I've been worried about this for a while now...

[Pete]

Also, did people say five thirty five before digital watches?

I wish those idiots on the Today programme would - all those infuriatingly incorrect time checks! Homage to the late and great esteemed Jack de Manio and Brian Redhead, if you like, carrying on this old tradition, but some folks have trains to catch...

 

[Pete]

I hesitate to bring this up and risk being accused of invoking Godwin's Law - but the original swastika - which as I'm sure you know, long pre-dates Hitler's time - had its bent arms pointing anticlockwise - so that, if you imagine the arms trailing as the symbol rotates, its rotation follows the path of the sun. Hitler reversed the symbol and - according to some - brought down the inevitable doom upon himself thereby.

 

[Arch]

Widdershins is an old word for anti-clockwise (or anti-sunwise)

Damn, you beat me to it.... It's supposed to be bad luck to walk round a church widdershins, I believe....

 

[freakhatz]

"Round with the sun"
I had to encircle a ship before taking a passenger ashore some time ago. On the way back to the harbour the passenger said, "I was pleased to see you coming round with the sun, you know, some of these youngsters just dont care which way they go!"
It made my day.

Posh: Port [cabin] out, starboard home (from the East). Paying a bit extra for the shady side of the ship.

 

[freakhatz]

I hesitate to bring this up and risk being accused of invoking Godwin's Law - but the original swastika - which as I'm sure you know, long pre-dates Hitler's time - had its bent arms pointing anticlockwise - so that, if you imagine the arms trailing as the symbol rotates, its rotation follows the path of the sun. Hitler reversed the symbol and - according to some - brought down the inevitable doom upon himself thereby.

Myth.

 

[redshift]

Posh: Port [cabin] out, starboard home (from the East). Paying a bit extra for the shady side of the ship.

Also myth.

 

[barq]

Damn, you beat me to it.... It's supposed to be bad luck to walk round a church widdershins, I believe....

Yep, and three times around a church widdershins to summon the devil. (True story.)

 

[Pete]

Myth.

Nope. The name'th Pete - and I'm a 'Mithter'.

One question that I thought of when I was cycling last week is why are there different numbers of days in the months? Ok so I can understand 30 or 31 days but why is february shorter than the rest?

Because the lunar month (the synodic month that is, 29.530589 days) doesn't go into 365 or 366 exactly. Nor does 12 go into 365 or 366, so something has to give. Strictly speaking, in a purely lunar calendar such as the Islamic or Jewish ones, the months alternate between 29 and 30 days which is approximately in tune with the lunar cycle, but without regard to the solar seasons. In the Jewish case there is a leap year system to correct this, very difficult to understand and far more convoluted than our normal civil calendar. I would stick with:

Thirty Days hath September,
April June and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
Which has but twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

Easy enough?

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

Why is the Northern Hemisphere on to of a globe and the Southern on the bottom? It should make no difference as there isn't an up or down (or a north and south) in Space.

 

[Pete]

Thanks. What are the solar seasons and how do they affect the current set up?

Each of the four divisions of the tropical year (365.24219 days), delineated by the solstices and equinoxes. Lengths vary slightly.

Why is the Northern Hemisphere on to of a globe and the Southern on the bottom? It should make no difference as there isn't an up or down (or a north and south) in Space.

Good question. Likewise, why on Earth should the superstitions about widdershins apply to the Southern hemisphere?

 

[Fab Foodie]

Clockwise/Anticlockwise = Dextro and Laevo rotatory...

 

[marinyork]

Why is the Northern Hemisphere on to of a globe and the Southern on the bottom? It should make no difference as there isn't an up or down (or a north and south) in Space.

It's just convention, like right handed systems and vectors vs pseudovectors. One shouldn't necessarily assume this is the case as it is not true of everything in nature.