Another orbit around the sun
Another orbit around the sun
52 comments
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Fuck you, let us have fun.
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Aren't all forms of measurement (in this case it's a measurement of time) completely arbitrary?
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The measurement of earth orbiting for one revolution around the sun (a unit of time we refer to as a year) isn't arbitrary. It's clearly defined. You've either made one complete revolution or not. It's just that the original starting point for the first measurement was arbitrary because you'd have to start somewhere.
Many forms of measurement are based on absolutes, like temperature, measured from absolute zero, or time, measured against the cesium standard (atomic clock). You'd have to break physics in order to be able to define them as arbitrary.
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There's still a ton of non-absolute values though. Like the difference between absolute zero and absolute zero + 1.
Choosing one second to be 9192631770 transitions of a caesium atom seems quite arbitrary.
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But divisions of time are arbitrary, no? 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 30(ish) days in a month, 12 months in a year. There were other ways to divide all that up. There's reasons they were divided that way, but the fact that we have to add a day every 4 years just because it's not perfect says a lot haha
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January 1st is defined, but it's still pretty arbitrary. It would make more sense if it were the solstice 10 days earlier or the spring equinox or summer solstice etc. because at least that's the start/end of "something"
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In this case I might argue that there are more "natural" points of reference (eg. solstices/equinoxes).
We use political/religious markers instead which are completely irrelevant to the planet's orbit.
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From the Sun's perspective, perihelion or aphelion would make more sense, I guess.
By sheer coincidence, perihelion is a few days away at the time of writing, so we could lie to the Sun that this is an early celebration of that.
Of course, this comes with two problems: 1) The common era new year is actually a belated marking of the solstice (much like Christmas a week before). Perihelion will be later and later on average with respect to it due to the procession of the poles, so the lie is going to become more and more apparent over the coming centuries. 2) The Sun might think we're celebrating being far away because we hate it.
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The Sun might think we’re celebrating being far away because we hate it.
Much like the celebration of the winter solstice is being happy the days are getting longer, maybe the Sun would think we're happy we're getting closer again.
Sol Invictus!
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We measure Right Ascension from the first point of Aries, which is the March equinox and one of the two times where the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. (The other being the September equinox, of course.) That's easier to determine with a telescope than peri-/aphelion, and more meaningful to people on Earth. Might suggest that as new year, and then we won't upset the sun either?
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Hey, gotta start somewhere.
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N🌍CAR. Keep turning left and aim for where you started
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New years >>>>>>Christmas
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Bro I fucken hate Christmas as an adult. So much stress attached. Stressing about gifts for like 1-2 months of the year. Heck to the no. This year I just said no thanks to all gifts, asked all my relatives to donate to a charity of their choice instead, and that I would not be giving gifts. Best Christmas in a couple decades, seriously.
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New Year's is my favorite holiday. Just gonna chill with a friend with beer, crackers and some chess/video games. My Christmas present from my dad was to go buy some fireworks with him, so I got a bunch of stuff to do at midnight.
Way better than Christmas or Easter or other baloney festivities. New Year's is at least somewhat tangible even tho I do concede, it makes no difference.
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And due to things such as orbital drifting, the spot where Earth is supposed to be on December 31st 2024 23:59:59.999 GMT won't be the same spot where Earth was exactly 365.256363004 days earlier. Sun's also moving, orbiting around the center of the Milky Way, which is also moving, oversimplifiedly, towards the Laniakea supercluster. Every spot Earth lies on every December 31st is definitely an entire uncharted spot.
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New year, new territory. I like it.
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It‘s not completely arbitrary. New year is after the shortest day for daylight of the year.
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I think Brazil and Australia would like a word.
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I can't speak for Brazil, but here in Australia we're too sleepy to care right now. Happy New Year.
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They took over the celebrations during colonization. Do the natives even celebrate New Year?
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I shouldn't be surprised that lemmites would find a way to make hating the new year a personality trait.
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Even if it were arbitrary, I think a personified celestial body would instantly recognise the humanity in celebrating something happening again and again. Like when someone keeps falling over and the people witnessing it go "wahey!" every time.
Edit: or when the DVD screensaver logo hits the corner, which granted doesn't happen as often but they go mad for it.
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In theory, couldn't we use the exact point the Earth is precisely between the sun and galactic center?
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lol... casual searches for info on this yield a lot of questionable new-agey galactic alignment stuff.
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52 comments
This is a bit disingenuous; what's considered the "new year" is usually aligned with the seasons and the passing of winter, which is very much not arbitrary and completely dependent on the tilt of Earth's axis.
I think Brazil and Australia would like a word.
You mean the Portuguese and the English, who brought their traditions with them
It is aligned for the southern hemisphere as well, just with winter and summer reversed.
This is why we need to go back to the roots of what Christmas was co-opted from.
Gimme my winter solstice festival!
Summer Christmas is less magical
The change of year is not aligned with the winter solstice. In fact the new year has been intentionally moved to an arbitrary date to obscure the solstice behind religious holidays.
It's basically a week away from the solstice, still. A little more than a week. It's exactly a week from Christmas Eve, which is what many countries (like where I live) celebrate as "the" Christmas. It's pretty clear still, to me at least, that we celebrate this time because of the sun returning to higher distances above the horizon.
Does January 1st coincide with the ending of winter anywhere?
I said "passing", not "end". The end of the year is roughly aligned with mid-winter, a.k.a. the winter solstice, the point at which light and life begin their return.
I figure the solstice would be a far better tradition to bring back. Party twice a year? Peak and summer the low of winter. Sign me up
Uh... it hasn't gone anywhere. Just because you haven't celebrated it, doesn't mean others haven't.
My wife and I do this. Not all of our friends are up for it (some think it's too sacrilegious, but like everything I do is I'm not sure why they haven't got that yet)
Why just solstices? I maintain that secular society would probably enjoy the cardinal (solstices and equinoxes) and ordinal (halfway points) holidays that modern pagans tend to celebrate far better than the Christian ones. They're evenly spaced out and correspond to changes in light and temperature