Tonight is not only the longest night of the year. It is also the longest night, for any given location, in the history of the earth.
See Tonight will be the longest night in the history of Earth
Correction: For reasons explained by the Vox post I linked to, tonight will be plenty long but, as far as we know, the longest night in Earth's history likely occurred in 1912.
4 comments:
As so often happens in science…wait, science should not be a whipping boy here…, as so often happens in science, economics, art, history (yes, even history), religion, philosophy and human relations, what was thought to be true is now false, or at least modified.
At first, I was a bit baffled by the comment, and then I re-visited the link. Oh well.
Perhaps, this is another demonstration of how weak a force gravity is -- since the slowing of the earth's orbit by the moon's gravity can be so easily offset by geologic factors, such as the melting of the polar icecaps -- and argues for more careful consideration of string theory and a fifth dimension where gravitons are free to wander.
By the way, rather than consider science a whipping boy, I think it should be extolled for it's relatively unalloyed interest in the pursuing the truth and not in defending some previously staked out position. Note that Joseph Stromberg immediately admitted his error and issued the correction. If only politicians would do this.
Agreed. If only other disciplines, as well as people, would take a cue from science in how quickly it changes ideas of truth when confronted by more evidence.
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