And the moral nature loses no less. It is well to turn aside from the fretful stir of the present, and to dwell with gratitude and respect upon ...

— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... searched; for that room, you know, is half-way between the ground-floor and first floor. Still, sound does travel so! We must betake ourselves to measurement, I fear.—But another thing came into my head last night which may serve to give us a sort of parallax. You said you heard the music in your own room: would you let me look about in it a little? something might suggest itself!—Is it the room I ...

— Donal Grant • George MacDonald