pyrocentric
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Adjective
[edit]pyrocentric (comparative more pyrocentric, superlative most pyrocentric)
- (astronomy, history) Of or relating to the Pythagorean astronomical system, which posited that the Earth, Moon, Sun, and planets orbit an invisible "Central Fire".
- 1874, Bernard H. Becker, Scientific London[1], page 302:
- To Pythagoras himself has been frequently ascribed the idea of a pyrocentric Kosmos—with worlds revolving round a central sun—according to the Copernican, or, to speak more accurately, the Newtonian scheme.
- 1967, Gerald Cornelius Monsman, Pater's Portraits: Mythic Pattern in the Fiction of Walter Pater[2], pages 187–188:
- Apollyon, who, as god of the sun, has a certain stake in the matter, teaches the Prior the truth of what the Greeks, Pythagoras' disciples, knew many years before— the nature of the heliocentric (or pyrocentric) planetary system.
- 2007, Helge S. Kragh, Conceptions of Cosmos: From Myths to the Accelerating Universe: A History of Cosmology[3], page 16:
- All the same, some 2000 years later Copernicus would refer to Philolaus' pyrocentric world model for support of the idea that the Earth is a circularly moving planet.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:pyrocentric.
- Centering fire as a key force in nature, civilization, etc.
- 1991, William Cronon, "Forward: Eucalypt History", in Stephen J. Pyne, Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia (1998 ed.), page x:
- The result of that sojourn was a book called The Ice, a meditation on the planet's southernmost continent which—from Pyne's admittedly pyrocentric viewpoint—is also one of the few nearly fireless places, oceans aside, on the face of the earth.
- 2019, William J. Bond, Open Ecosystems: Ecology and Evolution Beyond the Forest Edge[4], page 100:
- In contrast, the pyrocentric hypothesis holds that fire is a major consumer shaping the patterns, structure, and composition of vegetation.
- 2020, Jason Alexandra, “Burning Bush and Disaster Justice in Victoria, Australia: Can Regional Planning Prevent Brushfires Becoming Disasters?”, in Anna Lukasiewicz, Claudia Baldwin, editors, Natural Hazards and Disaster Justice: Challenges for Australia and Its Neighbours[5], page 77:
- The prominent scholar of fire, Stephen Pyne (2018) argues we are pyrophilic creatures, immersed in pyrocentric civilisations whose 'new combustion regime based on fossil biomass' has resulted in a pyric transition that has not only shaped our technologies, mobility and habitation patterns, but also our values and relationships with landscapes.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:pyrocentric.
- 1991, William Cronon, "Forward: Eucalypt History", in Stephen J. Pyne, Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia (1998 ed.), page x: