Talk:Equinox
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Which of the following is a better sentence?
"A zebra is a zoological term for when an animal has a long neck."
"In zoology, a zebra is an animal with a long neck."
The former sentence is how this article and the ones on vernal equinox and autumnal equinox were written.
Improving an article is good, but there is no need for unfriendly remarks. Patrick 21:48 Nov 2, 2002 (UTC)
lol Lir 00:06 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)
"The time at which the sun passes through each equinox point can be calculated precisely—so the equinox is actually a particular moment, rather than a whole day."
I was wondering, how accurate the equinox can be found out. Certainly the mathematically exact moment can not be calculated. The sea quake in the Indian ocean 2004 tilted earths axis by several centimeters so with enough wobbling or vibrations there might even be multiple spring/autumn equinoxes per year. So, is the calculated precision of equinoxes a matter of seconds, ms, us, ns?
- There is a difference between the "rotation axis" of the earth and the geographical location where this axis intersects the surface. Because of conservation of angular momentum, the rotation axis cannot be changed by events on earth and so the celestial equator is fixed in space and equinoxes can be determined very accurately (sorry to admit I do not know the current margins). The wobbling mentioned is the movement of the earth's crust relative to the rotation axis and has no bearing on the time of equinox. −Woodstone 12:04, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)