Chris Pearce's Blog, page 26

Krump dancing

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Krump dancing or krumping is a modern, aggressive, freestyle street dance involving energetic and volatile moves. It includes an often violent flaying of the arms as well as bangs, chest pops, kill-offs, puzzles, stomps and syncs. Krumping can involve physical contact between the dancers, like a mock fight. The dance has been described as “hip hop on speed”. It evolved out of a dance form called clown dancing or clowning which started in the South Central Los Angeles’ African-American community in the early 1990s.

The original clown dancer was one Thomas Johnson who was asked by a co-worker to be a clown at a children’s birthday party because of his extrovert personality. He took up the challenge and before long Tommy the Clown was a popular act at kids’ birthday parties all over Los Angeles. Part of his act included a dance style which became known as clown dancing, and he would encourage the children to get up and dance with him. As his popularity grew, he formed a group of support dancers called the Hip Hop Clowns who performed with him. Members had to meet his requirements of no drugs, no gangs, do well in school, and so on.

More young people wanted to join the Hip Hop Clowns than Johnson could take on, so he encouraged them to start their own groups. By 2002, Los Angeles had over 60 clown dancing crews. Competition emerged among the dance crews as to who was best and Johnson knew this could lead to trouble if not managed properly. So he held weekly dance competitions or “battles” at his Tommy the Clown Academy. It was here that the word “krump” (Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise) was first used, describing the dancing’s intensity. As the popularity of the competitions escalated, Johnson began an event called the Battle Zone. Eventually, this was held at the Los Angeles Forum, which holds 18,000 people. Soon Tommy the Clown and his Hip Hop Clowns were traveling all over the world.

Krumping developed as an off-shoot of clown dancing as many of the kids were getting older and no longer wanted to associate with clowns and face paint. While very similar, krumping is the more aggressive of the two forms with its expressions of anger or pent-up emotion and high degree of individuality. Krumping has become the main form of the two dances. It is often graded by degree of difficulty, with the three main levels being Krump, Buckness and Ampness. There are a number of krumping styles, including “dissing” (from disrespectful) and “sick” movements such as grimey and snaking, as well as beasty, bully, cocky, flashy, goofy (regarded as the least aggressive), jerky, rugged, and tricks.

Krump dancers organize themselves into groups known as families or “fams”. Each group is led by a senior dancer called Big Homie who acts as a dance instructor, mentor, and de facto sibling to the younger and less experienced Lil’ Homies. A hierarchical structure can include levels or names such as baby, boy, child, general, infant, jr., kid, lil’, prince, souljah, tiny, twin and young. Rankings can differ between families. The Lil’ Homies often share the name of the Big Homie. For example, if the Big Homie is called Tight Eyez, other “fam” members might be given names like Jr Eyez, Baby Eyez and Prince Eyez.

Krumping is now part of popular culture. In 2005, David LaChapelle made an 86 minute documentary, “Rize”, tracing the sub-cultures of clown dancing and krumping. The film includes interviews with both clown dancers and krumpers and shows a dance battle between the two groups. Krumping has become a mainstream dance featuring in popular music videos, television shows such as “So You Think You Can Dance” and “The Simpsons”, and movies such as “Bring It On: All or Nothing” and “Stomp the Yard”. There’s even a competition to decide the krump dancing world champion.

Karl Marx’s theories

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

To understand the theories of Karl Marx, it might be best to start with the concept of dialectics. This concept is based around controversies or contradictions, where there are opposing forces or sides, and the challenge is to resolve these issues through logical argument. For Marx, an essential element causing the controversies in society is materialism. He argued that all through history, society has been dominated by class struggles, and that history is the product of material class struggle. According to Marx, this struggle effects our social, economic and political systems, often with less than desirable results.

Marx argued that work should be regarded as a social activity, and the way work is done to be determined socially. He looked at the resources used in production such as land and buildings, natural resources and technology, and the social arrangements needed to transform these inputs into goods. He observed how the mode of production changes as societies move from feudalism to capitalism. Marx felt that the mode of production changed more rapidly than did the social infrastructure for coping with it, that is, the mode would change but laws (including labor laws) needed to govern various aspects of the mode were much slower to catch up. He also argued that different groups of people –labor and the owners of the capital – had different objectives or interests. For Marx, these issues were a fundamental cause of tension, conflict and social disruption.

Under capitalism, Marx argued, workers are alienated from their human nature or spirit when they have to give up ownership of their labor. Thus labor becomes a commodity, or is inextricably tied to the products it produces. Therefore one class, the bourgeois, has control over the factors of production. He observed that the value of output usually exceeded the cost of inputs and regarded the resultant surplus as coming from surplus labor, which equaled the value of the output minus the pittance paid to most workers in the nineteenth century.

Marx believed that under capitalism, the surplus went to the bourgeois. This enabled profits to be reinvested in new technology and for rapid growth to occur. But, as more and more was invested in technology there was less for labor, which was actually the source of profits according to Marx. Profits would fall and eventually recession would result. This would cause labor costs to fall and profits to increase, allowing investment in more technology once again. He believed that the ups and downs of this cycle would become ever greater, making the bourgeois richer and the proletariat poorer, and that eventually the system would collapse anyway and everyone would be worse off.

A fairer system for all, he argued, would be a socialist system with the factors of production in the hands of the proletariat. Everyone would benefit equally and profit levels wouldn’t bounce up and down and lead to crises. Sometimes, in more democratic societies, Marx thought this might be achieved by peaceful means. However, in other societies, he knew the bourgeois would not want to give up ownership peacefully and he proposed that the proletariat do it by force through revolution.

Marx’s critics have argued that capitalism is a better system, with its self-interest and its incentives for everyone to make more money. This factor is often missing from the highly planned, authoritarian communist systems with their bottlenecks and their slowness to respond and where technology and innovation is often stifled. Further, while Marx was worried about problems caused by conflict, the capitalist model has welcomed conflict as inevitable and healthy, and has benefited greatly from it.

Ancient Egyptian calendars

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Today we take our solar calendar for granted. But it was the ancient Egyptians who were the first to develop a solar calendar. Before the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt around 3150 BCE into what we call the ancient Egyptian civilization, the two countries developed their own calendars. In Lower Egypt, the winter solstice was regarded as the birthplace of their sun god Ra. Around 4500 BCE, they counted the time elapsed between Ra’s visits to his birthplace as 365 days. To keep track of his birthday, they introduced a lunisolar calendar of this length. It had 12 moons or months of 29 or 30 days each and an additional or intercalary month every two or three years as the first month. This meant the celebration of the birth of Ra could always be in the last month.

In Upper Egypt, the year was measured as the time elapsed between floodings of the Nile River. This was a very important event for the farming communities living along its banks and they wanted a way of determining the actual time of the flood. They noticed Sirius, or the Star of Isis or the Nile Star as they called it, rising next to the sun every 365 days, a few days before the Nile’s inundation. This coincided with the summer solstice. Priests declared the start of a new year as soon as they saw Sirius in this position. This was the first sidereal calendar, or one based on star movements.

When the two Egypts unified, so did their calendars. This was relatively easy as the period between the winter solstice and the rising of Sirius just before the summer solstice is about six months. In an otherwise lunar calendar, the rising of Sirius became the dominant marker, with the interval of its successive appearances next to the sun being just 12 minutes shorter than the solar year. But ancient Egypt soon ran into problems with its new calendar, basically because the solar year of about 365 days doesn’t divide equally into the lunar cycle of about 29.5 days.

The new Egyptian calendar soon failed to serve all purposes and they introduced additional calendars. While keeping their lunar-sidereal calendar for agriculture, religion and everyday life, they developed a civil calendar of 12 months of 30 days plus five extra days, for government and administration. They also brought in three seasons of four months: inundation from late June, growth from late October and harvest from late February. But the civil calendar of 365 days was just short of the solar year and progressively fell out of alignment with the seasons. As a result, the Egyptians brought in a second lunar calendar for religious events. But it was based on the civil year and, to keep the two aligned, an intercalary month was added when necessary. The original lunar-sidereal calendar was retained for agricultural purposes as it aligned with the seasons.

So by 2500 BCE, ancient Egypt had three calendars, and they ran side by side for over 2,000 years. Despite the Egyptians calculating a solar year as 365.25 days by around 2050 BCE or earlier, the priests wouldn’t change their sacred calendar and it drifted from the solar year and the seasons at nearly a quarter of a day per year, or by a whole year over a period of about 1,500 years.

It was not until 238 BCE that Ptolemy III rectified the situation by introducing an extra day every fourth year. This calendar became the basis of the Julian calendar, which had as its impetus none other than Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE). She and younger brother Ptolemy XIII had fallen out and were vying for the throne. During the Roman civil war, Julius Caesar’s rival Pompey had fled to Alexandria. In 48 BCE, knowing that Caesar was about to visit and that Egypt was in debt to Rome, Ptolemy arranged the assassination of Pompey to please Caesar.

Two days later, Caesar arrived in the Egyptian capital and Ptolemy presented him with Pompey’s severed, pickled head. But Caesar wasn’t impressed, probably because Pompey was still Consul of Rome and was widower of Caesar’s only daughter, who had died in childbirth with their son. Caesar took the city and installed himself as arbiter between Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Taking advantage of Caesar’s anger with her brother, Cleopatra got inside a roll of carpet or bed coverings and had servants present it to Caesar. It was unrolled and out tumbled the young queen, naked. This time, Caesar was impressed and the two became lovers, despite a 30 year age difference. He abandoned his plans of annexing Egypt and supported Cleopatra’s claim to the throne.

She discussed with him how the Egyptians’ set their time by the sun rather than the moon, and introduced him to the astronomer Sosigenes. He and Cleopatra told Caesar about her ancestor Ptolemy III’s calendar, the current Egyptian calendar. Caesar liked it, dropped in the Roman months, and he and Cleopatra negotiated the fine details such as the date of New Year’s day. The Julian calendar was introduced into ancient Egypt before its defeat by the Roman Empire in 31 BCE, although its uptake varied between regions.

Solar astronomy in ancient times

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Since the Stone Age, people have observed the path of the sun across the sky. They noticed that the sun rises and sets in a different place each day and climbs higher in the sky in the warmer months. When agriculture started, the sun and the seasons became even more important. People were soon making detailed observations about the sun. They used them to determine when to plant and harvest crops, and devised calendars based on the solar cycle. Most early civilizations regarded the sun as a god or goddess.

The earliest site used to observe the sun and its movements was probably Stonehenge in southern England. Construction activity at the site dates back to about 8000 BCE. Archaeologists found evidence of four or five large postholes that held pine posts. No doubt there was originally a greater number. The posts were used to observe the movement of the sun and to establish the time of the northern summer solstice.

From about 2600 BCE, bluestone replaced the timber at Stonehenge. Up to 80 of these stones were placed in holes dug at the middle of the site. Each stone weighs about four tons and is more than six feet high. A sandstone known as the “heelstone” is 16 feet high. In 1771, Dr John Smith noted that from the center of the site, the sun rose over this stone at the summer solstice or longest day. Smaller stones are aligned with the sun at other times of the year, such as at the equinox. In 1950, Gerald Hawkins and Fred Hoyle proposed that Stonehenge was also used to forecast solar and lunar eclipses.

A solar observatory has been found in Germany dating back to 5000 BCE. Archaeologists believe the site was made up of four concentric circles plus a ditch, mound and two wooden posts. Three sets of gates faced north, south-east and south-west. From the center of the circles, the sun could be seen rising and setting through the southern gates at the winter solstice. The site has been called the German Stonehenge. Later, these structures are thought to have been quite common, with about 200 having been found throughout Europe.

A tomb at Newgrange, Ireland, has a 60 foot long passage leading to a chamber whose roof has 97 stones around it in a circle. The site has been dated to about 3200 BCE. The passage and chamber are lit up at sunrise at the winter solstice for 17 minutes, capturing a significant astronomical event. Similar sites have been found elsewhere in Ireland. The timing of astronomical events was important for agriculture, religion and calendar development.

Solar astronomy in Egypt goes back to about 5000 BCE. A site with an alignment of stones in a circle dates to this period. At Egypt’s Abu Simbel temple, built in the 13th century BCE, the dawn sun illuminates the statue of Pharaoh Ramses II at the equinoxes. The Sphinx, dating to the third millennium BCE, faces east and gets the first of the morning sun at the autumnal equinox. In the Nabta Playa area of southern Egypt, sets of enormous stones from around 3000 BCE are aligned with the solstice.

The Egyptians were the first to develop a solar calendar. The point on the horizon where the sun rises at the time of the northern winter solstice in late December was regarded as the birthplace of their sun god Ra. Around 4500 BCE, they counted the time elapsed between his visits to his birthplace as 365 days. So they could keep track of Ra’s birthday, the people of Lower (northern) Egypt introduced a lunisolar calendar of this length. It had 12 moons or months of 29 or 30 days each and an additional or intercalary month every two or three years as the first month. This meant the celebration of the birth of Ra could always be in the last month.

Ancient Babylonians built observatories called ziggurats, such as the Tower of Babel. Astronomer-priests observed the sun as well as the moon and the planets. They recorded their findings on clay tablets and could predict the movements of these bodies. For example, they worked out that solar eclipses went in cycles. They also knew that 19 solar years almost equal 235 lunar months. By adding seven 30 day intercalary or extra months over a 19 year cycle, a calendar is accurate to one day in 219 years (later known as the Metonic cycle after the Greek astronomer Meton).

Solar astronomy was also important in the ancient Far East. The first record of a solar eclipse was in China in 2136 BCE. Their sunspot records go back to 28 BCE and perhaps earlier. Records of Indian astronomy go back to around 1500 BCE, including descriptions of the sun’s movement, solstices, equinoxes and calendars. In Japan, two stones found near the Takamatsu Zuka Kofun tomb, which dates to the seventh century, may have been used to align with solstices.

The American Indians no doubt made observations of the sun and other celestial bodies thousands of years ago. Agriculture started in North America around 5000 BCE and there would have been a need to know about the sun’s movement and the seasons. A petroglyph or rock painting at Chaco Canyon shows a circle with streamers coming out of it. These could be the sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse, possibly that of 11 July 1097. A nearby site, known as the “Sun Dagger”, allows the sun to enter a cave through an alignment of three rocks. The light, shaped like a dagger, was used to mark solstices and equinoxes.

Ancient solar astronomy began with the need to track the seasons for agricultural purposes. Many early civilizations built elaborate structures to determine solstices and equinoxes. Advances in solar astronomy resulted in the development of calendars, important for agricultural, civic and religious activities.

Daylight saving time explained

Several Australian states, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, as well as the Australian Capital Territory, start daylight saving tomorrow, 4 October.

I’m writing a book on the history of daylight saving time around the world. It will be published as an ebook next year, 2016, the 100th anniversary of the first use of daylight saving on a national basis in European countries.

Meanwhile, here’s an article explaining daylight saving and its pros and cons that I wrote for the Helium writing site, now gone …

Daylight saving time is where clocks are turned forward, usually by one hour, in the spring and turned back again in autumn or fall. This gives an extra hour of daylight in the evening and less daylight in the early morning during the warmer months. Daylight isn’t actually saved but transferred from one end of the day to the other. Thus “daylight shifting” would be a more accurate term than daylight saving.

Why do we go through this process? The main reason is to save fuel, although studies vary as to how much is saved. Later sunrise and sunset times usually save electricity as artificial light is needed for an hour less in the evening. It also means a reduction in road accidents and assaults as fewer people are traveling home after dark. There is time after dinner to mow the lawn, go for a walk or bike ride, play sport, or shop before nightfall. Daylight saving time is favored by retail, tourist and other businesses as it usually means an increase in sales. These are some of the reasons about 70 countries around the world use daylight saving time in the summer months.

Not everyone likes daylight saving time. It is favored by most people living in large cities. However, those in regional and rural areas are generally against it, especially in farming communities. Farm work starts at dawn regardless of what the clock says, and to have schools, shops, factories and markets start an hour earlier in real time gives farmers an hour less to do their morning tasks. Also, in tropical areas, the benefits of daylight saving time are few, as day and night do not vary much in length, and fuel savings are minimal or non-existent.

The concept of daylight saving time initially came from America’s Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century. He was out for an early morning walk in London in the summer of 1770 when he saw no shops open and few people around despite the sun being up several hours. He felt it odd that people complained of the cost of candles, yet went to bed late and got up late. In Paris in 1784, he got home one night at 3am and didn’t realize his shutters hadn’t been closed. He woke at 6am to the sun pouring in through the window. He wrote a letter, “An economical project for diminishing the cost of light”, to the Journal of Paris, calculating that the city could save millions each year by people going to bed much earlier. It was largely a whimsical article and the idea didn’t go any further at that time. He never suggested altering the clocks and didn’t use the term “daylight saving time” or similar.

New Zealander George Hudson presented two papers, in 1895 and 1898, proposing that clocks be put forward two hours in the summer months. He mentioned cricket, gardening, cycling and other outdoor activities as the main benefits. There was a fair amount of interest, especially in Christchurch. It is quite likely that other people proposed the idea of daylight saving time in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The champion of daylight saving time was English builder William Willett. He was out riding his horse in Petts Wood, Kent early one summer’s morning in 1905 when he noticed most houses still had their blinds shut despite broad daylight. It was much the same scenario as Franklin’s morning stroll 135 years earlier. The difference was that Willett decided to do something serious about it to try and rectify the problem. He published a booklet, “The Waste of Daylight”, in July 1907. He wrote of the advantages of extra recreation and exercise and estimated the annual savings to Great Britain and Ireland to be £2.5 million a year.

His idea was controversial from the start. It had a great deal of support but a lot of opposition too. Businesses and banks favored it, some giving as a reason that clerks could play cricket after work. It would reduce the need for artificial light, saving businesses and households considerable sums. The medical fraternity supported him, saying the plan would be good for people’s eyesight, rickets, anemia and general health, and would lessen the use of licensed houses.

Resistance was just as widespread. Farmers were among the most vocal. They worked from dawn to dusk and couldn’t adjust their hours simply because the clock showed a different time. The cows were ready at dawn and grass couldn’t be harvested with dew on it as the machinery wouldn’t work. International traders complained their trading times would be out of kilter, especially with American companies. Operating times of stock exchanges in London and New York overlapped by one hour, but with daylight saving time in Britain it would be zero. Scientists and astronomers were against the scheme, claiming it was difficult to compile data from continuously recording meteorological instruments. Parliament and the railways were divided on the issue.

Willett spent seven years and thousands of dollars trying to build up support. While the British kept heatedly debating daylight saving time in parliament, Germany quietly introduced it on 30 April 1916 to conserve energy for the war effort. Several other European countries started it on the same day. The United Kingdom finally brought it in on 21 May. By mid year most of Europe had daylight saving.

The situation in America was different as it still wasn’t directly involved in the war. However, there was plenty of campaigning and support for daylight saving time. Retailers and industrialists liked the idea. The burgeoning leisure and retail industries saw the value of an extra hour of daylight for baseball games, amusement parks and department stores. Car manufacturers supported it too, as it would give people an extra hour for motoring before nightfall. Fierce opposition came from farmers and the railways. The United States joined the war on April 6, 1917 after its merchant ships came under heavy attack from the Germans. A daylight saving bill became law on March 31, 1918.

World War I finished later that year and most places abandoned daylight saving time after 1919 or 1920. A few countries kept it for the entire interwar period, including the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of Canada and the United States. Keen to save fuel, many countries adopted it again during World War II. Some didn’t turn back their clocks at all for several years in the 1940s. Two hours of daylight saving in summer, called double daylight saving time, and one hour in winter was popular. Daylight saving time was often called War Time during this period.

After the war, nearly everyone soon abandoned daylight saving time. Parts of America and Canada are the only areas to have had daylight saving time in the entire postwar period. The United Kingdom has had it in all years except 1968-1971 when it switched to Central European Time (GMT+1) and consequently didn’t have separate daylight saving time.

In the United States, daylight saving time was a state and local issue. Some areas had it and other didn’t. On a train or road trip of a few hours, a person could pass through several time zones. People could live in one zone and work or go to school in another. On one occasion, workers belonging to different companies in a single building were on two separate times. Daylight saving time became a federal issue in 1966 with the Uniform Time Act. Since then, the whole country has had daylight saving time except Arizona (apart from the Navajo Nation) and Hawaii, with Indiana making the move in 2005.

Most of Europe resumed daylight saving time in the 1970s and early 1980s, especially at the time of the energy crises. Many countries in Central and South America, the Middle East and Asia have or have had it, including China who used it from 1986 to 1991. Only a handful of African countries have daylight saving time. The 70 or so countries that currently use daylight saving time are mainly the advanced economies in the northern hemisphere, although there are plenty of others.

Daylight saving time remains as controversial as it was when first practised early last century. People either seem to like it or hate it. Some countries have opted in and out of daylight saving time on a number of occasions. Uruguay leads the way, having had eleven episodes, closely followed by Portugal with ten.

Solar eclipses

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

A solar eclipse takes place when the moon is between the earth and the sun. Light from the sun is partly or fully blocked by the moon. Between two and five solar eclipses occur somewhere on earth each year. Up to two of them are total eclipses. During a total eclipse, the sky becomes quite dark and street lights come on.

The four types of solar eclipses are total, partial, annular and hybrid. A total eclipse is where the moon completely blocks the sun. At this time, the corona, which is the hottest part of the sun’s atmosphere, can still be seen. Any total eclipse is only seen along a narrow band of the earth’s surface. This is because the sun and the moon appear to be roughly the same size in the sky, as the sun is 400 times further away than the moon but is 400 times the moon’s diameter. A partial eclipse is where the moon only blocks out part of the sun. Any partial eclipse can be seen from a far greater area.

An annular eclipse is where the moon blocks all of the sun except for a narrow ring that forms a complete circle around the moon and looks like an illuminated hoop. Sometimes an effect called Baily’s beads is seen, because the lunar landscape features mountains and valleys, and the beads are the light shining through the valleys. The reason we can have both total and annular eclipses is because the moon’s orbit around the earth is elliptical or oval in shape and its distance from earth varies by up to 12 percent. The distance from earth to the sun varies about 3 percent, so this will have an impact too although smaller. A hybrid eclipse is where an eclipse is moving between an annular and total eclipse and is rarer.

A total eclipse occurs about every 18 months on average. However, a total eclipse at any particular point on the earth’s surface only happens once in about 370 years on average. The duration of a total eclipse can range up to about seven and a half minutes, although eclipses over seven minutes are rare, and they are usually much shorter. The longest total eclipse this century took place on 22 July 2009. It was seen from southern and eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean and lasted about six and a half minutes. In 1973, scientists on a Concorde aircraft traveling at twice the speed of sound were able to keep up with a total eclipse for 74 minutes and make various observations.

Solar eclipses, when mentioned in old documents, can be useful to historians as it enables them to date certain events accurately. For example, Assyrian text mentions a revolt in the city of Ashur during the month of a solar eclipse. This eclipse has been dated to 15 June 763 BCE and is the oldest reliable dating of an event by means of a solar eclipse. An annular eclipse at Sardis when Xerxes was heading off to fight the Greeks dates this event to 17 February 478 BCE.

Attempts to date Good Friday and the so-called crucifixion eclipse to a known solar eclipse have so far been inconclusive. A full moon was also reported at this time and a solar eclipse can only occur at the time of a new moon as this is when the sun, moon and earth line up.

Watching an eclipse can present eye problems. Looking at the sun, including during any eclipse except a total eclipse, can damage the eye’s retina. This is because of the radiation from the sun’s surface, and not all the radiation is visible. It doesn’t matter that only a tiny proportion of the sun can be seen behind the moon. Using binoculars, a telescope or an optical camera viewfinder can be just as dangerous as looking at an eclipse with the naked eye. Nor do sunglasses make it safe.

A popular and safer way to see an eclipse is with a solar filter which only allows a small fraction of sunlight through. Even if only 0.01 per cent of the light is let through, you should still only look at the sun for a short time before looking away. There are other ways to view an eclipse, such as by using welder’s goggles.

The safest way to see an eclipse is to poke a hole in a thin piece of cardboard and hold it up to the sun. Hold a sheet of paper a few feet under or behind it. You will see the sun’s image on this sheet as it goes through the various stages of the eclipse. To reduce the amount of light, make a small hole in the side of a cardboard box and a larger hole at the bottom to put your head through. Put white paper opposite the small hole and close the lid of the box, and you will see an image of the eclipse. Similarly, this can be done in a darkened room.

A solar eclipse helped confirm Albert Einstein’s general relativity theory. Astrophysicist Arthur Eddington was on Principe Island off Africa to see the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. He noticed that stars just to the side of the sun would appear to shift slightly due to their light seemingly curving because of the sun’s gravitational field, confirming Einstein’s theory. At other times, the light from the sun is too strong to see this effect.

All about solar astronomy

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

Astronomy is the study of stars, planets, moons and other celestial bodies, and of entire groups of heavenly objects such as solar systems and galaxies. So solar astronomy is simply the study of the sun, the word solar meaning “of or relating to the sun”.

The sun is about 93 million miles from earth. How do we know this? Italian astronomer Gian Cassini in the 17th century used a method called parallax. To understand this technique, put your thumb straight out in front of you and observe it with one eye and then the other. The thumb looks to have moved to a slightly different spot. The difference is the thumb’s parallax. Cassini was able to observe the sun and the planets from different places and determine the distance to these bodies using the parallax technique. His calculations turned out to be quite accurate.

Solar astronomers were then able to calculate the sun’s size. As a yellow dwarf, the sun is not a large star. Yet its diameter of nearly 900,000 miles is 109 times that of earth. That’s like putting a pea next to a medicine ball. The sun’s surface area is 12,000 times greater than earth’s and its volume is 1.3 million times that of earth.

Astronomers have found that the sun’s rotation time is about 25 days at its equator, although from earth it appears to take about 27 days due to the earth’s orbital motion around the sun. Rotation time can be measured by observing the movement of sun spots. Nearer the poles, the sun spots move slower, and rotation time at the poles is about 34 days. The difference in rotation times is possible because the sun isn’t a solid mass but is made of gases, mainly hydrogen (75 per cent) and helium (24 per cent).

The interior of the sun can’t be seen but scientists have been able to determine its inner structure through helioseismology, which involves detecting the movement of the sun’s pressure waves beneath its surface. This is rather akin to seismology on earth which studies the waves produced by earthquakes. Some of the sun’s waves are amplified and this is transmitted to the surface. Changes in the waves allow astrophysicists to find out numerous things about the sun’s interior.

At its middle or core, the sun is 150 times heavier than water. The core extends from the very center a fifth of the way to the surface or 0.2 solar radii. The temperature at the core is about 25 million degrees Fahrenheit, compared with a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees. Data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft suggests the sun’s core rotates faster than the radiative zone which is the next layer out from the core. Most of the sun’s heat is produced in the core, by nuclear fusion, converting hydrogen into helium.

The resultant photons or gamma rays travel at 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light, but they collide with matter billions of times before reaching the surface and escaping as sunlight. At the sun’s core, photons travel an average distance of a 250th of an inch between each charged particle. Near the surface, this increases to about a tenth of an inch. Solar astronomers estimate the time taken for photons to complete their journey through the layers of the sun to be around 10,000 to 170,000 years. Yet the time taken for light to travel from the sun to earth is a little over eight minutes.

Moving out from the core is the radiative zone which covers the area between 0.2 and 0.7 solar radii. This layer is hot and dense, allowing heat to transfer upwards by thermal radiation. The final layer is the convection zone where heat is carried to the surface via thermal columns. The matter cools at the surface and falls back down to the bottom of this zone, before heating up and rising to the surface again. The sun’s photosphere or surface is opaque and 250-300 miles thick.

Above the photosphere is the solar atmosphere. This too is divided into several layers. The temperature minimum layer includes the area of lowest temperature, about 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, some 300 miles above the surface. This is cool enough to support water and carbon monoxide, detectable by their absorption spectrum. The chromosphere is about 1,500 miles thick and becomes visible as the colored flash of light at the start and finish of total eclipses. Temperatures here can be up to 180,000 degrees.

The transition layer can be up to 1.8 million degrees. Solar astronomers observe this region more clearly via spacecraft rather than directly from earth. The corona is hotter still, at several million degrees, but astronomers are not totally sure why it is so hot. Lastly, the heliosphere is made up of hydrogen and helium blown by solar wind to the far reaches of the solar system at over 600,000 miles an hour for much of the journey.

Astronomers also study sunspots and the solar cycle. The latitudinal differences in the sun’s rotation time result in its magnetic field lines becoming twisted, leading to magnetic field loops erupting from the surface which results in sunspots. The twisting action produces a solar cycle which lasts on average 11 years. The number of sunspots varies over this cycle. The cycle has a significant impact on our weather and climate. During longer solar cycles, we experience hotter temperatures. The fewer the number of sunspots, the colder it seems to be. Europe experienced a mini ice age in the 17th century when the cycle seemed to stop and there were very few sunspots.

The sun is located on the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, which is towards the outside of the galaxy and about 24,800 light years from its center. The sun, and the solar system, takes 225-250 million years to revolve around the galaxy at a speed of about 150 miles a second relative to the center of the galaxy. Using stellar evolution models and cosmochronology, astronomers have determined the age of the sun as 4.57 billion years. This means the sun has completed barely 20 orbits of the Milky Way.

The sun is about halfway through the main part of its life. It isn’t large enough to become a supernova but will become a red giant in about five billion years. The sun will be bigger than earth’s current orbit. Astronomers initially thought a much larger sun would push the earth’s orbit outwards and it would survive, but the latest research shows that earth might be swallowed up by the expanding sun due to tidal interactions. Terrestrial life will probably end in a billion years anyway because by then the sun will be 10 per cent brighter and the additional heat will make it too hot for water to exist. This will mean the end of all life on earth.

A Weaver’s Web novel excerpt: Henry and Sarah Wakefield argue

‘Wait till I get my hands on him, wherever he is, the scoundrel,’ Henry said as the three walked home, their jackets pulled up against rain and wind. Without a lamp and with cloud covering the moon, they could hardly see.

When Henry and Benjamin got home, Sarah heated some water and made them tea. Having no dry clothing, they wrapped themselves in old cloths and sacks from the beds and sat shivering by the fire as they drank their hot drinks. Benjamin coughed and spluttered. He had caught a fever just after Christmas and was quite sick for several weeks. Sarah prayed he wouldn’t have a relapse and gave him extra medicine. They had potatoes for supper. Later the children went to bed and still Albert hadn’t come back.

‘I do hope he’s all right,’ Sarah said from the armchair, looking up from her sewing, her face pale and drawn. She pricked her finger and a drop of blood fell onto her lap, but she didn’t realise it. Her thoughts were with Albert.

Henry was at the table, reading a pamphlet. ‘Gone to a friend’s house, I suspect, and lost track of time.’ Soon he was staring at the wall in front of him. Twice he jumped up when he thought he heard somebody outside. When he went to the door to check, it was just the wind blowing through the trees and rustling leaves on the ground.

‘What if he’s lying injured somewhere?’ Sarah said. ‘Or what if someone’s kidnapped him – put him in a cart and taken him to a workhouse and put him in chains, thinking he’s an orphan?’

‘That only happens in the cities.’

She looked at him coldly. ‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied, Henry.’

‘What do you mean? It’s not my fault he’s missing.’

‘You’re teaching him wrong principles, making us go to a chapel instead of church,’ she said. ‘And those reform meetings!’ She threw her head back.

‘Oh, I see. So it’s better to teach him he’s poor and has to eat potatoes and can’t go to weekday school or find work because he’s sinned, and because the family’s sinned,’ Henry said, pushing his pamphlet aside and glaring at her. ‘And you think we can go along and listen to Father Edmond and all will be forgiven and we’ll no longer be in our predicament.’

‘You won’t let him do factory work. That’s why he’s poor. That’s why we’re poor. You want us all working from home, and there’s no work.’

‘Sarah, I don’t care if we earn a shilling a week and have to live under a tree and eat roots, no one’s working in a factory.’ Henry got up and paced the room.

‘And that’s why we’re poor,’ she repeated calmly, and kept sewing. ‘And it’s also why he can’t go to work or school, and stay out of mischief.’

Henry stood in front of her. ‘And that’s why the answer is reform, Sarah. We’re fighting for better wages for everybody. Then we can send the children to school again. And feed and clothe them properly.’

‘Yes, fighting. That’s all reform leads to – fighting within families and among friends. And the authorities and aristocrats get cross and put a stop to it, but not before blood is spilt.’

‘Do nothing, then. Go back to the church. Suffer. See if I care,’ he said, bending over her and placing a hand on each side of the chair.

She stopped sewing and looked up at him. His eyes were full of rage and she knew she had to do something to calm him. She worried that the children would wake and hear them arguing. Fearing for her own safety, she put her sewing on her knee, freeing both arms in case she had to defend herself. She didn’t move or say anything, hoping his anger would ease. He had never physically hurt her, but she worried he might lose control one day and lash out at her as if she was an agent recruiting factory workers, or a priest or a churchgoer he didn’t like the look of.

He took a deep breath. His eyes went smaller and he started to blink again. The crevices in his face became shallower. Standing up straight and stepping back from her, he looked away and shook his head in despair. She knew the worst of his storm had passed.

She sighed and said softly: ‘I hope the Lord has mercy on you.’

Henry ignored her and marched up and down. ‘Where is he? It must be nine o’clock. If he went to friends, they’d have sent him home long ago.’

… end of excerpt …

My historical novel, A Weaver’s Web, is available from the following outlets:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H52SEEK

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00H52SEEK

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00H52SEEK

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Chris_Pearce_A_Weaver_s_Web?id=-hlJAgAAQBAJ

Kobo Books: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-ww/books/A-Weavers-Web/jHgKZNwqjkybm8qWDO3mcw?MixID=jHgKZNwqjkybm8qWDO3mcw&PageNumber=1

Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/a-weavers-web/id775610928?mt=11

A Weaver’s Web novel excerpt: A near death experience

A noise at the other end of the room distracted her from her thoughts. A woman in a grey uniform stood in the doorway, the biggest woman Sarah had ever seen, even larger than the one she and Alice saw exhibited in Manchester recently for a shilling a look after they had been to the market. The woman was flanked by two men, much smaller than her.

Sarah sat down again and looked at Rosanna. ‘Who’s that?’

But Rosanna pulled a tatty blanket that had been folded on the end of her bed right up. Sarah saw other women in the room do the same, many peeping over the top of their blanket. This huge woman marched from bed to bed, stopping briefly at some, maybe to instil further fear. She came to Rosanna’s bed.

‘Please, Miss Brody,’ Rosanna said, ‘I’ve had a bath this month.’

The woman then came to Sarah’s bed. ‘Are you the new one? They told me about you.’ Her voice was deep and gruff. A short haircut accentuated her manly appearance.

Sarah cringed. ‘I … don’t need one either, Ma’am.’

Brody came at her, arms thick and hairy, whisking her up and holding her in the cradle position as if she was a baby.

‘Put me down. I … I’m a lady.’

‘We’ve got to get rid of those voices. Evil spirits don’t like water, you know.’

Sarah kicked and screamed, but Brody carried her out of the dormitory with little effort and down a long, dark corridor. No help was needed from the assistants who followed quietly behind. Sarah kept struggling, though she knew it was no use against the might of this woman. She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping she would wake up and discover it was all just a bad dream.

They came to a room with a large bath tub, and Sarah expected to see the devil himself pop up from behind it, ready to torture her.

‘No. You can’t do this to me.’

Brody put her down. ‘Strip!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your clothes, take them off.’

‘No.’

‘Either you remove them or I’ll do it for you.’

In the dim light, she could see her assailant was fully a foot taller than herself and probably twice as heavy. Sarah slowly removed her white gown and untied her undergarments. She tried to cover herself with her arms. The water was murky and it smelt, and she wondered how many patients before her had been bathed in the same water.

‘There’s no soap.’

Brody laughed. ‘Get in.’

Sarah hesitated.

‘Hurry up.’

‘It’s freezing,’ she said as she put a leg in the water.

‘Ever heard of an evil spirit who likes cold water?’ Brody made her get right in.

Sarah sat in the bath, body hunched up, teeth chattering, water up to her shoulders.

‘Breathe in, and hold it,’ Brody ordered. She pushed her down and held her head under.

Sarah had never had her whole head submerged like this before. She went to inhale, swallowing water and choking. Frantically she swished her arms about and tried to get to the surface. This awful woman was going to drown her, she was sure. After what seemed like an eternity, she was pulled up by the hair. She coughed, and gasped for air. When she opened her eyes, she saw her aggressor towering over her, grinning with satisfaction.

‘And again.’ Brody pushed her under a second time.

She tried to scream, but the sound was muffled by the water. Brody left her under longer this time before finally pulling her up. Sarah coughed and gargled and groaned, fighting for air.

‘You must learn to hold your breath, woman,’ Miss Brody said as she dunked her again, holding her under even longer.

Sarah put her arm up and went to push Brody’s hand away, but her strength had been sapped and her arm fell limp back into the water. A strange calm came over her. No longer did she feel the need for air. Her life raced past her. She saw her grandmother cooking bread on a skewer, her father questioning Henry when he asked him for her hand in marriage, each of her children as infants, and Baby and Albert just before they left on their respective journeys. Then everything went black.

Next thing she knew, she was lying on a bed, not in the dormitory with the other women, but in a smaller room, cleaner and whiter. And there was no sign of any water. She thought she might be in heaven, or about to go there. Nearby she heard a male voice say her name and thought it might be St Peter asking the spirit of someone who had known her on earth if he should let her in. She looked for the Pearly Gates.

Suddenly somebody came into the room. When she saw who it was, she knew she wasn’t in heaven.

‘Ah, you’ve woken,’ Miss Brody said, seeing her patient trying to sit up.

Sarah wished she was in heaven. She then saw a man in the room.

‘I’m Doctor Neagle,’ he said.

‘Go away, both of you.’ Her headache was worse than ever, but she didn’t want to tell the doctor for fear he would give her some strange medicine or a needle.

‘Don’t be afraid, Ma’am. I was called from the infirmary next door when they couldn’t wake you.’

‘I’m all right, I tell you. I don’t need a doctor.’

Neagle turned to Brody. ‘Take her back, and do be more careful treating the ones who hear voices.’ He left the room.

Sarah tried to get off the bed, but Brody shoved her back down.

‘You’re a troublemaker, you are.’

She curled up and put her arms across her body and hands to her face. ‘Now what’ve I done?’ she said trembling.

‘Not holding your breath properly.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Stupid woman. No wonder you’re in here. I’ll show you how.’ She inhaled and held it for several seconds.

Sarah kept her hands and arms ready to defend herself, sure she would be beaten.

Without warning, Brody exhaled. ‘There, simple isn’t it.’

‘You could’ve drowned me.’

‘I’ve never lost one yet, in twenty years. Cured a few too. Mind you, it can take time.’

Her face still white, Sarah lowered her guard but kept her body in a ball. ‘You cure people?’

‘Of their voices.’

‘My voices are real though.’

‘No, they’re not, they’re rubbish.’

‘They aren’t. Albert talks to me.’

‘Albert?’

‘My son.’

‘Where is he? I can’t see him.’

‘He’s in New South Wales, a convict. It was a mistake, of course.’

‘So he’s in some far-off land and he talks to you.’

‘And I talk to him.’

Brody laughed sarcastically. ‘And I talk to people in London and on the moon.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s going to take a while to cure you, isn’t it?’

Brody hoisted Sarah onto her shoulders, took her back to the dormitory and laid her on her bed. Sarah noticed some of the women, including Rosanna, had left the room, perhaps to avoid a bath. She watched, still fearful, as the huge figure of Miss Brody marched over to the other side of the room and plucked another woman from her bed. This time the victim was made to walk, guided by a firm hand at the back of the neck.

end of excerpt

My historical novel, A Weaver’s Web, is available at the following outlets:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H52SEEK

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00H52SEEK

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00H52SEEK

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Chris_Pearce_A_Weaver_s_Web?id=-hlJAgAAQBAJ

Kobo Books: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-ww/books/A-Weavers-Web/jHgKZNwqjkybm8qWDO3mcw?MixID=jHgKZNwqjkybm8qWDO3mcw&PageNumber=1

Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/a-weavers-web/id775610928?mt=11

Birds: Australasian shoveler

(originally published to Helium writing site, now gone)

The shoveler consists of four species of ducks known as dabbling ducks, which are recognized by their long, broad, flat beaks. Their legs are closer together than other ducks. They are good walkers and strong fliers. They feed on vegetable matter on the surface of water bodies, or by grazing, and rarely dive, thus the name dabbling duck. The four species of shoveler are the northern shoveler, the red shoveler, the Cape shoveler, and the Australasian shoveler. This article looks at the Australasian shoveler.

The Australasian shoveler, or Anas rhynchotis, is found mainly in south-east and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, Victoria, eastern South Australia, New South Wales and into Queensland, although numbers thin out in the north. It also lives in south-west Western Australia. The bird is found in New Zealand too, where it is sometimes called the New Zealand shoveler. Its habitat includes a variety of wetlands, especially heavily vegetated swamps, as well as open waters and occasionally coastal areas.

These ducks have a large head with a low forehead and heavy shovel-tipped beak. Length is around 20 inches and weight is about 1.4 pounds. In breeding season, the male’s head is grey-blue. It has a white crescent between its yellow eyes and its bill. Its back and rump are black. The wing coverts are a blue-gray with white bars. Its underneath is a chestnut color. At other times of the year, the male is duller. Females have mottled brown back and sides, and chestnut underneath. They have dark brown eyes. The male makes a “toot toot” sound, whereas the female gives a husky quack.

They are dispersive but their movements are not well documented. Like other shoveler species, it uses the groves around the edges of its bill to separate water from its food, which includes crustaceans, insects, and aquatic plants. The Australasian shoveler breeds at nearly any time of the year. They usually nest in thick vegetation on the ground, but sometimes in a tree hollow or on a stump. Clutch size is from nine to eleven eggs and incubation takes 25 days. Conservation status is “secure” at the federal level and in most states, “vulnerable” in Victoria, and “rare” in South Australia.