• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Can anyone tell me why after the winter solstice (22 December 2023), the sunset times start getting later every day (as they should) but the sunrise times actually carry on getting later (not earlier as expected), up until the 1 Jan 2024?
 
Floyd1 said:
Can anyone tell me why after the winter solstice (22 December 2023), the sunset times start getting later every day (as they should) but the sunrise times actually carry on getting later (not earlier as expected), up until the 1 Jan 2024?
Click to expand...
I may have this the wrong way round.

The sunset times change each day by a greater amount than the sunrise times do. i.e. (figures are made up) sunset times get later each day by 5 minutes. Sunrise times get later each day by 2 minutes. It's due to angle of the earth to the sun and the elliptical orbit around the sun.

Or something like that.
 
kesavaross said:
I may have this the wrong way round.

The sunset times change each day by a greater amount than the sunrise times do. i.e. (figures are made up) sunset times get later each day by 5 minutes. Sunrise times get later each day by 2 minutes. It's due to angle of the earth to the sun and the elliptical orbit around the sun.

Or something like that.
Click to expand...
It's the fact that the sunrise times actually carried on getting later for a few days, (not just slowing down or staying the same) that puzzled me.
 
Floyd1 said:
It's the fact that the sunrise times actually carried on getting later for a few days, (not just slowing down or staying the same) that puzzled me.
Click to expand...
This page discusses the reasons for this, all to do with axial tilt, elliptical oribit and the artificial nature of time measurement. It explains it better than I could, but still isn't great, there are probably better webpages available to explain this, but it is a good start.
 
SimonBurchell said:
This page discusses the reasons for this, all to do with axial tilt, elliptical oribit and the artificial nature of time measurement. It explains it better than I could, but still isn't great, there are probably better webpages available to explain this, but it is a good start.
Click to expand...
Right. Cheers Simon.
 
As the article says;
A secondary reason is that the Earth’s orbit is eccentric (an ellipse, like a squashed circle, with the centre of the sun slightly off its centre)

The earth is closer to the sun in January than July- which no one ever believes when you tell them.



14.jpg
 
Floyd1 said:
The earth is closer to the sun in January than July- which no one ever believes when you tell them.
Click to expand...
I have science friends on face book who like to post a reminder along the lines of 'happy January perihelion day enjoy being closest to the sun' type thing every year which is why I know. :)
 
There is a trend at work for technicians to wear badges/pins on their card lanyards, fuelled by the Merck rep who has distributed many science-themed pins in the last 6 months. (Thanks Shaun!). Whilst waiting for my Merck pins to show up, I supplemented my lanyard decorations with a couple from home, including a Minnie Mouse pin from WDW.

Late on Thursday, just before cycling home, I was in the toilet and noticed, in the reflection in the mirror, that I had a gap on my lanyard - the Minnie Mouse pin was missing. I had a look around my desk when I got back to the office, and emptied out the inner bag which gets transferred between my pannier bags as several times I've dislodged a pin whilst removing the lanyard from the bag, but it wasn't there. I kept a careful eye on the floor as I descended the stairs and even turned my bright cycle light onto the floor around my bike before attaching it to the handlebars; still no missing pin. At this point I believe I may have muttered a swift "Please could you return it?" to Them.

Friday morning, I got the bike out of the garage and closed the door. I pulled the keys out of my coat pocket to lock it, and my attention was caught by something falling to the ground. It was the Minnie Mouse pin. I immediately said "Thank you!" and put it in the inner bag; They did it again.

On the ride to work I was slightly pre-occupied with where the pin had come from. The obvious answer is that it fell out of the coat pocket, but I don't usually store my lanyard in there. The last time I had worn that coat was Wednesday morning, which was quite wet, so perhaps I put the lanyard in my pocket to keep it dry between the cycle racks and the building? I did have a rummage in the pocket to check whether the pin back was in there, but no luck on that front. I would have thought I'd have noticed the missing pin on Wednesday if it had come off then. Anyway, the pin is in my possession and I can source another back for it, so all's well that ends well.
 
bugmum said:
There is a trend at work for technicians to wear badges/pins on their card lanyards, fuelled by the Merck rep who has distributed many science-themed pins in the last 6 months. (Thanks Shaun!). Whilst waiting for my Merck pins to show up, I supplemented my lanyard decorations with a couple from home, including a Minnie Mouse pin from WDW.

Late on Thursday, just before cycling home, I was in the toilet and noticed, in the reflection in the mirror, that I had a gap on my lanyard - the Minnie Mouse pin was missing. I had a look around my desk when I got back to the office, and emptied out the inner bag which gets transferred between my pannier bags as several times I've dislodged a pin whilst removing the lanyard from the bag, but it wasn't there. I kept a careful eye on the floor as I descended the stairs and even turned my bright cycle light onto the floor around my bike before attaching it to the handlebars; still no missing pin. At this point I believe I may have muttered a swift "Please could you return it?" to Them.

Friday morning, I got the bike out of the garage and closed the door. I pulled the keys out of my coat pocket to lock it, and my attention was caught by something falling to the ground. It was the Minnie Mouse pin. I immediately said "Thank you!" and put it in the inner bag; They did it again.

On the ride to work I was slightly pre-occupied with where the pin had come from. The obvious answer is that it fell out of the coat pocket, but I don't usually store my lanyard in there. The last time I had worn that coat was Wednesday morning, which was quite wet, so perhaps I put the lanyard in my pocket to keep it dry between the cycle racks and the building? I did have a rummage in the pocket to check whether the pin back was in there, but no luck on that front. I would have thought I'd have noticed the missing pin on Wednesday if it had come off then. Anyway, the pin is in my possession and I can source another back for it, so all's well that ends well.
Click to expand...
I bought a pack of tough rubber backs for those badges from Amazon, really cheap. Can recommend.
For the bigger metal ones I keep a little kit that has metal clasps tightened up with a tiny Allen key.

At work I'm always picking up the badges, presumably after their original clasps have failed. They are all taken home, polished and mounted on the front of a bag that doesn't leave the house.

A favourite is a large WELCOME to TWIN PEAKS model. That one could not possibly have been held for long on its original puny clasp.
 
Just like Barbie Dolls or Cabbage Patch Kid dolls, a super craziness is spreading through the U.S.

An extremely durable tumbler called the Stanley Cup ( nothing to do with hockey) that really keeps liquids cold or hot has been become a fashion statement.

These liquid carriers that normally sell for $45 when out of stock can go for $300.

My older daughter told me that in a work meeting every person proudly put their Stanley Cup upon the table in front of them.

These cups come in different patterns and colors.

It is really crazy.
 
Floyd1 said:
As the article says;
A secondary reason is that the Earth’s orbit is eccentric (an ellipse, like a squashed circle, with the centre of the sun slightly off its centre)

The earth is closer to the sun in January than July- which no one ever believes when you tell them.



View attachment 72632
Click to expand...
What I can't get my head around is that the nearer to a fire I get, the more I feel it's heat regardless of the temperature around me.
 
kesavaross said:
What I can't get my head around is that the nearer to a fire I get, the more I feel it's heat regardless of the temperature around me.
Click to expand...
I don’t see what’s remarkable about that - you get nearer a heat source & feel a heat increase..

It’d be more weird if you got near a heat source & didn’t feel it.
 
hunck said:
I don’t see what’s remarkable about that - you get nearer a heat source & feel a heat increase..

It’d be more weird if you got near a heat source & didn’t feel it.
Click to expand...
When it comes to the earths distance from the the sun and it being at it's nearest in January, which is about the coldest month of the year, that is what I'm on about. The earth is at it's nearest to a heat source, the sun, yet we don't feel it.
 
charliebrown said:
You have to remember the southern hemisphere is in the middle of summer.

It all has do with the angles.
Click to expand...
If I stand nearer to a bonfire, I feel the heat more regardless of angles, surely? The whole planet is at it's nearest to the sun in January. Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

I've heard the explanations so many times but I still don't get it. I know it's probably just me.
 
kesavaross said:
When it comes to the earths distance from the the sun and it being at it's nearest in January, which is about the coldest month of the year, that is what I'm on about. The earth is at it's nearest to a heat source, the sun, yet we don't feel it.
Click to expand...

As others have said, it’s to do with the Earth’s angle to the sun. The odd 3 million miles closer surely has a small overall effect.
 
hunck said:
As others have said, it’s to do with the Earth’s angle to the sun. The odd 3 million miles closer surely has a small overall effect.
Click to expand...
But for the UK, the temperature is at it hottest when the earth is further away from the sun. It makes no sense.
 
kesavaross said:
But for the UK, the temperature is at it hottest when the earth is further away from the sun. It makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Due to the low sun angle in winter, the light has to pass through a  lot more atmosphere before it hits you, it's practically coming at you sideways through the atmosphere, so a lot of that is absorbed before it hits you, combined with the shorter day meaning the air never really gets time to warm up. The opposite applies in the summer, with a high sun angle meaning much less atmosphere in the way, and longer days giving plenty of time for the air temperature to rise.
 
Last edited:
kesavaross said:
If I stand nearer to a bonfire, I feel the heat more regardless of angles, surely? The whole planet is at it's nearest to the sun in January. Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

I've heard the explanations so many times but I still don't get it. I know it's probably just me.
Click to expand...
Because we're still tilted away in the Northern hemisphere, regardless.

You would think therefore, that it must mean that the southern hemisphere has hotter summers (being closer) but apparently it doesn't as there is more water than land there, which takes longer to warm up.

I wonder how much colder our winters would be if our orbit was circular and we were 94.5 million miles away in winter (as we are in July). ?
 
We were woken up at 07:05 this morning by our landline ringing.
It was our daughter and such an early call seemed a bit ominous, so my wife rang her back immediately.
Our daughter said "but it was you who rang me from your mobile". I checked my wife's mobile afterwards (Samsung Galaxy A14) and, sure enough, it showed an outgoing call to our daughter at 07:04 - when both of us were asleep in bed.
Anyone else had similar problems with phantom calls from Samsung smartphones?
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I checked my wife's mobile afterwards (Samsung Galaxy A14) and, sure enough, it showed an outgoing call to our daughter at 07:04
Click to expand...
The phone call-log will show outbound voice calls and SMS text messages, but both will probably show the same iconography symbols irrespective of medium.

Now check your SMS text messages thread. Nowadays most smartphones show this as multiple conversation-specific threads, but yours might be set to list them diary-view. Nomatter: might you have attempted to send a text to your daughter much earlier in the day but it has failed to send?

In this scenario, your phone may have been out of signal when the theoretical text was attempted to be sent earlier that day (or even the day before), but has then (at 0704hrs) found itself in signal, and has then in a diligent-but-delayed fashion 'automatically' sent the text. This might look like a phonecall in both the sender and recipient call-logs.

Reasons for delay in sending an SMS text: poor signal (faulty company network, especially in rural locations with minimal coverage; perhaps a faulty phone, including user network settings that are not optimised...especially for older phones that still rely upon 3G, which is being ceased right now in many locales).

Possibly network congestion, magnified in part by some of the above possibilities (this often occurs up to 12-24hrs into a New Year, caused by SMS text sheer quantities...but we are now a week in, so that is not root cause).

Hmm...is your daughter's number set as a speed-dial contact? This (or a last number redial) could somehow have caused an inadvertent pocket-dial/bump-dial situation: but that's unlikely without a trigger.

Do the call-logs on your (and your daughter's) phone show a duration for this non-call?

Does the call-log on your phone list *all* calls from your phone, irrespective of whether they are conventional on-net billable voice calls and/or free off-net calls (made via eg WiFi calling or even Internet calls made via Facebook Messenger voice/WhatsApp Voice/Zoiper etc)?

ps also (and I should have said this first) check that the call-log on your phone *definitely* shows you as the caller, and not the recipient. If your daughter mistakenly dialled you, but thought you dialled her (and you believed her in good faith, but mistakenly) she could have seen her previous inadvertant misdial to you at 0704, then called you deliberately at 0705.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top