Tiny Legs

But many of our imaginations and investigations of nature are futile, especially when we see little living animals and see their legs and must judge the same to be ten thousand times thinner than a hair of my beard, and when I see animals living that are more than a hundred times smaller and am unable to observe any legs at all, I still conclude from their structure and the movements of their bodies that they do have legs... and therefore legs in proportion to their bodies, just as is the case with the larger animals upon which I can see legs... Taking this number to be about a hundred times smaller, we therefore find a million legs, all these together being as thick as a hair from my beard, and these legs, besides having the instruments for movement, must be provided with vessels to carry food.

Notes:

Leeuwenhoek observes that there are animals that move, but are too small to see their legs, but he knows they have legs and that those legs must somehow carry nutrients within them.

Folksonomies: observation perspective scale

Taxonomies:
/pets (0.319680)
/food and drink (0.294456)
/family and parenting/children (0.238029)

Keywords:
Tiny Legs Leeuwenhoek (0.970595 (neutral:0.000000)), little living animals (0.461325 (neutral:0.000000)), larger animals (0.296678 (neutral:0.000000)), times (0.226593 (neutral:0.000000)), beard (0.224075 (neutral:0.000000)), bodies (0.206696 (neutral:0.000000))

Entities:
Leeuwenhoek:Person (0.745601 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Scientific method (0.945511): dbpedia | freebase
Observation (0.855375): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Philosophy of science (0.806139): dbpedia | freebase
Knowledge (0.764231): dbpedia | freebase
Nature (0.763143): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Nina Simone (0.598616): website | dbpedia | freebase | yago | musicBrainz
Cognition (0.548574): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Animal (0.545580): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 The Collected Letters of Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek -
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Leeuwenhoek , Antoni van (1999-06-01), The Collected Letters of Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek -, CRC, Retrieved on 2012-06-11
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: