Talk:Equator

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Seasons

"Normal seasons can not occur at the equator."

Yet equatorial countries do have seasons. What is the explanation for this? Participation in non-local weather systems? -- The Anome

That's why I said "Normal" --- Karl Palmen

I deleted the sentence

"Normal seasons can not occur at the equator."

What constitutes a "normal" season is relative, and it is absurd to identify spring/summer/winter/fall as "normal" seasons just because many wikipedians live in temperate zones and are used to it. It's like saying, people in the tropics don't speak a normal language, because whatever they speak it isn't what I am used to. No, the seasons at the equator, just like the languages people speak, are indeed different from what you find in Nebraska (for example) -- but that doesn't make them abnormal. Indeed, people time all sorts of activities according to their seasons.

People who live on the equator identify all sorts of seasons and a good encyclopedia article will explore this. I don't know enough to do justice to it, but I hope my change is a step in the right direction. SR

Thanks to User:MPF for correcting my excess verbosity. :) He's right, of course: an object doesn't have to be solid to have an equator. This is what I get for editing late at night after reading Jack Vance. ZorkFox 06:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pini

I deleted Pini island from the list as it is actually a handful of miles north of the equator (0.13 degrees north). Anagnorisis 19:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why should individual islands be deleted for all countries except Indonesia, Ecuador, and ST&P? --User:Lasunncty

Countries through whose waters the equator passes

How do we find out what waters belong to which nations? I am sceptical about Singapore being part of the list; the wiki page for it states that it is 137km north of the equator. How far do its waters stretch? --Spudtater 22:47, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely out of the 12 nautical miles denoted by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Crossing the line at the Prime Meridian

Note that this page currently calls sailors who cross at the point where the equator meets the Prime Meridian "Emerald Shellbacks" whereas the page Line-crossing ceremony calls them "Royal Diamond Shellbacks". Possibly both are correct. Could someone who knows about these titles edit either or both pages to show either the correct or both names. :-) Stelio 21:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, "If the crossing of the equator is done at the 180th meridian, the title of "Golden Shellback" is conferred, recognizing the simultaneous entry into the realm of the Golden Dragon." But according to the other article, it's for the international date line (which coincides with the equator between 165°W and 180°) - does any crossing at any of these points give the title? What if the two are crossed on separate occasions, as "recognizing ... entry into the realm of the Golden Dragon" implies that it's just a combined title for the two crossings? --Random832 (contribs) 18:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about the water flow?

In the northern hemisphere the water drains clockwise and vice versa......

But what happens at the equator???

Do you cross a point where the waters direction changes automatically? Or is it a random changing?

This is an urban legand. In practice, the Coriolis effect is too weak to have such an effect except in very unusual circumstances. You can check out the references article and also do a search (I've seen some good discussion online Nil Einne 15:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the "unusual circumstances" would be something along the following lines. Factors include whatever residual angular momentum the bather contributed to the water, any assymetries in the tub, and the Coriolis force at the local latitude, let's assume it to be 45 degrees for the moment. Although the last is always small, when all the other factors are small as well (extremely hard to arrange but certainly not impossible) there is a chance that they will all sum to much smaller than the local Coriolis force. In that case the choice should be pretty much random (even odds), and one should then be able to say that with the exact same setup at the equator the choice would be a little less random since the sum of the other factors would then be the negation of the Coriolis force at 45 degrees. Conversely when the factors sum to zero at the equator, then the choice would be made more randomly at the equator than at 45 degrees where there would be a (very slight) bias away from even odds. So circumstances could arise to make it a "random changing," but not necessarily at the equator: any latitude could be a candidate for such circumstances, however unlikely. Nor would one expect the equator to be a preferred candidate to any significant degree. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 05:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Equator History

What is the history of the name "Equator" for the latitude 0 line?

It's originally from Latin, "circulus aequator diei et noctis", which means "circle equalising day and night". That referred specifically to the Celestial equator, but you can think of an "equator" as being something that splits a sphere into two parts that "equate"; i.e. two equal parts. 143.252.80.110 19:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comma

In many places in the world the comma is used as a decmil seperator instead of the period. I change the seperator of groups of three digits to a space to aliviate any confusion. I left periods as the decmil seperator for now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.14.55.227 (talk) S .D. ¿п? § 00:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Among English-speaking countries, only Australia uses the SI style (see Decimal separator), and the article isn't written in Australian English. Furthermore, other numbers within the article used the comma. I've made the article consistently use the comma as the group separator, as is customary in a majority of English-speaking countries. Susan Davis 13:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

citation for shellback award/ceremony

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq92-3.htm don't have time to put it in nicely cited, someone go ahead :) —Hobart 14:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Worldwide view

This article is extremely biased towards Earthlings. I am not trying to be racist or anything, but there are gazillions of other planets, and this article is not paying much attention to that fact. It is written in a very Earth-centric way. May further edits please respect the diversity of the universe and not discriminate against the rest of the creation. ► Adriaan90 ( Talk ♥ Contribs ) ♪♫ 17:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this statement. -Indolences 23:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In view of this alleged large number of other planets we earthlings are going to have to band together to protect ourselves from alien perspectives. Wikipedia is by earthlings for earthlings. Let aliens write their own stuff, and let us decide when the time is right to work on reconciling how we we think with alien perspectives, whatever they may turn out to be. If we run into aliens who do their best work at age five minutes and advocate euthanasia at ten minutes I for one would advocate steering clear of such lest they corrupt our impressionable youth. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 11:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Original mapping

I think it would be helpful and interesting to note how and when the equator was first identified, and how those people were able to do it. --Robertknyc 04:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exact length of the equator

I corrected and expanded the brief, unsourced, and slightly inaccurate claims by User Talk:Wikinger concerning the exact length of the equator, and moved them to their own section. Thanks to James Q. Jacobs ([[1]] and correspondence by phone and email) for the Moritz reference and insights into the origins of these numbers. (The slight inaccuracy was Wikinger's claim that the cited equatorial lengths were exact, which they clearly are not since integers are rational while π is not. Judging by the feedback at User Talk:Wikinger this was one of his better contributions.) --Vaughan Pratt 06:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsensical

"These rituals date back to the Middle Ages, though the current ceremonies are most likely derived from Viking traditions."

If they date back to the middle ages why are people using Viking traditions, the Viking era being pre middle ages. Makes no sense. Someone just made this crap up. Wikiality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.226.85 (talk) 01:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find that as commonly defined, for example in the respective Wikipedia entries, the Viking Age (ca AD 700-1100) is a part of the Middle Ages (ca AD 500-1500). However, I do very much doubt that the Equator-crossing ceremonies have anything whatsoever to do with vikings and took the liberty of putting a citation needed on the claim. 85.8.12.78 (talk) 16:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Map line

The red line on the map seems very 'thick' - as if the equator is a variable value between the top of the line and the bottom. I don't know much about the subject but surely this isn't the case ? Boomshanka (talk) 03:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The equator is infinitely thin. Try drawing an infinitely thin line on a map - can't be done. The only way you can show where it is is by making it artificially thicker. Bazonka (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kilometre/mile conversion

"Despite its name, no part of Equatorial Guinea's territory lies on the equator. However, its island of Annobón is about 100 miles (200 km) south of the equator, and the rest of the country lies to the north" (emphasis added). This is taken from the section about which countries the equator passes through, but on this statement about Equatorial Guinea, the island of Annóbon is said to be 100 miles south of the equator, and then (in brackets) is said to be 200 km from it. Considering 100 miles ≠ 200 km (I think 100 mi is about 160 km), which one is it? 100 miles or 200 km? -- 80.41.149.192 (talk) 08:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A quick play with the Google Earth ruler shows that it's about 97 miles or 155 km south. I'll fix the article. Well spotted. Bazonka (talk) 09:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prime Meridian

I added mention of the Prime Meridian to the table of coordinates, but was reverted. I think it's significant enough to warrant inclusion there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted it because it's already there - in the introduction to the table: "Starting at the Prime Meridian and heading eastwards, the equator passes through:" We could add co-ordinates into that sentence, but that seems pretty pointless because they're exactly the same as the co-ordinates in the first line of the table. Bazonka (talk) 18:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Closest Country

The article states The country that comes closest to the equator without actually touching it is Peru. Kiribati, with the landmass of Aranuka atoll, comes closer, without actually touching it (the latter, unless some water around the atoll is considered part of the country). Unlike Peru, Kiribati has parts north and south of the equator. Thus, a modified statement The country that comes closest to the equator without actually touching and being wholly either north or south of it it is Peru. But maybe that statement would be too specific for anyone to care about...--93.196.3.11 (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, all wrong. Aranuka is 13 km north, but Peru is only 4.3 km south of the equator.--93.196.3.11 (talk) 19:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization

While it's a little grammar nazi, whether or not equator is capitalized when referring to Earth's equator isn't clear cut [2]. Not the best ref in the world. Regardless, you clearly shouldn't capitalize equator in interwiki links or when it refers to equators in general. Pirate^Argh!!1! 05:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will agree with you on this case. However, I think it should be capitalised when preceding "the" in the same way that "the Prime Meridian" is capitalised. This can sort of be seen here and here. Also, this page on proper nouns supports it. So in short, I suggest that the term "equator" be capitalised in the phrase "the Equator" and left uncapitalised in all other cases, such as "Earth's equator" or "celestial equator" etc. Hope this helps. Set Sail For The Seven Seas 191° 37' 15" NET 12:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find anything definite either way, so that seems reasonable. Pirate^Argh!!1! 06:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Equatorial circumference

"The length of Earth's equator is 40,008.629 kilometres"

That looks like the polar circumference to me. WGS84 specifies 40075.16 km. Either way the figure probably needs a citation.