Revelations from the Phillistine

I thought I'd start the blog off with a little pop news humour. The God reference is sort of relevant to class!

Anyway, so, I guess I've always had a hard time with that very first diagram on the path of the sun. I think that was one of those diagrams I always briefly nodded at in grade school before quickly turning the page to hide my obvious incomprehension. Call it a "Eureka!" moment for me, having reread it just a couple days ago (I know, yikes, right?). Anyway, that was my first little glimmer of fascination. It had never really occurred to me why everyone complained about winter being sort of sunless, why the skies were usually gray. I just usually blamed it on being overcast (Yeah, but that often? Come on, Conklin). Well whatever my self prescribed answers were, I've got the real ones here. Boy howdy. Along the same line (oh, no, I'm about to make a really bad pun...), the concept of the ecliptic plus the earth's tilt never really made sense or at least that I never comprehended it until rereading it here.

I guess this whole little reading session really was just a big fun facts session for me. The concept behind the Zodiac and why each month long section got its own sign was interesting. I mean, I knew it had to do with stars, but what exactly or rather how was never clear to me. I just never thought about it.

I will say, though, that the concept of the sundial didn't really impress me though it seemed to be everyone else's source of excitement. Not that I didn't enjoy the concept, it was just sort of old news.

[at left, scene from Hercules: "Hey mack, you wanna buy a sun dial?"]

The technicalities of the solar/lunar eclipse were clarifying. I always sort of knew the basic gist, but the different positions of the earth along the ecliptic and the distance of the moon to the earth affecting the totality of an eclipse never really occurred to me.

So that's that. See you all in the vis lab!