The Equinox Problem
Today is the vernal equinox — the moment when day and night are supposedly equal. Twelve hours of light, twelve of dark, the cosmic scales in perfect balance. Except they’re not. Not really. Due to atmospheric refraction bending sunlight around the curve of the Earth, and the fact that the sun is a disc rather than a point, “equal day and night” is off by several minutes depending on your latitude. The equinox is an idealisation. A beautiful, useful lie. ...