141. ...bully ideas into substance.

(morning thinking)

How does this sunrise/horizon thing work? The sun’s emergence point has passed beyond the right hand edge of my window frame. For the next few months I’ll have to leave my seat, exit my flat to see it. The season of sunrise from my desk has passed, for now. I don’t know the exact dates for writing desk sunrise viewing and four years into this daily habit I’d like to try and figure it out.

I am fortunate in having many friends who are considerably smarter than me so there’s often an expert I can call on when something is beyond my ken.

I met Joachim on the beach to watch the sunrise. We strolled in a light drizzle and caught a sliver of gold pass between the narrow cloud gap on the horizon. Jo’s university’s bio describes him as “a cosmologist specialising in the study of dark matter, dark energy, massive neutrinos, baryon feedback mechanisms and modifications to the theory of gravity.” He’s “developing novel techniques to better analyse cosmic shear data” which I think have something to do with inferring what we can’t see - dark matter - by measuring absences in what we should be able to see. I probably have that wrong.

My friend wasn’t joining me on the beach to explain cosmic shear data or massive neutrinos. I wanted to understand the path the sun takes across my window pane. It’s pretty pedestrian stuff for him but he brims over with glee and joy as he draws solar paths in the sand with the sharp end of a feather and I can understand what his students will love about his lectures.

Four years ago I watched and waited to see whether the sun would rise and appear to balance, perfectly aligned, on the summit of North Berwick Law. A golden ball on the nose of a theme park seal. For context the Law is a conical hill 28km from my own nose when I sit at my writing desk. It’d take about half an hour for me to get there in the van and less than two to walk up to the top and back down again. From up there you get wide open views across the East Lothian countryside in one direction and out to the Bass Rock and North Sea in the other. It’s a quick, easy walk.

Understanding the passage of the sun across my window pane hasn’t been particularly easy or quick.

My view at this end, framed by victorian window mullions, is about 70cm across. At the far end, where the horizon is, I think my view might be about 20km across. The coastline on the horizon is about 7km away at it’s nearest point and 23km at it’s closest.

The sun is 151.03 million km away.

The sun is 1,392,000 km across the middle, which makes it 109 times wider than Earth.

The earth is 12,742 km.

The Law stands 187 metres above sea level but from where I sit, with a ruler held out to where I can juuuust read the hatch marks, it’s 3mm tall.

When the sun perches on top of the Law it appears to have a circumference about half again more than the law is tall.

MATHS.

With all of those numbers I should be able to say how much of the universe is within my field of vision. I don’t know how to do the sums. If I’m honest, and that might be the whole point of this Substack, I don’t really have a solid grasp on my multiplication tables. I can do the five, three and of course, the ten with confidence and aplomb.

Four years ago I noticed the sun was getting close to rising on aligned behind North Berwick Law. I’ve tried to catch it every year since.

Year one - wonder what day of the year the sun might rise to balance on top of North Berwick Law.

Year two - try to watch the sunrise all year. See the North Berwick Law Sun As Ball On Seal’s Nose moment. Wonder if it should happen twice a year.

Year three - Cloudy.

Year four (this year) - Mostly cloudy.

I don’t have the maths ability or the cosmological understanding to make the most of what I’m curious about here. I want to understand the story of the sun and the universe and the way it relates to the world I can see in front of me.

My ignorance is frustrating. I feel small and silly.

And then I make a connection which eases quite a lot of that discomfort.

I’m having a very similar experience to countless other humans going all the way back to before maths, astronomy, trousers, calendars and window panes.

Someone else has stood on this shore and noticed the sun align with the hill on the opposite coastline. Someone else felt that connection to time scales and distances too massive to comprehend. It’d be 1543 before Nick Copernicus put forward his radical theory of the Universe with the sun at the centre of our solar system and Earth spinning around it, but I don’t think it’s unlikely that folks would have had that idea many times over before him. It’s possible to intuit an idea and not have the tools to describe how you’re thinking. You shouldn’t always believe what you think but it’s also true that sometimes you can’t believe what you think because the ideas you play with are overly tricky or need vocabulary you don’t have. You can’t bully ideas into substance.

Some ancient pict or scot or viking will almost certainly have stood on this shoreline on the 20th day of a month yet to be named and thought, “oh that’s TIGHT! Look at that. Oh man that’s sick! The sun’s balanced on that hill like a perfect bead of copper”. Or mead maybe. They’d have paused and let the view bounce upside down around eye lenses exactly the same way I do. Same equipment. They’d have no idea about the distances involved but they’d sense the massive scope of it all. A year later they might notice the same event.

Myths and religions were born from moments like this.

I don’t need to have the exact answers. It’s enough to wonder. I don't always need answers at all. It's ok just to improve the quality of my questions.

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The sun should balance twice a year. Around about the 20ths of April and August. I’ll be at my window on both days. Unless you fancy joining me on the beach.

If you’ve a head bent for numbers and you’d like to help me work out exact dates for seal based sunrises or if you can tell me the size of the universe ‘visible’ from my window please shout out. I think I’ve collected all the right numbers, I just don’t know what to do with them.

This is not an uncommon situation.

Thanks for reading.

I’m perplexed by more of life than I understand and working through it all here helps. You help.

You can help more by doing the sums for me! Get to it please.

Love you bye.

Paul.

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Share this out with your space friends and maths mates. I need answers.

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