Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation, spacing, capitalization, and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
OPTICAL ILLUSION AND ACTUAL FACT
BY MAX E. ARENDT
I
IN THIS AGE of scientific marvels we are wont to look upon the ideas and efforts of the people of earlier times as out of date and lacking somewhat in real sagacity. Yet every so often something comes to light to remind us that the people of olden times also knew a thing or two and that we moderns could well learn something from them.
This fact is brought sharply to our attention by the following observation which appears in a recent work on architecture:
"The Parthenon today is only a ruin, but we are still able to trace out some of the delicately subtle refinements employed by the Greeks. Thus certain straight lines have been found to be gently curved in order to make them seem straight. The columns at the corners are slightly less widely spaced than the others, again to make them seem the same distance apart. Thus the Greeks employed optical illusion in the service of their divine architecture, a fact which has only become known to us within comparatively recent times."
Nature is scientific and consistent in all its operations, and it is the purpose of the artist to truly represent Nature. Art, therefore, to be true must be scientific. No genuine artist, then, would ignore the principles of perspective foreshortening and curvilineation of vision in his work. The symmetrical loveliness of the Parthenon of the Greeks shows them to have been artistic in the real sense of the word.
Science is even more exacting than art; and if the artist is compelled to recognize optical illusion as a factor in his work, one would think that the scientist must and surely does. It will come as a shock to many, therefore, to learn that the scientist completely ignores the facts of optical illusion in all his calculations.
For instance, in endeavoring to determine the form and size of the earth, not a single astronomer or geodesist of the old school pretends to consider for a moment the principles of perspective foreshortening or the curvilineation of vision. If these principles are facts in Nature, then modern science, by totally ignoring them, is false in its findings.
Thus the modern astronomer assumes the earth's surface to be convex because it appears so to the eye. Among other things he points to the way in which a ship disappears below the horizon as a proof of convexity. The two rails of a railroad track appear to come together in the distance, yet no one but an ignoramus would say that they actually meet. If the rails were arranged the same distance apart, but one rail vertically above the other, the two rails would converge at the same distance in the same way.
The optical illusion of the disappearance of a ship over the horizon is caused by the same principle of perspective foreshortening as that which causes the two rails to appear to come together in the distance. Thus by taking an optical illusion as a proof of convexity, the astronomer sadly misleads himself and the world.
In geodetic operations the surveyor finds that the cross-hair of his telescope cuts his rod, a mile away, only five or six inches above the altitude of his telescope. On the basis of convexity, the cross-hair should cut the rod a full eight inches above the altitude of his telescope. Unable to account for this difference in any other way, the surveyor attributes it to refraction. He makes one fatal error in assuming the line of sight to be a straight line, and another in assuming that the earth's surface curves convexly.
In Koreshan Science it is maintained, from the basis of an absolute demonstration and countless other supporting proofs, that the earth's surface curves concavely, not convexly, eight inches to the mile. Therefore, from actual observation, a line of vision extending to an object in the distance cannot be a straight line as commonly supposed, but must be a line curving upward a certain ratio to the mile. In fact, all appearances contrary to the truth of concavity must be explained on the basis of optical illusion.
Since the earth curves concavely eight inches to the mile, and vision curves about thirteen inches to the mile, the five inches allowed by the surveyor for curvature of the earth are the five inches difference between the curve of the earth and the curve of the line of sight. Because the earth curves concavely, the surveyor's findings are proof positive that vision curves.
For the purpose of practical demonstration and to eliminate all optical factors, the Koreshan Geodetic Staff ran a mechanical line to determine once and for all the direction of the earth's curvature. This survey, as described in detail in "The Cellular Cosmogony," substantiated in every particular the declarations made beforehand by KORESH as to the shape of the earth and the laws of optics.
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