how can one count days,months and years in north pole given no access to watches and clocks or any other means
How can one count anything if not allowed to use any means to do so? One would just have to guess.
How can one count anything if not allowed to use any means to do so? One would just have to guess.
February 27th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Counting seconds repeatedly?
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February 27th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
You could watch the stars go around, at least in the winter time.
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February 27th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
"or any other means", they cannot
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February 27th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Call someone? I don’t know, really.
Hmmm…good question. I suppose one could look at the stars in the sky and track their positions. That would be a good indicator of the time of year.
The North Pole doesn’t have varied seasons like we do…but they do have slight changes. I guess at some points in the year, it may be a bit warmer…but not much. There is little variation between night and day for most part of the year.
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February 27th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Well, the Earth still spins on its axis. The sun may be up for 6 months at a time, but you can still track it around the sky. Similarly, you can do this with stars at night. That should be enough info to track the time, day, month and year.
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February 27th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
How can one count anything if not allowed to use any means to do so? One would just have to guess.
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February 27th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Stars and star charts.
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February 27th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
If I remember right, there is a darkening at night at the north pole. It just doesn’t get full sunlight until summer, but you could still count the days. Also, you could check the position of the stars.
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February 27th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Maybe the place to start is, "why are you asking?"
Are you interested in how Eskimos knew? It probably didn’t matter. What did matter was when would the whales, seals, and fish come back. And that’s a season measurement, which is not difficult.
Is this a simple intellectual exercise? If so, then one could build the sides of an igloo, make marks along the edge, and tell hours, and even 5 minute intervals, or more, as the sun and stars went round. The question of, how would you start counting should come up, and I’d think that you should be able to use some geography (which way, north, south, …) is that landmark, and when is the sun or a particular star behind it?
Alternatively, are you just lost, w/o your watch, radio, etc? In that case, you may be out of luck.
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February 27th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Set up a compass card. In fact, you can acually use a magnetic compass — the N arrow will point to the magnetic pole in northern Canada, although for our purposes the direction does not matter. During daylight, the direction of the sun, as measured on the compass card, will give you the time. At night, you can either pick a suitable bright star near the horizon and use the same trick, or use the moon, which will be above the horizon most of the time. In the former case, you will be measuring sidereal rather than Greenwich mean time and can correct accordingly. In the latter case, you have to take the moon’s phase into account. Given the time, you can figure days, months, etc.
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February 27th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
see after 6 months of light there is 6 months of darkness, so when there is transition from day to night the person will know 6 months are over and vice versa,like that he can count yrs,but in case of days and months i have no idea,if sum1 gives a better answer leme knoe too
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my mind
February 27th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
The sky still turns above your head. The sun (in summer) will move across the sky and in winter the stars will rotate in the sky.
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