You have to think of the line of sight from the sun to your eye as a lever, with the fulcrum being the horizon. As you run upstairs, the fulcrum moves further away, and so your end of the lever gets longer and moves faster. Is that it?
John ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Shaw To: f.w.m...@rug.nl ; JOHN DAVIS Cc: sundial@uni-koeln.de Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:38 AM Subject: Re: Experimental Method for Earth Radius <<Standing beside the building, we see the sun disappearing behind the horizon at a CONSTANT rate. On the other hand, if we would want to keep the last sliver of sun in sight, we would have to climb the building's stairs at an ever INCREASING rate. So, where is my intuition led astray?>> ============================================== Now, I'm no mathematician, as anyone will tell you but .... Isn't it because the earth is a sphere, but the wall isn't? If you had two concentric spheres, the shadow cast on the outer one from the inner one would move at a constant speed. When you watch the sun disappear at a constant rate, it is because you are standing on the inner sphere and you are not moving. Well it makes sense to me (I think). Mike Shaw 53.37N 3.02W www.wiz.to/sundials ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
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