Timecube redux
Nov. 3rd, 2004 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenActually, on rereading, I think I see what that poor nutter - I'm sorry, The Wisest Human to ever live on Earth (such modesty) - Gene Ray's on about.
He sees 4 times of day as "corners" around which it pivots: dawn, noon, sunset, midnight.
At any given time in 1 24h period, it's dawn somewhere - the start of 1 day; noon somewhere else (.25 way thru' a 2nd "day"); sunset somewhere else (.5 thru' a 3rd "day") and midnight somewhere else (.75 thru' a 4th "day").
Ergo, 4 days in every 24h.
He fails to notice that dawn and dusk vary with latitude and season, making it a very odd-shaped "cube".
Also, of course, at any given moment, somewhere on the Earth's surface, it's any given time of day. It varies continuously. Thus we have timezones, splitting the continuous variation into 24 fairly manageable, slightly wobbly, bands.
With this difficulty in grasping a continuously-variable quantity, here, one guesses, is someone who is not going to grasp the calculus.
I'm worried now that I understand him. Well, I think I understand him. Oh dear.
He sees 4 times of day as "corners" around which it pivots: dawn, noon, sunset, midnight.
At any given time in 1 24h period, it's dawn somewhere - the start of 1 day; noon somewhere else (.25 way thru' a 2nd "day"); sunset somewhere else (.5 thru' a 3rd "day") and midnight somewhere else (.75 thru' a 4th "day").
Ergo, 4 days in every 24h.
He fails to notice that dawn and dusk vary with latitude and season, making it a very odd-shaped "cube".
Also, of course, at any given moment, somewhere on the Earth's surface, it's any given time of day. It varies continuously. Thus we have timezones, splitting the continuous variation into 24 fairly manageable, slightly wobbly, bands.
With this difficulty in grasping a continuously-variable quantity, here, one guesses, is someone who is not going to grasp the calculus.
I'm worried now that I understand him. Well, I think I understand him. Oh dear.
