... Earth's atmosphere limits how far you can see but let's ignore that for a moment. On such a flat world, you will never see a distant object sink out of sight. It would just get smaller with distance as it moves away from you, but so long as you use good enough of optics, you could see it from any distance¹ ...

1. For example, on a flat Earth you would be able to see the Himalayas from on top of the Rockies with a telescope.

In this statement, the author first writes in the body text to ignore atmosphere limits. This establishes the context that he is now talking about. Parenthetical footnotes are normally meant to add context to the body text; however, in this case the footnote relies on context from the body text to make sense.

• Should the author re-clarify in the parenthetical footnote that they are talking about an Earth without an atmosphere, or is the parenthetical footnote assumed to inherit context from the body text as well?

• Are there any formal style guides that either expressly allow or disallow this kind of 2-directional context reliance?

• If there is no formal style guide, would this be considered confusing, unclear, or self-contradictory to the average reader?

... Earth's atmosphere limits how far you can see but let's ignore that for a moment. On such a flat world, you will never see a distant object sink out of sight. It would just get smaller with distance as it moves away from you, but so long as you use good enough of optics, you could see it from any distance¹ ...

1. For example, on a flat Earth, you would be able to see the Himalayas from on top of the Rockies with a telescope.

In this statement, the author first writes in the body text to ignore atmosphere limits. This establishes the context that he is now talking about. Parenthetical footnotes are normally meant to add context to the body text; however, in this case the footnote relies on context from the body text to make sense.

• Is the parenthetical footnote assumed to inherit context from the body text, or should the author re-clarify in the parenthetical footnote that they are talking about an Earth without an atmosphere like this?

  • 1. For example, on a flat Earth without an atmosphere, you would be able to see the Himalayas from on top of the Rockies with a telescope.

• Are there any formal style guides that either expressly allow or disallow this kind of 2-directional context reliance?

• If there is no formal style guide, would this be considered confusing, unclear, or self-contradictory to the average reader?