The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXII
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I'm having a terrible time googling the name of the song with the lyrics "Na na na na nahhhhhh nah!"
Who knew there were so many songs with that in there?
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/journey/lovintouchinsqueezin.html
"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'"
You make me weep and wanna die
Just when you said we'd try
Lovin', touchin', squeezin' each other
When I'm alone all by myself
You're out with someone else
Lovin', touchin', squeezin' each other
You're tearin' me apart
Every, every day
You're tearin' me apart
Oh what can I say?
You're tearin' me apart
It won't be long, yes, till you're alone
When your lover, oh, he hasn't come home
Cause he's lovin', who he's touchin',
He's squeezin' another
He's tearin' you apart
Every, every day
He's tearin' you apart
Oh girl what can you say?
Cause he's lovin', touchin' another
Now it's your turn girl to cry
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na
It wasn't the same people that came up with it....
hobbsyoyo
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They literally did not know what phenomenon could produce a year and just took guesses. Unfortunately, both good and bad guesses that seemed to make sense were codified by other people until they were taken as absolute facts.
But not everyone thought that the Earth was flat in 1000BC, by then, quite a few people knew it was round and IIRC, that was (around) the time when the Greeks worked out the circumference of the Earth to reasonable accuracy using trigonometry.
People's ignorance was hit-or-miss, some societies could believe some really stupid stuff while also being way ahead in other areas. But they had so few tools to verify things that it's not quite fair IMO to judge them for ignorance for they surely were not stupid.
But not everyone thought that the Earth was flat in 1000BC, by then, quite a few people knew it was round and IIRC, that was (around) the time when the Greeks worked out the circumference of the Earth to reasonable accuracy using trigonometry.
People's ignorance was hit-or-miss, some societies could believe some really stupid stuff while also being way ahead in other areas. But they had so few tools to verify things that it's not quite fair IMO to judge them for ignorance for they surely were not stupid.
There may have been people who knew how long the year was and still believed the Earth is flat. You can observe the length of the year (though you may not understand what it signifies or the how or why it works as it does) but figuring out the Earth isn't flat is much harder to do for someone with no tools, little written language or records and essentially 0 observations of most natural phenomenon. There is also no obvious links between the two that I can think of that would occur to someone who knew nothing for certain about either.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
They knew it was 364 days long because they had seasons and could count. The 12 month thing is just made up.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
A year is actually just slightly longer than 13 revolutions of the Moon around the Earth, but the motion of the Earth makes lunar months look longer than that. People in many cultures somehow became fixated on 12 being the proper number of months, and so made calender months longer. Some still kept leap months, but these were often shorter than a real lunar month while the rest of the months were longer.
The Greeks are normally credited with discovering that the Earth was round during the 6th century BC, not as early as 1000 BC
The Greeks are normally credited with discovering that the Earth was round during the 6th century BC, not as early as 1000 BC
They counted the days from one summer solstice to the next and called that a year, which happened to be roughly 365 days.
Summer solstice is the day where the sun rises highest on noon on any given latitude (on the northern hemisphere). What actually causes difference of how high the sun rises over a year? The reason is a combination of
a) Earth is a sphere
b) Earth has an inclination relative to the ecliptic
c) Earth rotates around the Sun
I don't think any of these are obvious or even intuitive assumptions to make using only observations available in everyday life. And to get a working explanation for the seasons you would need all three of them!
And I don't think I have to remind anyone that settling (c) took even longer than the whole flat Earth business. So I while it seems obvious in retrospect, it really wasn't at the time.
Summer solstice is the day where the sun rises highest on noon on any given latitude (on the northern hemisphere). What actually causes difference of how high the sun rises over a year? The reason is a combination of
a) Earth is a sphere
b) Earth has an inclination relative to the ecliptic
c) Earth rotates around the Sun
I don't think any of these are obvious or even intuitive assumptions to make using only observations available in everyday life. And to get a working explanation for the seasons you would need all three of them!
And I don't think I have to remind anyone that settling (c) took even longer than the whole flat Earth business. So I while it seems obvious in retrospect, it really wasn't at the time.
timtofly
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So they could count days, but not months? Why would 12 months not coincide with seasons?
So you are saying that it was just the seasons (as a phenomenon) that would create a year? Thanks, that makes sense.
Would it have been hard to associate the changing of the seasons with the shape of the world? Thanks Leoreth.
Thanks, Cutlass, hobbsyoyo, and MagisterCultuum.
Months are an arbitrary unit of measurement, tim.
I'd like to remind everyone that the scientific method wasn't established until the modern era. They had no logical framework or body of knowledge to base anything off of.
God(s) of the gaps, remember?
I'd like to remind everyone that the scientific method wasn't established until the modern era. They had no logical framework or body of knowledge to base anything off of.
God(s) of the gaps, remember?
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
I like Leoreth's summer solstice explanation better than mine, but without seasons they could easily ignore that fact and make some arbitrary time unit. Or just ignore it.
I also didn't think of the lunar phases, but that still doesn't "help" with anything, unlike having years. I also doubt the lunar months coincide with the seasons.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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I closed my computer. When I opened it and went back on Chrome, everything I had ever done was gone, including my history, favorites, remembered passwords, popular websites, addons, everything. It was like I had opened up Chrome for the first time.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
What's the deal with all the whacky talk about Poland on this forum?
Pretty much entirely a legacy of having a succession of loopy/annoying/crazy/clueless Polish posters over the past five or six years. Back when it was mostly just Squonk who represented Polishness on CFC, nobody gave a crap one way or another about Poles, Poland, and so on.
hobbsyoyo
Deity
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Because Domen from Poland needs trollin'. Stick around and you'll see why.
With the notable exception of Warpus, naturally.
I guess it is worth noting, however, that clan Warpus had the intelligence to move to Canadia,
Therefore
Clan Warpus > All other Poles
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I love it when people ask that.
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