The Probert Encyclopaedia of Science & Technology

APPARENT

Among mathematicians and astronomers, the term apparent is applied to things as they appear to the eye, in distinction from what they really are. Thus they speak of apparent motion, magnitude, distance, height, etc. The apparent magnitude of a heavenly body is the angle subtended at the spectator's eye by the diameter of that body, and this, of course, depends on the distance as well as the real magnitude of the body; apparent motion is the motion a body seems to have in consequence of our own motion, as the motion of the sun from east to west, etc.
Research Apparent