Koreshan Principles of Optics

IN CONSIDERING the objections against the present astronomical hypothesis about to engage the reader's attention, we would first invite a consideration of the principles of optics as enunciated through the pages of Koreshan literature, and especially to the fact that visual substance generated in the gray matter of the cerebrum and cerebellum has more to do with the function of sight than the motion of extraneous physical force. Therefore, while studying this objection, the reader will remember that in our presentation of the inconsistencies of the Copernican system, we are also presenting the modern astronomer's views of the action of physical substance.

Vision, according to the present conception, radiates from any given center of the substance called light, and penetrates the pupil of the eye, making its impression upon the retina, whence the impression is conveyed through the optic nerve, commissure, and. tract, to the cortical area of vision in the gray matter of the cerebrum.

Every radiation of substance from the sun or any of the stars enters our atmosphere at some angle of deflection; the angle of refraction being proportionate to the divergence of the ray from the central or vertical one. In observing any star except the star vertical to the point of observation, it is observed

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through an angle of refraction at the point where the substance enters the atmosphere.

No living being--supposing for the sake of the argument that a ray of light penetrated our atmosphere from the sun or stars--could possibly determine the angle of refraction without knowing the distance of the limit of the atmosphere from the point of observation. The depth of the atmosphere is conceded by all astronomers to be only approximately determined; and no two astronomers are agreed as to the atmospheric depth.

Any man can positively know that the angle of refraction cannot be determined without a knowledge of the ray of incidence, and that if the angle of refraction is not known, the direction of a star observed through the ray cannot be determined.

It is positively known that no angle of refraction of any given ray of light from an objective source beyond the atmosphere, can be determined unless the exact depth of the atmosphere is absolutely known to the fraction of an inch.

In observing a star, either with the unaided eye or with a telescope, at an objective point divergent from the vertical direction, if the atmosphere were forty-five miles in depth, to the fraction of an inch, the angle of refraction could be determined, had we an exact knowledge of the difference in the tenuity of the atmosphere and of the ether beyond.

If we could determine the angle of refraction we could determine the direction. If the atmosphere were just ninety miles in depth, as some astronomers affirm, then from that knowledge--were it absolute--we could determine the direction.

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Problems That Demand Explanation

If the atmosphere were forty-five miles in depth, the amplitude of the arc of its curvation could be accurately determined and the degree of refraction equally known. The depth of the atmosphere, whether forty-five, ninety, or five hundred miles deep, must be positively known before the amplitude of its arc can be known, and before the amount of radiatory deflection can be determined.

We know that astronomers, in making observations, pay no attention to any refraction at the supposed summit of the atmosphere. We also know that in works on physics and civil engineering, it is claimed that allowance is made for what is supposed to be the refraction of the atmosphere.

If the atmosphere refracts three inches to the mile, in an observation made along a horizontal line, how much does it refract at any given direction from the horizontal to the vertical? If observation is made of a star at or near the horizon, and the first mile shows a deviation of three inches, what will be the amount of deviation at any uncertain distance of forty-five, ninety, or five hundred miles? All of these estimates have been made by various observers and calculators.

If the earth curvates eight inches to the mile, it is estimated, on a calculation made at a ratio inversely to the square of the distance, that at the distance of three miles the deviation from the direction of the optical tangent is about seventy-two inches, or six feet. If the atmosphere refracts an optical line three inches to the mile, then at the distance of three miles--by the application of the same law--the second mile would be nine inches, and the third mile twenty-seven inches.

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If the third mile affords a deviation of twenty-seven inches from the tangent of the rectiline, making the calculation upon the basis of the inverse ratio of the square of the distance to the uncertain limitation, which may be forty-five, ninety, or five hundred miles, (as yet undetermined by any of the astronomers,) what will be the amount of deviation at the unknown and uncertain point--the limitation of the atmosphere? This is the question to which the Koreshan Cosmogonist demands an answer, and to which the investigating world also demands an answer.

These considerations entering as factors into the problems of astronomy, demand some explanations regarding the fact that the astronomers do come to correct conclusions. Upon the basis of the ordinary calculation of the earth's curvation, or even a simple divergence of an optical line from a rectiline, supposing the divergence at the objective end of a telescope twenty feet in length to be only an eighty-one millionth of an inch, what would be the direction and location of a star trillions of miles distant?