41–50 of 104 posts
When an aperture is aligned to the winter solstice, it is also aligned to avoid light the rest of the year. An early attempt at air conditioning? Keep the heat out. We jump so quickly to religious significance.
In the northern latitudes, doubtful. It would be cool enough year round.
my modern equivalent(I needed last year for surfing (after i needed to cut a surf trip short as it became night)) https://daylight.franzai.com/
and yes, the maths fails when you are super super high north or south
How did ancient cultures know when the solstice was? If you didn't tell me it was the 21st, I don't know how I'd be able to tell you other than by carefully measuring the sunrise and sunset times
1. Go out every morning to work in your field. 2. When the Sun rises, make a note on the same fixed piece of wood, e.g., a fence. 3. Observe the leftmost and rightmost positions, these are your solstices. 4 You can now use your fence to identify and predict solstices.
Merry Sun-Fence Day everyone. ;-)
How did ancient cultures know when the solstice was? If you didn't tell me it was the 21st, I don't know how I'd be able to tell you other than by carefully measuring the sunrise and sunset times
Probably easier to measure the location of sunsets and sunrises rather than the time? Edit: Obviously somewhere like here in Scotland observing the sunrise is easier said than done - particularly at this time of year!
We bring thermos bottles, some bring kids, pets, and we just stand there in silence watching the sun.
Afaik it's not coordinated, it's just a bunch of people having the same idea every year.
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> Blatant Western-centrism within academia (and the strange, almost primitive-hatred for living ancient-cultures) perhaps hasn't led either to the recognition of "ancient" monuments in India or its scientific/astronomical outputs. Enough with this bullshit please? There are genuine reasons why the knowledge of the calculus of ancient Kerala didn't travel outside India during the late middle ages. It is a fact that Ma…
When an aperture is aligned to the winter solstice, it is also aligned to avoid light the rest of the year. An early attempt at air conditioning? Keep the heat out. We jump so quickly to religious significance.
my modern equivalent(I needed last year for surfing (after i needed to cut a surf trip short as it became night)) https://daylight.franzai.com/
Where I live, I find it wild that there is a 5.75-hour difference between the summer and winter solstices, nearly a quarter of a whole day.