Atelier Bonryu(E)
pinhole photography
Laboratory: Pinhole Photography
History of Pinhole Photography
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Remark#2: Mozi(Mo Ti)
Mozi Text: As described previously 53 pages of Mozi are now existing and among them 4 pages, i.e., Mo-Ching 1 & 2 (Canon 1 & 2) and Mo-Ching-Shuo 1 & 2 (Exposition of Canon 1 & 2) are devoted to descriptions of Logics, Dynamics, Optics, and so on. Electronic version of Mozi is found in sites of Chinese Text Project and 要覧子籍. Each item of the Mozi text in the ”Chinese Text Project“ is numbered conveniently. The following four items are descriptions related to the pinhole phenomenon.
(49)経上 ：庫、易也。
経説上：庫：區穴若斯貌常。
(120)経下 ：景到、在午有端與景長、説在端。
経説下：景：光之人煦若射。下者人也高、高者人也下。足敞下光、
故成景於上。首敞上光、故成景於下。
在遠近有端、與於光、故景（广＋章）内也。
Translation of Mozi: As there are differences among different Chinese “original” texts and different translation versions, and even the translation versions are rather difficult to understand, we tried retranslate these items by taking into account of the existing translation versions in the following.
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(49) Canon 1: At accumulation point (or wall, or closed space)
change (meaning “inversion”) occurs.
(49’) Exposition of Canon 1: The accumulation point is a (circular)
vacant hole similar to those of a constant shape (meaning
“the sun or the moon”).
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(120) Canon 2: The cause of inversion is that there is a small hole
at the intersecting point of lights and the hole projects a
long image (on a wall). The cause is found in the hole.
(120’) Exposition of Canon 2: The image. When a light shines a man
it goes straight as an arrow shoots the man. When a light at
low position shines a man it goes upward and when a light at
high position shines a man it goes downward. As legs block
the light at low position, an image of the legs is projected
on upper side of a wall, and as a head blocks a light at high
position, an image of the head is projected on lower side of
the wall. With increasing or decreasing distance of the object
from the small hole (the size of) the image of the object
changes inside of the small hole (closed space).
In spite of the differences in the “original” texts and translation versions it is obviously described in Mozi that light rays interchange at the point of the pinhole and inverted image is projected.
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