From: Paul Reilly (paul@phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Sun 12 Sep 1993 - 03:03:43 EEST
About Light, Nick writes:
> The central idea of which (light striving upwards) ...
>Of course, casting Farsee to "energise" your
>vision would therefore increase line-of-sight, regardless of the "false
>horizon".
One of the ancient Greek theories of vision (Aristotle?) was that people shot some kind of particles out of their eyes, which hit things and reported back, rather like radar or Darksense. Farsee would then work just as Nick describes above, 'energising' the vision particles...
PS: I must act as translator for another note from Clement Longhair.
My esteemed (by the Lunatic fringe) colleague Columbus Mercator continues to promulagate his "Round Earth" belief. I shall respond in three parts to his arguments.
"The shape of the earth *must* be spherical.For every one of its parts has weight until it reaches the center, and thus when a smaller part is pressed upon by a larger, it cannot surge around it, but each is packed close to, and combines with, the other until the reach the center.
Note the logical flaw here, apparent even to a child: my colleague presupposes the existence of a center, which draws everything to itself. He posits that things fall in the direction of this center. But we can perform a simple test: let two plumb lines, weighted with na-metal, be carried some distance apart. If there is such a center then the lines will both point in its direction, therefore converging. But wherever we carry such lines, they remain parallel, pointing straight down. Thus we conclude that things do NOT fall toward a center, but instead toward one Direction, called 'Down', designated byt the Celestial Court (in their wisdom) as that direction toward which the heavier elements should tend.
In any case, the center of the world is well known to be Magasta's Pool. Does my colleague presume to tell us that things here in Genertela are falling south, while those in Pamaltela fall north?
3. Should the world be a sphere as Columbus Mercator supposes, then would not the greatest navigator of all time, Dormal the Sailor of our own beloved Kethaela, have returned to report this `fact' to us? He has not, therefore I believe that the cosmography attested to by all _reliable_ sources, which tell of Sramak's River rather than some strange bending, is correct.
However, I do not oppose and in fact encourage the journey proposed
by my colleague.
[T. note:
>In order to prove this I plan a great journey of circumnavigation around the
>world. Once I find an agreeable captain, the boat shall set sail from Nochet
>and travel east, only to appear at some indeterminate time in the west.]
I feel that this journey would not only settle the argument but relieve
the world of the weight of one who speaks without the true light of
Reason to inspire his words.
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 14 Sep 1993, part 2 Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM Precedence: junk
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM", they will automatically be included in a next issue. Try to change the Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily... on replying.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.
Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:31:36 EEST