Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions about this blog, the good looking author of this blog, or anything you would like addressed, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Absolutely. And I’m no liar.

Will you have my children?

I like to keep an open mind about these things. Send me a MySpace picture of yourself, and I’ll see if your genes are worthy enough to be spliced with my own.

What can you tell me about summer solstices?

This seems to be a popular question. Fortunately, it’s a subject I’m well versed in.

Solstices occur twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is oriented directly towards or away from the Sun, causing the Sun to appear to reach its northernmost and southernmost extremes. The name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, its apparent movement north or south comes to a standstill.

The term solstice can also be used in a wider sense, as the date (day) that such a passage happens. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In some languages they are considered to start or separate the seasons; in others they are considered to be centre points (in English, in the Northern hemisphere, for example, the period around the June solstice is known as midsummer, and Midsummer’s Day is 24 June, about three days after the solstice itself).

The two solstices can be distinguished by different pairs of names, depending on which feature one wants to stress. Summer solstice and winter solstice are the most common names. However, these can be ambiguous since seasons of the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere are opposites, and the summer solstice of one hemisphere is the winter solstice of the other.

I hope that helps.