Whither Does the Sun Rove?

• Autores: Alejandro Gangui
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 49, Nº. 2, 2011, págs. 91-93
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1119/1.3543582
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • If one asked some friends where on the horizon they should expect to see the sunrise, half of the answers would be �in the east.� Of course, something analogous would happen with the sunset and the west. However, sunrise and sunset virtually never occur at these cardinal points. In fact, those answers correctly describe observations only during the equinoxes, when either autumn or spring begin. Once we recall this, the next natural question to ask ourselves is: how far from the east or from the west the rising or setting Sun is located for a given latitude of the observer and for a given day of the year. In this paper we supply some simple tools to easily visualize the angular southward or northward departure of the rising and setting Sun on the horizon from the eastwest direction in a pictorial way, without the need of mathematics. These tools have proven a valuable resource in teaching introductory physics and astronomy courses.