It's the most important day of the year, the reason why 'Christmas' is when it is. From today, the days start getting longer. Winter may be coming, but it's also ending. Praise be to the onset of spring and the renewal of life.
Can anyone give me a quick explanation of how the ancients knew which was the shortest / longest day ? How did they measure so accurately?
Observation. Our pre-Christian ancestors used similar calendars to ours and, given the dependency on understanding the seasons for the purposes of planting/harvesting crops, were very aware of the key moments in the calendar. Thus the winter solstice is the moment when the winter season starts its journey back towards spring.
Christianity adopted these festivals and just changed the meaning to suit the new theology.
Its not the shortest day. All days have the same length - 24 hours. It is/was the day with the least amount of sunlight / daylight.
Well, if you want to get really picky, every day is a little longer than the last. As the Earth's rotation is slowing down, we gain about 2.3 milliseconds a century. Very real change even though it's not enough to reset your watch for.
BTW, solstice is just a moment rather than a day. It's the point where the sun gets to its lowest point (over the Tropic of Capricorn). It gets its name from the fact that if you tracked its movements against the rest of the stars is would appear to stop and then change direction. Of course, this is a a tad difficult to observe in real life because, if you can see the sun then the light from the other stars are obscured by the power of the sunlight. Explain all that away, flat earthers.
Comments
BTW, solstice is just a moment rather than a day. It's the point where the sun gets to its lowest point (over the Tropic of Capricorn). It gets its name from the fact that if you tracked its movements against the rest of the stars is would appear to stop and then change direction. Of course, this is a a tad difficult to observe in real life because, if you can see the sun then the light from the other stars are obscured by the power of the sunlight. Explain all that away, flat earthers.
Putin. He's bought all the other flight tickets.