"Ecliptic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gazing at a comet which was then visible. And I well remember with what delight he used to assist my brother William in his various contrivances in the pursuit of his philosophical studies; among which was a neatly-turned four-inch globe, upon which the equator and ecliptic were ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... ancients from the starry sphere. It also contains a singular hypothesis of the author's upon the celebrated island of Atlantis, mentioned by Plato and other Greek authors; and some very curious speculations concerning the doctrine of the change in the angle which the plane of the ecliptic makes with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... time, excited by the summer heat, copulated in the air and poisoned the wells and rivers by dropping their seed into them; and he explains the custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun, having now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... derision, from which there could have been no retreat, and no retrieval of character. The greatest of astronomers, rather than seem ostentatious or unseasonably learned, will stoop to the popular phrase of the sun's rising, or the sun's motion in the ecliptic. But God, for a purpose commensurate with man's eternal welfare, is by these critics supposed incapable of the same ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... the ingenuity of the time and the soul's synderisis are but embrions in nature, added to the panch of Esquiline, and the inter-vallum of the zodiac, besides the ecliptic line being optic, and not mental, but by the contemplative and theoric part thereof, doth demonstrate to us the vegetable circumference, and the ventosity of the tropics, and whereas our intellectual, or mincing capreal (according ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... earth's rotation is inclined 23 deg. 28' to the plane of the ecliptic, the two hemispheres will become alternately warmer and cooler than each other. The air of the cooled hemisphere will conduct magnetic influence more freely than if in the mean state, and the lines of force passing through it will increase in amount, whilst in the other hemisphere the warmed air ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... were recognised, and everything was ruled out and set in place again. A wonderful man! I think it would be true to say it was Linnaeus who set the world on its present twist of thinking, and levered our mental globe a little more perpendicular to the ecliptic. He actually gathered the dandelion and took it to bits like a scientific child; he touched nature with his fingers instead of sitting looking out of window—perhaps the first man who had ever done so for seventeen hundred years or so, since superstition blighted ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... ring; falling star, shooting star; meteorite, uranolite[obs3]. constellation, zodiac, signs of the zodiac, Charles's wain, Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Great Bear, Southern Cross, Orion's belt, Cassiopea's chair, Pleiades. colures[obs3], equator, ecliptic, orbit. [Science of heavenly bodies] astronomy; uranography, uranology[obs3]; cosmology, cosmography[obs3], cosmogony; eidouranion[obs3], orrery; geodesy &c. (measurement) 466; star gazing, star gazer[obs3]; astronomer; observatory; planetarium. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Eaves defluilo. Ebb (and flow) forfluo (kaj alfluo). Ebony ebono. Ebriety ebrieco. Ebullition bolado. Eccentric stranga. Ecclesiastic ekleziulo. Ecclesiastical eklezia. Echo ehxo. Eclipse mallumigxo. Ecliptic ekliptiko. Eclogue eklogo. Economical sxparema. Economics ekonomio. Economise sxpari. Economist ekonomiisto. Economy sxparemo. Ecstacy ravo. Eczema ekzemo. Eddy turnigxadi. Eddy akvoturnigxo. Eden Edeno. Edge rando. Edge (of tools) trancxrando. Edible ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... there. This evening she sat at a window, the blind of which had not been drawn down. Her elbow rested on a little table, and her cheek on her hand. Her eyes were attracted by the brightness of the planet Jupiter, as he rode in the ecliptic opposite, beaming down upon her as if desirous ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... has repudiated. They determined the circumference of the earth by a method identical with that which would be employed by modern astronomers. They ascertained the position of the stars by right ascension and declination. They knew the obliquity of the ecliptic, and 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. [Footnote: Delambre, Hist. d'Astr. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the path in which the sun appears to move in the celestial sphere. As a matter of fact, you know that the earth moves around the sun, but as you observe the sun from some spot on the earth, it appears to move around the earth. This apparent track is called the Ecliptic as stated before, and in the illustration the Ecliptic is represented by the curved line, C V T. The plane of the Ecliptic is inclined to that of the Equinoctial at an angle of 23 deg. 27-1/2', and this inclination is called the ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... to control deck! Alien body bearing zero-one-five, one-point-seven degrees over plane of the ecliptic. On intersecting orbit. Change course two degrees, hold for fifteen seconds, then resume original heading. Will compensate for change ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled me with uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it much longer, there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all, whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... whirl me round and round the Earth at the rate of a thousand miles an hour; of this I must, of course, get rid as soon as possible. And when I should be rid of it, I meant to start at first right upward; that is, straight away from the Sun and in the plane of the ecliptic, which is not very different from that in which Mars also moves. Therefore I should begin my effective ascent from a point of the Earth as far as possible from the Sun; that is, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... and Satan, bowing low, As to superior spirits is wont in heaven, Where honor due and reverence none neglects, Took leave, and toward the coast of earth beneath, Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success, Throws his steep flight in many an airy wheel, Nor stayed, till on Niphates' top ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... successive stages marked by those twelve constellations which are still called the Signs of the Zodiac. In time even these observations were excelled, and it now appears certain that the Chaldaeans recognized the annual displacement of the equinoctial point upon the ecliptic, a discovery that is generally attributed to the Greek astronomers. But, like Hipparchus, they made faults of calculation in consequence of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... which they consume for the benefit of Manchester and Sheffield, are certainly as comic as anything in Aristophanes. The madness of the philosopher who deemed himself personally answerable for the obliquity of the ecliptic has more than its match in the sense of responsibility shown by British journalists for the good conduct of the rest of mankind. All other kingdoms, potentates, and powers would seem to be minors or lunatics, and they the divinely appointed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Fiction, that is all nonsense; it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own want of originality. I am not like that pessimist philosopher who assumed her malignity from the fact of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the truth is, Nature is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from even so humble an individual as myself. Years after I had placed my wicked baronet in his living tomb, she starved to death a hunter in Mexico under precisely similar circumstances; and so late ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Paradise, Adams abode, those loftie shades his Bowre. Thy way thou canst not miss, me mine requires. Thus said, he turnd, and Satan bowing low, As to superior Spirits is wont in Heaven, Where honour due and reverence none neglects, Took leave, and toward the coast of Earth beneath, Down from th' Ecliptic, sped with hop'd success, 740 Throws his steep flight with many an Aerie wheele, Nor staid, till on ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... that it not only assigns a primitive substance, but even undertakes to show by observation and experiment how others arise from it, and transformations occur. As to the discovery of the obliquity of the ecliptic by the aid of a gnomon attributed to Anaximenes, it was merely a boast of his vainglorious countrymen, and altogether beyond the scientific grasp of one who had no more exact idea of the nature of the earth than that it was "like a ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... beauty sheds a twilight ray, While sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay: Those charms, so long renown'd in classic strains, Had dimly shone on Albion's happier plains! Now in the southern hemisphere the sun Through the bright Virgin, and the Scales, had run, And on the Ecliptic wheel'd his winding way, Till the fierce Scorpion felt his flaming ray. Four days becalm'd the vessel here remains, 90 And yet no hopes of aiding wind obtains; For sickening vapours lull the air to sleep, And not a breeze awakes the silent deep: This, when the autumnal equinox is o'er, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... playing upon the passions of men he sees the worst side of humanity. But, surely, there have been those who passed this ordeal, and came out with brighter lustre; who have kept the eye of conscience elevated above the ecliptic of political routine; who have made politics identical with lofty duties and great principles; whose patriotism was not a clamorous catch-word, but a breathing inspiration, a silent heart-fire. In private life they have felt the great privilege of their ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... the intense cold of winter and produce a uniform temperature for each degree of latitude the year round. At present the earth's axis—that is, the line passing through its centre and the two poles—is inclined to the ecliptic about twenty-three and a half degrees. Our summer is produced by the northern hemisphere's leaning at that angle towards the sun, and our winter by its turning that much from it. In one case the sun's rays are caused to shine more perpendicularly, and in the other more obliquely. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... imaginary girdle or belt in the celestial sphere, which extends about eight degrees on each side of the Ecliptic. It is divided into twelve portions, called the signs of the Zodiac, within which all the planets make their revolutions. The Zodiac is so called from the animals represented upon it, and is supposed to have originated in remote ages and in latitudes ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Earth is stationary, but Philolaus the Pythagorean says that it revolves in a circle about the fire of the ecliptic, like the sun and moon. Heraklides of Pontus and Ekphantus the Pythagorean make the Earth move, not changing its position, however, confined in its falling and rising around its own center in the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... than another, the conclusion must be that they will come to the central body from various directions in space. This, too, is exactly what happens. Unlike planets, whose orbits approximate to one plane, comets have orbits that show no relation to one another; but cut the plane of the ecliptic at all angles, and have axes inclined to it at ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... The 'Ecliptic' was carrying coals from Newcastle. The time was midnight, the sky was misty, and the gale was from the south-east, when the watch reported a light ahead. The cabin boy was standing on deck near the captain, when he held a consultation with his mate, who was also his son. Father and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the equinox, the season of Dante's journey, the sun in Aries is at the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator of the celestial sphere, and his apparent motion in his annual revolution cuts the apparent diurnal motion of the fixed stars, which is performed in circles ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... is that the earth is hollow, and filled with fluid like an egg. Mixing together sundry texts from Genesis and from the second epistle of Peter, the theological doctrine of the "Fall," an astronomical theory regarding the ecliptic, and various notions adapted from Descartes, he insisted that, before sin brought on the Deluge, the earth was of perfect mathematical form, smooth and beautiful, "like an egg," with neither seas nor islands nor valleys nor rocks, "with not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that all creation was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of any such aberrational ellipse is always parallel to AC, i.e. the ecliptic, and since it is equal to the ratio of the velocity of light to the velocity of the earth, it is necessarily constant. This constant length subtends an angle of about 40" at the earth; the "constant of aberration'' is half ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... very well that a new astronomy was predicted in the build of that sky-confronting mind; for harmonic ratios, laws, and rhymes played in his spheral soul, galaxies and gravitations stretched deeper within, and systems climbed their flaming ecliptic. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... earth's revolution in its orbit, the sun appears at different seasons to rise in connection with different groups of stars. It seems as if the sun made an annual journey around the ecliptic. This circuit was divided into twelve parts corresponding to the months, and each marked by a distinct constellation. There was a singular agreement in regard to these solar houses, residences of the gods, or signs of the zodiac, among the leading nations of the earth, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... required by the sun to run its course around the heavens, seems to have been first ascertained by astronomers whose names are unknown. The skill of the early Oriental geometers was further evidenced by their determination of the position of the ecliptic with regard to the celestial equator, and by their success in the measurement of the angle between these two important circles ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... everybody should be reduced to one level. Do we not observe that it is the law of nature—do not brooks run into rivers—rivers into seas—mountains crumble down upon the plains?—are not the seasons contented to equalise the parts of the earth? Why does the sun run round the ecliptic, instead of the equator, but to give an equal share of his heat to both sides of the world? Are we not all equally born in misery? does not death level us all aequo pede, as the poet hath? are we not all equally hungry, thirsty, and sleepy, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... country was situated in a different climate, and before some one of those great revolutions which, we cannot doubt, have taken place on our globe. The position that the earth's axis holds at present with respect to the ecliptic, occasions Lapland to receive the sun's rays very obliquely: it is therefore condemned to a long winter, adverse to man, as well as to all the productions of nature. No great movement, possibly, in the heavens ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... difference between the heliocentric longitudes of the earth and a planet or comet, the latter being reduced to the ecliptic. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Babylonians in mathematics and astronomy were far beyond those of the Egyptians. They divided the year into twelve months, and arrived at the signs of the ecliptic or zodiac. The week they fixed at seven days by the course of the moon. They divided the day into twelve hours, and the hour into sixty minutes. They invented weights and measures, the knowledge of which went from them to the other Asiatic nations. Architecture, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... ships, nearly three and a half weeks passed before the sun they sought, singled itself from the star-field as an extra bright point. Two days more, and the sun was within planetary distance. They came at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic, but they leveled down to it now, and slanted toward giant Jupiter and Jovian worlds. Ten worlds, in one sweep, it was—four habitable worlds. The nine satellites would be converted into forts at once, nine ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... unmoving eye, where CEPHEUS bends His triple crown, his scepter'd hand extends; 515 Where studs CASSIOPE with stars unknown Her golden chair, and gems her sapphire zone; Where with vast convolution DRACO holds The ecliptic axis in his scaly folds, O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears, 520 And with immense meanders parts the BEARS; Onward, the kindred BEARS with footstep rude Dance round ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... though I was complimented thereupon by the 'Institute for Harmonizing the Universes,' and elected a contributing member of that society. For several years I petitioned annually for outfit and transportation to Scilly Islands,[2] on the Ecliptic Circle, where I purposed to develop my scheme of transferring a portion of our globe to the system of Orion. In this I was opposed by the Palaeontologic Society, on the ground that some valuable fossils ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend |
