Comet Visibility

by Rene Descartes Icon

5 minutes • 933 words

Table of contents

131. Do Fixed Stars Appear in Their True Places? What is the Firmament?
132. Why Comets Are Not Visible to Us When Outside Our Sky? Incidentally, Why is Charcoal Black and Its Ashes White?

131. Do Fixed Stars Appear in Their True Places? What is the Firmament?

The rays coming from Y to the Earth incidentally hit the lines AE and VX, which represent the surfaces where these vortices terminate, and are thus refracted.

Consequently, the fixed stars, when viewed from Earth, are not in their true locations.

Instead, they are in the locations on the surface of vortex AEIO through which their rays pass.

Moreover, the same star may appear in two or more such locations.

These locations have not been observed to change since astronomers first noted them. This is why these surfaces are what is meant by the term “Firmament”.

132. Why Comets Are Not Visible to Us When Outside Our Sky? Incidentally, Why is Charcoal Black and Its Ashes White?

The light from comets are much weaker than that from fixed stars.

They do not have enough strength to move our eyes unless they are seen at a sufficiently large angle.*

Superphysics Note

Here, the reason why we cannot see distant things is that the power of their light is to weak to push our eyes. This is further explained by ‘animal spirits’ in Descartes’ Treatise on Man. This can help us detect those distant objects better metapyhsically.

The farther a body is, the smaller the angle under which it is seen. This is why they are not visible when they are too far from our sky.

However, when they approach closer, there can be various reasons why they are not visible before entering our sky. It is not easy to determine which reason is the primary one.

For example, if the observer’s eye is towards F, they will not yet see the comet at 2, because it will still be surrounded by the matter of the vortex it is leaving.

But they will see it at 4, where it is farther away.

The reasons are:

The rays from Star F directed towards 2 are refracted on the convex surface of the matter of Vortex AEIO, which still envelops the comet.

This refraction diverts them from the perpendicular, as I explained in Dioptrics.

These rays find it much harder to pass through the matter of Vortex AEIO than through that of Vortex AEVX. This results in far fewer rays reaching the comet than if this refraction did not occur. These fewer rays, reflected to the eye, may be too weak to affect it.

The same part of each comet always faces the center of the vortex where it is in.

This is similar to the same side of the Moon always facing the Earth.

This vortex-facing part becomes suitable for reflecting rays.

Thus, when the comet is at 2, the part that can reflect rays is facing the center S. Therefore, it cannot be seen by those near F.

But as it moves from 2 to 3, it soon turns towards F, and thus begins to be visible there.

While the comet moves from N through C towards 2, the part of it facing Star S is more agitated and rarefied by the action of this star than the part facing away from it.

This agitation causes the finer and softer particles of the earth-aether on its surface to separate from it, making it more suitable for reflecting rays than the surface of the other part.

This is the same reason why extinguished charcoal appears black. Its entire surface, both internal and external, is covered with these softer particles of the earth-aether.

When these softer particles are separated by the force of fire, the black charcoal turns into ashes composed only of hard* and solid particles, and therefore white.

Superphysics Note

Here, soft means less matter density and hard means more density. So charcoal is soft and black, and a diamond is hard and white

White bodies are best suited for for reflecting rays. Just as black ones are the worst.

The decompressed part of the comet is less suitable for motion.

This is why it should always be on the concave side of the curved line described by the comet’s motion, according to the laws of mechanics.

This concave side always faces the center of the vortex where the comet is located. Here, it is the concave part of NC2 facing center S just as the concave part of 234 faces F, and so on.

This causes the comet to turn when passing from one vortex to another, just as we see the feathered part of arrows flying through the air always lower when ascending and higher when descending.

There are many other reasons why comets are not visible to us unless they pass through our sky.

The suitability of a body to reflect rays depends on very small details.

We do not have enough experiments for such specific effects. In such cases, plausible causes should suffice even if they are not necessarily true*.

Superphysics Note

*This is the ideological advantage of Cartesian Physics over Newwtonian Physics. All its principles are based on mutually-consistent analogies that are not necessarily true. We use the same analogy-system when we compare the Universe to a virtual reality in a computer. Of course, there is no CPU behind reality. But this analogy connects the patterns that humans understand, with the actual causal patterns from the Supreme Entity. From our human-based analogies, we can make predictions that hold true. If they don’t then we refine the analogy. Descartes has done this to create an unified analogy system that stretches from Physics to Medicine and Psychology. Spinoza then extended this further to the realm of Politics and Spirituality.