John Shepherd wrote:
1. The equation of time gives the difference between the sun time and
standard time. Your difference is cumulative or integral of the daily
difference. The orbital effect has a maximum difference of about 8
minutes (this does not include the inclination effect). Averaging
thi
A final(?) note on this topic. By drawing little pictures of ellipses and
crosses and triangles and applying Kepler's Second Law, I was able to come
up with an expression for the difference between the length of summer and
the length of spring to lowest order in the orbital eccentricity
(epsilon=
reading his first email correctly. I was guilty, as Profs. often are,
of thinking the question was something we have heard many times and
answering that and not what was asked. I also had made a quick
incorrect calculation in my head and as the answer was the same as
Willy's used that. To com
John Shepherd wrote:
Now back to the original question: Why is the difference between the
time between the Vernal equinox and the Summer Solstice different
from the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox?
This effect is approximately due to the tilt of the Earth
We're talking about the same question now, but I beg to differ on the
answer. The tilt of the Earth's axis cannot explain any difference in the
length of the seasons. The only reason you need to bring the tilt of the
Earth into the discussion at all is to define the equinoxes as the times
whe
