Mr Nunn said, "Don't blog about that. You'll sound stupid."
This has never yet deterred me.
So here's what I don't understand. Leap years. Of course, I understand leap years, insomuch as once every fourth year we get a 29th February. An extra day (for which I am unpaid, let me add...). This is apparently because the earth takes very slightly more than 365 days each year to travel round the sun. It takes 365 and a quarter to be precise. So once every four years, we add up all the quarters and all is square.
I understand that much.
What I don't understand is this: if we're getting a quarter of a day out each year, why by the third year isn't it bright sunshine during the night and dark during mid-morning? Surely if we're a quarter of a day out each year, by year three we should be a full eighteen hours out of whack.
Mr Nunn tried to explain this but couldn't. I asked Mrs Nunn. She said, "I don't understand it either. But you know what? I don't care."
Things are simple in Mrs Nunn's world.
I have decided that I am not sure I believe that the earth goes round the sun. At all. I also don't believe in hummingbirds.
2 comments:
Calendar, seasons dictated by rotation/position of earth round sun. Night and day dictated by rotation of earth - which bit faces the sun. Two separate rotations.
Smart question really. It is the difference between a siderial day and a solar day. Which means.....
A day is NOT a complete rotation of the earth because the sun has "moved" relative to the earth roughly one degree (1/365th) across the sky. In other words it slowly travels across the background of stars (the Zodiac) and gives rise to the stupidity that is astrology.
If you measure the rotation of the earth against a very distant star (the Siderial Day) it is 4 minutes different.
Try this smart little animation to illustrate.
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