Dear Mac > Here in Vermont a sundial is lucky to see the > sun 15% of the hours in a year.
Hmmm, sounds worse than the U.K. :-( > Heck, half of the time it's night! Interestingly, this isn't true. The number of days from the March equinox to the September equinox is about 8 more than the number of days from the September equinox to the (following) March equinox. This is much more than a second-order effect! In the northern hemisphere, therefore, we get more day than night taking the year as a whole. Down in the southern hemisphere the reverse is true. Only on the equator can you say `half the time it's night' and even there you risk being told by a pedant that night excludes the period of twilight. Frank King Cambridge, U.K. --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
