Science desk
< July 31	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 2 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 1[edit]

Time reckoning of cosmic evolution[edit]

Since reckoning of both traditional years and astronomical years depends on the existence of Earth, Sun and stars, how much sense does reckoning of chronology of the universe in billions of years make? Particularly, does it mean that the duration of traditional year is roughly extrapolated back in time when there was no Sun and Earth (and forward into far future when neither of them will exist)? Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The length of time that we have measured for one average revolution of the Earth around the Sun is the same whether or not the Earth and the Sun exist or not. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:52, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When we talk about something happening billions of year ago, or billions of years in the future, we are using the Earth's tropical year as a convenient unit of time with a fixed length in seconds. Just as you said, we can use that unit even at times before the Earth existed. In studying ancient history, we also project our calendar system back in time to before it was invented, with the Proleptic Gregorian calendar and Proleptic Julian calendar. --Amble (talk) 21:07, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, really, when we date celestial events before the Earth existed, we're using proleptic tropical Earth years. Who knew? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I thought so, and Year#Abbreviations_yr_and_ya describes an "annus" standardized to the length of the tropical year of the year 2000, but Billion years suggests that units like a gigayear might be proleptic Julian years or sidereal years instead. --Amble (talk) 23:03, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At time lengths of a billion years, difference between those time periods may be well outside of significant figures for the kinds of events we are measuring. --Jayron 32 11:08, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Earth circumference[edit]

I know that the earth is deemed to be an oblate spheroid, and the polar circumference is around 70km less than the equatorial circumference. But what circumference? Is it defined at some nominal mean sea level? Or what? (Sea level changes with the tides and there may be differences between opposite ends of narrow channels etc.) Because if the circumference follows the contours the going up and down Everest would really muck the measures up. So how does it work? -- SGBailey (talk) 21:30, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The circumference isn't terribly sensitive to minor changes in diameter. If you're off in defining mean sea level (or however else you want to define the diameter) by X meters, then the change in circumference is only 2*pi*X. That's peanuts compared to 70km. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand correctly, the normal way to define the circumference would be in reference to the geoid, which may indeed be considered "nominal mean sea level". --174.95.81.219 (talk) 23:15, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the circumference would normally (or at least traditionally) be defined by the ellipsoid (the oblate spheroid that best approximates the shape of the earth) rather than the geoid, because it is easier to measure and define. Iapetus (talk) 09:24, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Letting a measurement of the circumference of the Earth equal 40,000 km was thought exact enough in 1793 to define the meter. The redefinition in 1983 of the meter using the velocity of light assumes an accuracy better than 1 part in 299 768 458 which would allow less than 13.3 cm measurement error if the meter definition were still based on a great circle. Philvoids (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2022 (UTC) .[reply]

The meter was never defined in terms of the whole circumference. It was defined so that the specific quarter-circumference from the North Pole to the Equator along the meridian through Paris was 10,000 km. (And incidentally, when they did their best to determine by actual measurement how long the meter was, they only surveyed the part of the meridian that crossed the European mainland, from Dunkirk to Barcelona. See The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder.) --174.95.81.219 (talk) 01:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]