Happy autumnal equinox
Winter is coming
Conversation
Equinoxes and solstices are the only real days in the calendar everything else is fake
3
5
34
Replying to
You can’t actually detect those without precise modern measurements since axial tilt effects swamp weather and insolation differences are tiny due to low orbit eccentricity
1
1
Replying to
They don’t sync up to solar year, so you need horrifying contortions… traditional calendars use them for convenience and ease of detection
1
1
Replying to
They’re not actually. The Hindu calendar is lunisolar and it’s horrible. An entire breed of priests collects rents simply calculating dates. The months are strict lunar 28 days so in some years you add an entire extra month. No layperson plebe could do the calculations.
2
What’s genuinely eerie is the apparent disc size size being nearly exactly the same which allows for perfect total solar eclipses. A little smaller you’d only get annular eclipses which suck. A little larger and you wouldn’t see the dramatic corona.
2
1
Replying to
it is interesting when you view something like a calendar through the lens of technology (calendars in general) and design/standardization (particular calendars and their promulgation) and the societal outcomes

