"If this same balance, even though corporeal, were considered to be not on the earth's surface but in the highest regions beyond the sun's sphere, then the threads, while still drawn to the centre of the earth, would be very much less convergent to each other, would be quasi-parallel. Let us imagine a mechanical balance transported beyond the starry balance [i.e., the constellation of that name] in the firmament, to an infinite distance. It will be understood by everybody that the suspension threads would no longer be convergent, but would be exactly parallel. ... The Geometer has the special privilege to carry out, by abstraction, all constructions [operationes] by means of the intellect. Who, then, would wish to prevent me from freely considering figures hanging on a balance imagined to be at an infinite distance beyond the confines of the world?"
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Quoted in Paolo Mancosu, Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford UP, 1996) pp. 138–39
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evangelista_Torricelli
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Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli (15 October 1608 – 25 October 1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician.
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