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Originally Posted by Jeff Root
I calculate that, when the angle from Sun to observer to Moon
is 90 degrees, the difference between the Moon's terminator
and a ball's terminator will be between 0.1 and 0.2 degree,
measured from the center of each.
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I haven't checked those figures, but regardless, they could not possibly account for the illusion--no one would ever be able to reliably discern that small difference.
And the diagrams mostly deal with the sun below the horizon, or at the horizon, which would make that exercise a little more difficult.
If the earth were transparent though, and you imagined a straight line from the sun (even below the horizon) to the moon, that line would be perpendicular to the terminator to the degree necessary for discussion of this problem. That's my objection to the diagram--the line between the sun and moon is not perpendicular in the diagram, but we know that it is.
I agree that it would be difficult to mentally draw that line between a nearly full moon and the sun--because we as observers would be between them--but it's not like we look at the full moon and infer that the sun is shining behind us
no matter which way we turn.
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Originally Posted by clop
But it clearly doesn't.
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Who are you gonna believe, Euclid or the diagrams?
