The Sun stood still earlier today! Don’t panic – It is Summer Solstice. I’m talking about an apparent motion of the sun, or, more accurately the migration of its path across the sky. Take a moment to think celestially for a bit and ponder the earth as it goes around the sun on its annual path. There’s a tilt to the earth’s own rotation axis, remember? (About 23 degrees). That tilt results in our seasons, and the path of the sun through the daily sky. Visualize this for a moment and it’ll make sense, if you let it. Today the sun’s path has got as northernmost as it will get, and it is now turning around, being more Southern each day until Winter Solstice. To turn around and change direction, you first have to stop. No way around it. So, the sun stood still today.
So, I decided to celebrate all this lovely geometry on the spur(ish) of the moment. Will you? I’m going to cook up several tasty dishes and have some friends around to bring some of their cooking and share it all. I suspect generous amounts of wine will be consumed too.
Time to plan a menu and hit the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, I think. If you get there before me, don’t buy all the squash blossoms! Might be the centerpiece of the small bites round. (Some past menus are here and here, if interested.)
Have a great Solstice!
-cvj
Hi,
There’s no reason for them to be aligned, given that there’s a very complicated flow pattern of the material in the interior of the planet that gives rise to the (main contribution to) the magnetic field. As the flow patterns change, so does the field.
-cvj
Hi,
I read somewhere that there is also a tilt in the axis of magnetism of the earth to its rotational axis. Why is that?
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