The horizon is a perceptual result of living on a spherical planet of a certain size, and is limited by the curve of the earth. The higher up you get, the further away it will be, but it remains a straight line that appears to be at eye level. If you were to climb a rope ladder to the moon you’d eventually get to where the horizon would curve down at the left and right and you’d start to see the earth as a ball, but then it would no longer be horizon-tal, so the word would loose it’s meaning. It’s the difference between seeing the earth as an object and being in it as a place. Historically people didn’t have access to heights sufficient to reveal this, so it was easy to think the earth was flat. The early astronauts were impressed by this change of perspective, and the first pictures of the “whole earth” inspired Stewart Brand and his catalog. What I don’t get is how you could stand on that mountain while they called out hawks “along the horizon” and not notice that they were directly at eye level.
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- alex 10-16-2009 3:26 pm