People who feel that the beginning of a season can be pinpointed to the same specific date every year on our calendar do not garden or are unaware of their surroundings. The seasons are different every single year. In the Northwestern US, the bulbs and cherry blossoms started to sprout in mid-January along with temps in the 50s F. And this is not due to global warming, it is a common occurrence in two to three year cycles.

The notion that the seasons begin on the solstices and equinoxes is based on popular culture and now erroneously emblazoned on our calendars. The calendar should read “Spring Equinox” rather than “Spring begins.”

@Lockwood So the “entire world,” including all authority at the time, namely, the Roman Catholic Church, believed that the Earth is flat. Only Copernicus and Galileo believed otherwise. So, we should have stuck with popular culture I guess? What you consider trivial, as in the definition of solstice or equinox, others find interesting. If Christians choose to celebrate Christmas on an erroneous date, that’s their prerogative. I choose to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes as simply solstices and equinoxes, not as the beginnings or endings of seasons. The summer solstice simply defines the solstice that occurs within summer.

If you want to treat it as a joke, then we’re in agreement. That’s what I was trying to get at in the latter part of the above post. However, if you see science as the final arbiter of what is right and wrong for a culture to do, believe, and celebrate, then you put yourself in the same position as religions, and you deserve the same disdain with which I hold them. Science is not about “truth,” whatever that means, it’s about evidence. The evidence is that you and Phil are dissatisfied with the dominant definition of seasons- and I’m not trying to criticize or denigrate that dissatifaction. The evidence is also that you are in a very distinct minority. All I’m trying to say is that defending your position with the cloak of SCIENCE, and announcing to the world “I’m right and all you poor sods are wrong,” is not going to convince people, and is potentially damaging to the general attitude toward science.

The issue of “seasons” is not what we’re discussing here. What we’re discussing is the proper use and role of science. If you want to turn science into a faith-based dictatorship that imposes arbitrary standards, based on accurate, repeatable, observations that, nevertheless, have no significant impact on the lives of most people, and that, sadly, most people don’t know or comprehend, that’s your right. It’s my right to point out that I think that’s a really, really bad idea.

Likewise, to argue that people in the English middle ages celebrated the solstice as “midsummer,” therefore they’re right, and the vast majority of modern citizens are wrong, seems a little ridiculous too. What do you and Phil think about wearing scarves around your mouths and noses to prevent breathing the bad air that causes the black plague and malaria (malaria literally means “bad air”)?

Just sayin’.

I’ve done this by sticking a marker in the ground to mark the daily shadow of a tree. (and I also noticed that I was observing a natural sundial)

I suspect it’s actually meteorology (a science, of sorts) that’s brought us to the pass where culture and astronomy find themselves arrayed together against the calendar.

Naturally (since I don’t grow anything,) climate is nearly irrelevant to my actual lifestyle. If I’m going to quarter the year, grouping together the days with similar lengths actually makes a bit more sense.

Not that, you know, I really go outside a lot either.

GAry 7

Phil, I can relate to your desire to nail things down, and your tendency to look for astronomical nails. Many of my physics friends tend to look at things the same way, and I tend to try to rationalize ways in which geology is the root cause of everything on earth. There is some truth and value in these endeavors, but to single-handedly declare that nearly everyone else is “wrong”, and a few astronomy nerds are “right”, with respect to what I think we agree is a culturally-based word, is at best silly. At worst, it’s heavy handed overreaching, and it’s the kind of thing that makes many people hostile to science.

Looking back, this seems to have a sterner tone than I’d prefer, over an issue that (again, I think we agree) is pretty trivial. So. Here are my suggestions for clarifying and physically defining common cultural concepts with an Astronomical and Physical Approach:

*Colors will no longer be named; we will teach people to refer to them by their frequencies. So, for example, “yellow” will henceforth be called “589 nm.” This has an added benefit in that people may come to comprehend that so called “microwaves” (which will now be called “0.1 to 10 cm”) are actually much less energetic or “dangerous” than visible light.

*ALL astronomical bodies that do not sustain fusion will be referred to as “STAR FAILs!” Let’s put this silly planet-plutoid-dwarf planet issue behind us for once and for all.

*The periodic table needs clarification too; it just keeps getting more and more cluttered:
1-Hydrogen; 2-Helium; 3- Metal. This will allow even kindergartners to memorize the entire thing.

*All physical entities will be referred to by their masses and appropriate stoichiometric chemical formulae. Care must be taken to calculate the molar proportions rather than mass proportions. Living entities should probably be designated as “O” for organic, 15 (see below). Non-living matter resulting from the death of a once-living entity will be likewise be distinguished with a “16″ notation, for “post organic.” Using myself as a simple example, I should henceforth be addressed as (roughly) 100kg H10M6(15). Post mortem, I will be recalled by the same designation, but my corpus will be referred to in the present tense as 100kg H10M6(16)

*Musical Tempos will be redefined in terms of a range of pulsars. I have provided the groundwork for this conversion by finding the periods of three well-known examples, but I leave it to others more musically and astronomically knowlegeable to fill out the list and match them to corresponding passages of music. The notation in sheet music and scholarly research should use the appropriate astronomical designations (in parentheses below), rather than their common English names:
Crab Pulsar 0.033403347 s (PSR B0531+21)
Vela Pulsar 0.089298530 s (PSR B0833-45 or PSR J0835-4510) (Phil, why does this object have two designations?)
Vulpecula Pulsar 0.144457105 s (PSR B1937+21, sometimes written as PSR B1937+214) (!!!! Again? This isn’t science!)

*Musical notes will henceforth be designated by frequency (rather than by wavelength, to keep music distinct from light). Who was the dingbat that used letters, which aren’t defined physically, to describe music, which is first and foremost a physical phenomenon of both Stars and STAR FAIL’s! (the latter provided they have atmospheres of H, He, and/or M)? So, for example, “middle C” will now be referred to as “261.626 Hz.”

*Speaking of letters, this system is entirely culturally-based and needs to be brought up to tight, Mathematical Standards, worthy of being described as “Science.” Here’s my suggestion: each letter will act as an equivalent digit in a base-26 numerical system. So “and” represents 1*676 + 14*26 + 4 (base 10, our “native,” cultural base. We’ll work on that cultural influence later), or 1044. 1044 has a variety of meanings, which can be represented by using sub- and superscripts (though not in the word processing utility I’m working on at the moment. 1044 can act as a conjuction, it can imply addition, and it is a logical operator. Converting the English language to its base 10 equivalent will effectively and logically convert all discussion in that language to a series of calculations- the accuracy and truthfulness of which can be simply and quickly tested with a mere calculator. No more spin zone. No more propaganda from the anti-science and science illiterate. The lies and avoidance of truth will no longer be possible! Puntuation is currently an unresolved problem, but enormous strides forward are expected from research currently underway.

*59652913561263617075549096264307084079455801938361738358923655435811
55205814786412235344364963971678440077157614120977290220210807848837
39160282449034426471659341319772759488630874186481176411701226823074
57462723568109898015081853809981375829396585665877567916977028682128
2665238660035982882928338160210133654121452282162039299343626363291
44955636452376456556101762425296838346077430234990492683304856422521
03942643486125145827799440419929805535147126406460519425638172043938
343059522753347159925306157811986256186556312852141663134460252188374
1585485772643807901614263856755

*(Hope you enjoyed this discussion. I did)

Yes, the seasons are opposite in the opposing hemispheres. Given that the seasons are caused by the Earth’s axial tilt, if one hemisphere is leaning towards the Sun, the other is leaning away.

As for temperatures, here in Canberra it’s already been cold. We’re away from the coast, so our summers are hotter and winters colder than the coastal cities. One day a couple of weeks ago we had a maximum temperature of 3 degrees C, the coldest day Canberra has had in more than 40 years.

Yes.

Cold.

It may be the mid-point of summer, but it’s more like the beginning of summer weather.

And this week, it’ll be 30 degrees C, cloudy, rainy and humid. Woo! Rainy season! Can’t wait for July and August with 32-35 degrees C, sunny, sunny and humid.

Even Spaceweather.com is calling today the first day of summer.

@ #50. space cadet — if – “supposedly” on the equinox you can stand eggs on end^*, can one infer that on the solstices you can stand them on their sides?

@ #51 Jeff — Yes, the seasons are opposite in the southern hemisphere.

^*- I know that the “standing eggs on end at equinox” is a fallacy, and can be done any day of the year.

Can any Aussie confirm this?

(and if you do, what is your current temperature there?)

But seriously, folks, here in the Garden of Eden that Phil abandoned (the one with all the wineries) we seeem to have the rainy season, the dry season, and that month to six weeks in August and September when it’s suddenly so blast oven hot that you’re afraid to open a door. (But it does pump up the sugars in those grapes!)

And oh, coolstar (#38) is back. I guess you didn’t see the followup comment I made to your incorrect and insulting assertions in the Star Trek review thread. Why do you feel the need to be so hostile?

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/02/best-science-post-of-2009-voting-now-open/#comments

And, that was very gallant of The Professor.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! So many North Americans get this wrong! Phil, you get full points for realising that the southern hemisphere exists (unlike many people in the northern hemisphere). But let’s get something straight, for the benefit of everyone in the northern hemisphere; It is currently winter in the southern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, we call the (locally) warmest part of the year “summer”, and the coldest part “winter”. Crazy, huh? We also call that period when the sun is (locally) visible above the horizon “day” and the period when it’s hidden below the horizon “night”. Day and night vary depending on where you are on the Earth’s surface. Why should the naming of the seasons be any different? And why does nobody I talk to in North America get this concept?