Word of the Day
Phylactery (n., fuh-LACK-terr-ee)
A small leather box that contains Hebrew texts on parchment. Jewish men traditionally wear these on their forehead and left arm during morning prayers as a reminder to keep the law.
Gif of the Day
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Link of the Day
The 26,000 year calendar hiding in plain sight
We're going astronomical for the second straight day. This is an interesting one: when visiting the Hoover Dam, someone noticed an interesting feature of one statue:
This is a calendar. It tracks the "axial progression" of Earth. "In the simplest terms," writes Alexander Rose, "it is the earth “wobbling” on its tilted axis like a gyroscope — but very, very slowly. This wobbling effectively moves what we see as the center point that stars appear to revolve around each evening."
The North Star for us now is Polaris, but it was not always this way. The ancient Egyptians had Thuban as their North Star. In about 12,000 years, it will be Vega. Polaris is moving (to us) as the Earth spins. This animation is helpful:
And somehow, the designer put a fairly accurate, dated axial progression calendar in the statue display when they created it.
It's an interesting if nerdy story, and you can read more over at LongNow.
AstronomyNorth StarMonumentsHoover DamCalendarsThe ancient Egyptians were Scientologists?