In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Clive D.W. Feather" writes: >Tom Van Baak said: >> It seems to me the popular understanding of a year >> is accurate to +/-1 day. > >I think you're out by a factor of 10. Would the Man On The Clapham Omnibus >be able to identify the solstice or equinox to within 14 days? Other than >knowing the "conventional" dates? > >[That is, if the equinox was actually on March 9th, would anyone outside >the astronomical community notice?]
I doubt it. I'm not so certain about the summer and winter solstice however. here in the nordic countries were're quite emotionally attached to those. I know of at least one grade school science teacher who had his pupils time sunrise and sunset to prove that december 23 was the shortest day in the year. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
