I recently learned that the capital of West Germany was Bonn and realized almost no one I know knew.
It might be common knowledge here, and it also might be a generational thing.
That got me thinking that it would be interesting to put together a quiz with similar questions that you feel that you should know the answer to, but a lot of people don’t. So no trick questions or complicated questions. Just really easy questions that a lot of people don’t know the answer to.
Not really, no. The tilt of the Earth causes the seasons. If the Earth was not tilted there would be no seasons. (Assuming a perfectly circular orbit as well).
I knew both answers (Capital of West Germany and date of the atomic bombing) pats himself in the back with a smug smile
But I didn’t know women don’t have prostates until the embarrassing age of 12.
And I only recently finally grokked how seasons work.
My mom was pregnant with my littlest sister and needed to pee very often, so I professorially stated to my whole family that it must be “because the placenta is constricting her prostate”
I just realized I never thought about it. I probably thought it was West Berlin a long time ago, but never thought about it after learning they West Berlin Was inside East Germany.
We don’t, as it turns out, and if said orbit was sufficiently eccentric, the distance variation would indeed lead to seasons. For the spirit of the thread, when is the closest approach of Earth to the Sun?
January 3rd, which actually does moderate the seasonal effects from the tilt, where if it was in say early July would make Northern Hemisphere summers hotter.
That’s right, which is why I said to assume a perfectly circular orbit. Summers are slightly hotter in the Southern Hemisphere because of the eccentricity.
I suppose that if the Earth orbited the Sun at a distance of half a light year or so there would be no seasons of any kind, no matter what the tilt. In that respect, the Sun is responsible for the existence of seasons of any kind.
But just saying “the Sun” can’t be the answer to “why are there seasons?”, because the Sun is always there. Any answer must be something that changes over the year.
Heh, my answer was only half-serious and half-snarky… but yeah, it’s never really quite that simple, is it? For pedantry’s sake, and because this is the Dope, let’s play this out just for kicks (but blurring because it’s getting on a tangent…):
The sun causes, well, everything… orbiting space rocks and life on Earth and all the nonsense that comes with that
The peculiarities of our orbit, especially our tilt relative to the orbital plane, causes cyclical temperature variations, yes
But it’s not really as direct as “annual temperature variations = seasons”, either… a large part of it is cultural too
The “four seasons” model isn’t a universal; it’s a Western grouping more or less based on day lengths, and it’s most noticeable (and useful) outside the tropics, where the tilt causes significant enough changes through the year
Within the tropics, “wet/dry” seasons may be more broadly useful, absent a significant winter. (Though it could be argued that those are caused by the trade winds and atmospheric circulation, which are in turn caused by axial tilt, which is again caused by the sun…)
In modern times, many/most countries have converged upon the Gregorian calendar and the 4 seasons model, and the calendar is itself solar
So the tilt is one (major and predominant) factor contributing to the cyclical annual temperature variations on Earth specifically. Different human cultures group and describe those variations as seasons. But those aren’t universals. Different plant and animal communities close to each other, for example, might nonetheless perceive and react differently to those same temperature variations even within what we’d call the same “season” (e.g. Earth's Seasons Are Strangely Out of Sync, Scientists Discover From Space : ScienceAlert).
It might be slightly more accurate (albeit waaaay more annoying ) to say “orbital mechanics cause temperature variations in orbiting bodies” and “humans describe cyclical temperature variations as seasons”… but guess what causes both orbiting bodies and humans? Our favorite little star…
And outside of Earth, if you’re playing god and plopping down stars left and right, chances are good that many of their orbit-ees would have seasons, with or without a stable axial tilt… in an extreme case, orbital eccentricity could cause day-long summers and two-day winters like with this “puffy planet”: Scorching alien planet takes seasons to an extreme | Space
English is not my native language, so I always have to check the pronunciation of proper nouns. I sometimes group common nouns based on their pronunciation, like canopy and epitome.
I guess I always knew the “tilt” was the reason for the seasons but I’ve heard two explanations for why the tilt does it. So is it the shortened hours of daylight or is it sun’s rays hitting perpendicular to the atmosphere (penetrating) versus on an angle (reflected)?
) to say “orbital mechanics cause temperature variations in orbiting bodies” and “humans describe cyclical temperature variations as seasons”… but guess what causes both orbiting bodies and humans? Our favorite little star…