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Post by Colleenosaurus on Dec 4, 2003 1:03:13 GMT -5
" A detailed account of the double sunset can be found in Dr.Robert Plot's book, 'The Natural History of Staffordshire'. This was published in 1686 and dedicated to King James II. Dr. Plot was Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and Professor of Chymistry at Oxford. He described how on midsummer's day the sun was observed from Leek churchyard to set behind a hill called the Cloud. It would then reappear and set again on the more distant horizon of the Cheshire plain." ![]() www.u-net.com/ph/mas/leek/h-bode.jpg[/img][/url] |
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Post by Bulldada on Dec 4, 2003 13:03:33 GMT -5
Plot proposed using the phenomenon to accurately monitor changes in the angle of the Earth's tilt. This is presently 23.5 degrees but varies either way. Since 3000BC the tilt has slowly reduced from nearly 24 degrees. In prehistoric times, the sun was about half a degree higher in the midsummer sky and at the solstice it set somewhat northward of its present setting point, just clipping the hill top. Since then, because of the changes to the tilt, the solstitial sunset has slipped southwards along the horizon and will continue to do so for many thousands of years before reversing. From the site of the church, the double sunset did not actually start until Iron Age times, ca 500BC.  Well, the show claims that magnetic records can be traced through volcanic rock, and that records show that the magnetic field does in fact flip flop (in effect, your compass would point south) naturally every several hundred thousand years or so; that it's a cyclic thing and that the flop is usually accompanied by the beginning of an ice age, in fact that the flop signals a coming ice age. Interestingly it predicts that we are due for one.Are these related in some way. If they are the math doesn't add up.
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Post by Colleenosaurus on Dec 5, 2003 0:11:26 GMT -5
I'm not sure. I wouldn't think they are related, except for this line: Since then, because of the changes to the tilt, the solstitial sunset has slipped southwards along the horizon and will continue to do so for many thousands of years before reversing. That part seems to relate the two things, but as you said, the math is off. I don't know. |
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Post by Aeristotle on Dec 12, 2003 12:09:39 GMT -5
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Post by Synthax on Dec 12, 2003 12:18:07 GMT -5
Wow...  *hides under a rock* |
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Post by sunshine on Jan 24, 2004 3:46:38 GMT -5
i like the sunset
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*hides under a rock* 