This morning while I was ensconced in a shower, the younger Free-Ride offspring decided it would be a good idea to bound in and wake my better half.
Younger offspring: Good morning! Look at the sun.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: (looking around groggily) What sun? It’s still dark.
Younger offspring: I know. “Good morning! Look at the sun” is from a song.*
Younger offspring: Why is the sun always coming up and going down anyway?
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: (still groggy) Huh?
Younger offspring: Why is the sun always coming up and going down? Is it because the Earth is rotating?
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: Doesn’t that seem like a good explanation?
Younger offspring: But is it happening everywhere?
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: What?
Younger offspring: Do countries on every continent get rotated to get the sun coming up and going down? [Possibly this question comes from the whole “time zones” thing with which we dealt on our recent trip to the East coast, resulting in every time being announced in terms of “here in Maryland” and “at home in California”.]**
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: What do you think? Would it make sense for some countries to be rotating and others not?
Younger offspring: No. All the continents are on the Earth, so if the Earth is rotating, all of the continents rotate too.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: Right. So the sun rises and sets on all the continents.
Younger offspring: Just not at the same time.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: (hiding under the covers) Uh huh.
Younger offspring: It’s still time to get up!
* * * * *
Regular readers of this blog will recall that the younger Free-Ride offspring knows a thing or two about the continents. As well, the younger Free-Ride offspring has received a brief explanation of the “two sphere cosmos” that the ancients used to explain the yearly motion of the Sun around the Earth (on top of the daily sunrise/sunset). We have not yet discussed the arguments standardly deployed, in days of yore, to establish that the Earth is stationary and thus the Sun, the celestial sphere, etc., are what’s moving.
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*Apparently this is a lyric from a song in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
**What about the poles? Antarctica is clearly getting shortchanged on sunsets at the moment, and will be shortchanged on sunrises in mere months.
The worst job in the world at the moment: night shift at the North Pole.
The good thing about living near a pole is that in winter you don’t have to get up early to see the sun rise. And in summer you just have to stay up late.
Bob
Maybe younger offspring is ready to teach Astro 101?