We shine the light upon the wall, creating a distinct circle of light. Instead of a solid surface like a wall, however, the rays of light are shining upon the semi-transparent fog of the atmolayer between the observer and the sun. The natural shrinking of the sun due to perspective is counteracted by the enlarging effect of its light upon the horizontal strata of the atmolayer between you and the light source. A: The sun remains the same size as it recedes into the distance due to a magnification effect caused by the intense rays of light passing through the strata of the atmolayer. As the Sun shrinks to perspective, its projection also enlarges by the same ratio, just as with the mirror reflection experiment, causing it to stay the same relative size on the medium as it recedes. Q: If the sun is disappearing into the distance, shouldn’t it get smaller as it recedes? It is evident that at sunrise, and at sunset, the sun’s light must shine through a greater length of atmospheric air than at mid-day; besides which, the air near the earth is both more dense, and holds more watery particles in solution, than the higher strata through which the sun shines at noonday; and hence the light must be dilated or magnified, as well as modified in colour.
“ IT is well known that when a light of any kind shines through a dense medium it appears larger, or magnified, at a given distance than when it is seen through a lighter medium. If you’ve ever seen a city at night you would know that distant light sources appear magnified from afar because they are shining though an atmoplanar medium. A relative constant sizing effect can be seen in the simple reflections of mirrors. The light from these incoming headlights are a constant size down the highway as far as the eye could see. Then slowly move backwards, and investigate what happens to the size of the reflection subjective to the two marks made. The two triangles are similar, with ratio 1/2, no matter the distance. The explanation is the similarity of triangles. Applying the mirror example to the sun-projection explanation there is one modification: The “mirror” (projecting surface) of the atmolayer generally or cumulatively maintains a fixed distance away from the observer on the atmoplane at all times, moving as the observer moves, and thus does not get proportionately smaller with the observer’s motion, as it will naturally move with the observer as the observer moves. The radiating light source of the Sun creates a projection in front of the observer on the medium and can then recede in distance away from the observer, with its new apparent dimensions being same as its original projection upon the atmoplane.
Bright lights in the distance will often project upon the atmoplane. From timeless classics like “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen to philosophical works like “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Friedrich Nietzsche, Project Gutenberg has something for everyone. We humans like to think of reality as a nice, stable place, where various stuff stays in the same place unless we want it to go somewhere else. The same effect happens with the distant sun at sunset. The next time you observe the sunset notice how the sun is much hazier, diluted, and less intense than when it is overhead at noonday. As an analogy for the enlarging of the sun at sunset, lets imagine that we are in a dark room with a flashlight. You should note that many of the lights in the background are about as big as the lights in the foreground. The background lights are much farther away and the distant bulbs are all smaller than a single pixel of the screen.
The lights maintaining their size in the background is a great example of the magnification effect of the atmolayer balancing out the natural shrinking to perspective. Light sources in the far field will appear to be the same size in the distance. Anyone may be satisfied of this by standing within a few yards of an ordinary street lamp, and noticing the size of the flame; on going away to many times the distance, the light upon the atmosphere will appear considerably larger. This may be analogous to a projection on a medium between the observer and the source body. This is more remarkable when the medium holds aqueous particles or vapour in solution, as in a damp or foggy atmosphere. The farther you move away from the source, the more medium you put between you, the more magnified the lights appears. Trackways, or collections of two or more consecutive tracks, are rich sources of information for paleontologists. The eye and the marks on the mirror form a triangle, while the eye and the two points on the image form another triangle. However, while the first young man merely talked about a flat earth as an intellectual exercise, these two young men apparently had become convinced that the earth may actually be flat.