Appendix_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 ( “経上” and “経下”, which mean Canon 1 & 2) and Mo-Ching-Shuo 1 & 2 ( “経説上” and “経説下”, which mean Exposition of Canon 1 & 2)  are devoted to descriptions of “scientific problems,” i.e., Logics, Dynamics, Optics, and so on.  Electronic version of Mozi is found in web sites of Chinese Text Project.  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.  As reading sentences of Mozi itself is the subject of research it is meaningless to show an English translation of the Mozi as original data.  I set out the vertically written original sentences and the same sentences which are horizontally written with punctuation marks.

Original text of Mozi vertically written by kanji

Text of Mozi horizontally written by kanji with punctuation marks

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, I tried retranslate these items by taking into account of the existing translation versions in the following.

 (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”).
(120) Canon 2
The cause of inversion is that there is a small hole at the intersecting point of lights and the hole projects 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 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.