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<pedantic engineer voice>The distance to the moon was well-enough known at the time, though. That's quite a migration! And I think they should at least be enter
by abecedarius 4y ago
<pedantic engineer voice>The distance to the moon was well-enough known at the time, though. That's quite a migration! And I think they should at least be entertaining a strong doubt about air along the way: from how attenuated the sun/moon look near the horizon vs. high in the sky, most of whatever's attenuating that light stays very near the Earth. I think astronomers had been accounting for refraction from the atmosphere since at least Tycho Brahe.
Added: just found this on the early history of atmospheric refraction. https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~lehn/_Papers_for_Download/history_of_refr.pdf https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~lehn/_Papers_for_Download/hist...
- erulabs 4y agoIndeed but the bit about “maybe gravity stops applying at some point” is key. Just floating to the moon seems more doable that that this small huntable bird has an active domain larger than any human empire ever. Like obviously they were way wrong - but I think it’s important to frame historical ideas with an honest “what would I have to believe in order to believe this”.
- abecedarius 4y agoAgreed! I wanted to come across in a "yes, and" spirit. I just think "what would I have to ignore?" is interesting, too. Such as a distance that'd take weeks of travel at the speed of a jet plane -- much faster than a hurricane -- nonstop. Some such celestial current is also quite a thing to imagine.