Axis Quotes
We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes.
Nicolaus Copernicus
If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.
Arthur Koestler
Use of better planetary parameters, the innovations in astronomical methods, and the concise style of exposition of Aryabhatiya makes it an excellent text book on Astronomy. As opposed to the geostationary theory, Aryahabata held the view that the earth rotates on its axis. His estimate of the period of the sidereal rotation of earth was 23 hours 56 min, and 4.1 s is close to the actual value.
Aryabhata
We all know that sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and earth spins on its axis from west to east. But on that day my jet plane was at 60 degree latitude near Greenland and the plane exceeded the speed of rotation of the earth on its axis so the sun was found moving from west towards east.
Jayant Narlikar
We analyzed the first stage of our construction, confined to two-dimensional space, and found it to be as durable and resistant as the earth itself. We build in this space just as we would on the ground, and therefore must take as our point of departure the concepts of gravity and force of attraction, as the foundation of everything built on the land. In PROUN the reciprocity of the effects of gravity [Newton, 'for every action an equal and opposite reaction'] manifests itself in a new capacity. We see that on the surface (plane) of the picture, the PROUN ceases to exist as such and becomes a building surveyed from every direction - considered from above or examined from below. The result of this turns out to be the destruction of the single axis that leads to the horizon.
El Lissitsky
Arthropods and vertebrates share some broad features of general organization - elongated, bilaterally symmetrical bodies, with sensory organs up front, excretory structures in the back, and some form of segmentation along the major axis. But the geometry of major internal organs could hardly be more different... Arthropods concentrate their nervous system on their ventral (belly) side as two major cords running along the bottom surface of the animal. The mouth also opens on the ventral side, with the esophagus passing between the two nerve cords, and the stomach and remainder of the digestive tube running along the body above the nerve cords. In vertebrates, and with maximal contrast, the central nervous system runs along the dorsal (top) surface as a single tube culminating in a bulbous brain at the front end. The entire digestive system then runs along the body axis below the nerve cord.
Stephen Jay Gould
