I've been asked to fill in a questionnaire, It's for an NHS trial. they want to know my height.
The question is: What is your height in feet and inches?
Feet: 4, 5, 6, 7. Inches 1, 2, 3, .................11, 12.
Funny, I always thought I was six foot nothing, not five foot twelve.
Even I went SI forty-odd years ago!
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Think yourself lucky! If you was a horse you`d be 18hands!
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>> Think yourself lucky! If you was a horse you`d be 18hands!
With that many you could give yourself a round of applause.
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That's odd to say the least. Suggests the author lakcs some basic comprehension. One metre and 100cm?
On a linked point when did noon/midday and midnight become 12:00am and 12:00pm? They're niether am nor pm being the point of transition from one to t'other.
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>>being the point of transition from one to t'other. <<
And as such, as the days/nights lengthen/shorten, noon/midday/midnight will roam about all over the clock-face!- so to speak,
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Not really. If noon is the sun's maximum elevation, that's at 1200 GMT on the Greenwich meridian every day. It grates on me when people say 'good afternoon' at 1201 in the summer. I think they're being more pedantic than me - and they're wrong!
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Er ?? if noon.midday/ midnight is the mid-point twixt sunrise/sunset moonrise/moonset, then surely that mid-point must alter in relation to the other times? not by mich granted, but if sunrise alters an hour or more in the course of the Seasons then surely noon cant remain static at 1200 at Grenich?
Or am i baffleing myself?
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It's all slightly complicated by the fact that the earth, the axis and the orbit aren't symmetrical and the earth wobbles a bit, but essentially the sun is at its highest point at local noon, for practical purposes.
Conversely, before accurate timekeeping or instant communication, that was the best way to set a clock accurately.
It was as late as the mid 1800s that a standard time was introduced to make railway timetableing make sense. Prior to that you would have needed to reset your watch to see the right time if you travelled say from London to Plymouth, where the time would be a few minutes later.
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if noon.midday/ midnight is the mid-point twixt sunrise/sunset moonrise/moonset...
But it isn't. Maybe it's different in the West Country but no-one I've ever met or heard defines them in those terms. The moon has nothing to do with it (although I like your idea of the moon and sun connected like a pair of cablecars, one rising as the other descends); as Manatee explained more carefully than me, it's all about the elevation of the sun.
If you want to argue for movable mids, try 'mid-morning' or 'mid-evening'; I have no idea how to define those.
}:---)
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Devonite, maybe I've twigged your thinking, ignoring the moon which has little influence, noon will not generally be halfway between sunrise and sunset - because the earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the orbital plane. However, on solstice days when each hemisphere is tilted directly away from or towards the sun, they will be approximately equal.
In between the solstices, the morning and evening will be of different durations, I'd guess most unequal around the equinox days when the tilt is sideways on to the sun - but I'm no astronomer.
You might like this -
www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=136&month=6&year=2011&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1
Just remember to aim off for summer time when it's in force if you're looking at morning/evening durations.
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Thought I was taller - devonite
