Why knowing the difference between an Equinox vs a Solstice matters so much.
It doesn’t matter. That’s why.
And that’s why you likely we never fully understood the difference between the two things. When things don’t matter to us, it’s hard to learn. Obvious? Not really…
It matters deeply to someone about to take a test if they care about their grades though.
So when I mean it matters to you, I mean you need to show how it relates to you in daily life, not whether you think it’s “important.”
When you explain things to people, the more you can demonstrate on how a solstice* can affect them (eg. “You will experience longer days”) is far more powerful than it’s importance (eg. “You will pass this test.”) Some thing’s importance and it’s affectation are often correlated. But what’s crazy is that affectation can sometimes trump importance.
I hear you screaming now, “That’s not true, TruthCake! This site should be called FalseCake!”
Consider a couple facts:
“Sugar makes me feel good” is how it makes you feel, it’s affectation on you.
“Sugar will kill me.” is likely true, and that’s pretty damn important.
…then you gobble up that TruthCake.
*The difference between a equinox and a solstice. I’ll precede it by saying the exact dates change around, the angles of the sun are pointless to memorize (because they don’t affect you), and the names and locations of Tropic of Cancer and so on you’ll forget anyway. When I say “north”, I mean the northern hemisphere. So, here’s what matters:
Conclusion: There’s 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes in the year, and the type of solstice (summer vs winter) depends on the hemisphere you’re in on that day. The day after the longest day of the year (summer solstice), the days get shorter until they’re the shortest (winter solstice). Solstices affect you to tell you whether days are getting longer / shorter in your hemisphere. A long day for you means a short day for the south people, EXCEPT on 2 days a year, where the amount of daylight is equal to the south people, called an equinox.
Solstice Explanation: Earth goes around the sun in an oval orbit with its poles slanted relative to the sun. Half the yearly orbit, the north pole is pointed a bit towards the sun (which makes summer) and the other half, it’s pointed away (making winter). In the North, days are short in December because the North pole is tilted away from the sun, but in the South pole, the days are the longest. The shortest day in the North in 2018 is Dec 21 (the fancy term for it – “Winter Solstice”) but Dec 21 is also the longest day of the year in the South (“Summer Solstice”). Dec 21st is “Winter Solstice“ in the North, and that SAME day is “Summer Solstice” in the South. In the North, days get shorter right after the Summer Solstice until they’re the shortest (“Winter Solstice”) and the day after the Winter Solstice, the days get longer and longer until they’re longest (Summer Solstice), and the day after summer solstice, the days start getting shorter.
Equinox Explanation: There’s 2 solstices in a year (Winter or Summer), and indicate the longest or shortest day in the year. When the days are long for the north, they’re short for the south. So when a day is getting longer in the North (as we get towards summer and the summer solstice), it’s getting shorter for the South. Solstices are about 6 months apart because it takes about 12 months to spin around the sun. About 3 months after a Solstice (which is right in-between Winter and Summer Solstice dates), where the amount of daylight in the North is equal the amount of daylight in the South, these are called “Equinoxes.” I call them “who cares,” because my days are either always getting shorter or longer, and I know that from the solstice, but an equinox only matters if you care about your South pole brethren. If two people are running from opposite ends of the gym towards each other, the point where they meet in the middle is called the equinox, because they’re equally far away from the gym walls. If you were running in the gym by yourself, you wouldn’t care about the made up ‘gym equinox.’ You might call it a halfway point in the gym though, a point of no return where it’s farther to go back to the wall you started from than to continue on, or you’d probably just not care.
