Various ancient peoples, be it the Egyptians, Greeks or Romans, tried to explain all the phenomena occurring around them, so a fabulous explanation of the change of day and night has come down to our times. Legends of different nationalities are generally similar.
Change of day and night: a fabulous explanation
With the words "the sun has risen" or "the sun has set" we begin or end another day in life. Our ancestors endowed sunrises and sunsets with great power. These phenomena had a sacred meaning for our ancestors.
Indeed, during sunsets and dawns, various rituals and ceremonies, both church and magical, were performed. From here a fabulous explanation of the change of day and night “grew up”. Each user of social networks has a photo of sunset or dawn. Today, modern man does not understand these phenomena and does not know the sacred meaning.
ancient greek myth
The ancient Greeks have a fabulous explanation for the change of day and night. The titan Hyperion had three children: Selena, Eos and Helios. Shining with a cold light, Selene was the goddess of the moon. On her head was a sickle-moon. On the night road she rides in a chariot drawn by bulls. Selena leaves this road when her child stars fade and the marble columns turn pink.
Eos - the goddess of the morning dawn, announces the dawn of a new day. Following Eos, their brother Helios rushes from the east in a shining golden chariot. The Greeks revered him no less than the powerful and supreme Zeus. The rays of Helios penetrated into the most distant and dark corners through black clouds. Their warm light awakened all life. Thanks to the rays, trees and fruits grew. Helios is the storm of all criminals. The rays of this god blind them. Even the gods cannot hide from such rays.
Helios knows everything about the divine "affairs". It was he who suggested to Demeter that her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades into his gloomy realm of shadows. But noon comes when Helios reaches the west. By evening, the horses of Helios and he himself get tired and blush. God goes to his palace for rest, where the divine retinue also rests, and Selena's chariot leaves for the road ... Such is the Greek change of day and night. Their fabulous explanation is similar to the Slavic myth.
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Slavic vision of day and night
The ideas about the world among the ancient pagan Slavs were very complex and confusing. The sun and sunlight were different concepts for them. For each season, the Slavs had a separate "sun" - Yarilo, Kupailo, Svetovit and Kolyada. They called the sun itself Horos. By the way, this word meant "circle". This is where the word round dance comes from.
Like the Greeks, the Slavic fairytale explanation of the change of day and night is simple - Dazhdbog (the sun - the giving god) rode a golden chariot across the daytime sky, harnessed by fiery winged horses. Morning and evening dawns were considered sisters. Moreover, the dawn was the wife of the sun. On the day of the summer solstice, the Slavs celebrated their wedding. Like the Greeks, the Sun is an all-seeing eye that watched everything and everyone. Because the criminals operate at night to this day.
Ancient Indian idea of the emergence of a new day
A distinctive Indian legend about the change of day and night. The fabulous explanation says that there was no night. She appeared thanks to one tragic incident. There was a brother Yama and a sister Yami. The brother died, and the lonely sister had no choice but to endlessly mourn the unfortunate brother. To all requests and exhortations to calm down and stop shedding tears, Yami only exclaimed: “But he died today!” The gods saw the truth: in order for the girl to calm down, a night is needed, only in this way will a new day come. They made the night. Morning came, Yami forgot about grief. And the Indians began to say "the sequence of day and night."
Conclusion
For many years our ancestors believed in these myths and legends about the creation of day and night, right up to the Middle Ages. Religion and mystical ideas were replaced by science. Nicolaus Copernicus 500 years ago wrote a book about how our planet rotates on its axis, orbiting around the star Sun. So, according to Copernicus, there was a change of day and night.
The fairytale explanation was destroyed. And the scientist's book was banned by the Pope, as it contradicted the Christian religion. Copernicus became famous as the creator of the heliocentric system. The name of this system comes from the name of the sun god Helios, so, according to the theory of Copernicus, the Sun is located in the center of the universe. The Polish astronomer died of a stroke on May 24, 1543, at the age of 73.
Every summer my nephew comes to visit us. He is still quite small, but terribly curious. Recently in the evening, when we were sitting in the yard and looking at the sunset sky, he asked me where the sun disappears and why it's getting dark. Lessons started popping up in my head astronomy, but everything seemed so complicated and incomprehensible that I myself could not imagine how it happens, let alone a small child. Then I seriously thought about how this can be explained.
Change of day and night on Earth
It's no secret that our planet revolves. It takes about 365 days for one rotation around the Sun, but if we talk about the Earth's own axis, then here it makes full turnover per day. A day is equal to twenty-four hours. If it is day at one point on the planet, then it will be night at the opposite point. The sun does not disappear anywhere, it remains in its place, but we are moving along with our planet. We do not catch this movement, because its speed is constant.
How was the change of day and night explained in ancient times?
There are various myths and legends about this:
Length of day and night on the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes
Day and night have different lengths depending on the season. In our country, the summer day lasts much longer than the night, and vice versa in winter. But there are days in the year when night equals day. Annually March 20 and September 22 or 23 The sun, passing from one hemisphere to another, passes through celestial equator, thanks to which we can trace such a phenomenon as an equinox.
Can you tell me where the windows of your house face?
Does the sun wake you up in the morning, making its way through the window?
Or does the sun see off the evening with gentle rays, softly reflected in the windows of your house?
Of course, the familiar picture of sunrise and sunset depends on which side the windows of our house face. If you do not take into account cloudy weather when the sun is simply not visible, then the meeting of the sun at dawn and seeing it off at sunset occurs regularly twice a day - in the morning and in the evening.
Example: Move the mouse over the image from left to right.
A bit complicated?
Then here: Time of day for children +3 to> 7
What is time of day.
A day is a cycle of time during which the sun, rising from the east, passes through the sky and sets in the west, then, when night falls on our half of the earth, the sun passes a revolution from another part of the planet and rises again from the east.
A day is exactly 24 hours long. Each hour consists of 60 minutes. Every minute out of 60 seconds. Accordingly, a day = 24 hours = 1440 minutes = 86,400 seconds. For convenience, two formats are used:
- 12 hour time format- time until noon from 0 hours 00 minutes to 11 hours 59 minutes (a.m.) and afternoon time from 12:00 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. this time format is set in England, Ireland, France, Greece, Turkey, Australia, Canada, the USA and the Philippines are also used.
- 24 hour time format- from 0 hours 00 minutes to 23 hours 59 minutes. The most common time format used in Russia and in many other countries of the world.
How does day and night change on earth?
In addition to the rotation of the earth around the sun (calendar year), the globe rotates on its axis. A full rotation around its axis occurs in 24 hours, which is called a day.
At the same time, being on the surface of the Earth, we do not feel the movement of the globe, but we can only observe it, based on the apparent movement of the sun, stars, relative to the Earth.
Conventionally, the time of day is divided into several parts:
- Morning- begins with the dawn of the sky in its eastern part and the sunrise from behind the horizon.
- Day- the movement of the sun across the sky from east to west.
- Evening- sunset in the west of the sky and gradually fading colors of the sunset.
- Night- Night time. At this time, the sun passes on the other side of the globe relative to us.
Since the Earth consists of continents located on both sides of the globe, the time of day in each part of the Earth is different. So if New York is still night, then in London it is already morning, in Moscow it is midday, and in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky it is already evening.
Interestingly, until recently it was believed that the movement of the globe around its axis is uniform, however, later scientists calculated the inaccuracies and it turned out that the unevenness in rotation is still present. These irregularities are associated with a slight oscillation of the globe during rotation (conditionally swaying of the Earth, in terminology - nutation), but these changes are so small (less than 0.001 s) that they are not taken into account in the calendar.
Changing the time of day
A lot of photographers tried to capture the change of day and night. taking many shots in a row from one position, one could trace the smooth movement of the sun across the sky, see the movement of the stars, and get beautiful videos of sunrise and sunset. Time-lapse photography is when the camera is mounted on a tripod in a stationary position for a long period of time takes a series of photographs at certain intervals.
If the duration of the day is constant, then the duration of the constituent parts of the time of day varies depending on the season. This is due to the tilt of the earth and the movement around the sun in an ellipsoidal trajectory. So in the summer daylight hours last longer than the night, and in winter, on the contrary, the night is longer than the day.
At the same time, in different parts of the globe, the length of day and night is different. For example, in the Crimea it gets dark quickly in the summer, the night is dark, and in St. Petersburg June is famous for "white nights", the sun does not set far behind the horizon line and therefore the nights seem bright.
Different times of the day look and feel differently. This is connected with the biological (internal) clock by which a person is used to living (day - wakefulness, night - sleep) and with a variety of color contrast, as well as with mood. By the morning, strength is added, the day passes in study, business, work, and in the evening fatigue, a gradual departure from business, rest and sleep.
The change of time of day was drawn by the artist Nikolai Petrovich Krymov in a study landscape called "Change in the landscape in tone and color at different times of the day."
A simple motif was chosen for the landscape - a house by the forest, a diagonally leading path that gives volume to the picture, a field and sky, sometimes people walking along the path came into view, which gave the picture liveliness. The landscape was captured 9 times at different times of the day, where the artist clearly showed how the landscape, colors and colors change at dawn in the morning, when the shadow from the sun moves during the day, at sunset in the evening and at night.
The entire plant and living world of nature adjusts to the rhythm of the change of time of day. In the morning the plants bloom, in the evening the buds close. The human world also adjusts to the change of time of day. The most common work schedule, class schedule, educational institutions and entertainment centers, and even the radio and television program is compiled depending on the time of day.
The reasons for the change of day and night are the constant and cyclical rotation of the Earth around its axis. This process is quite rapid, but we manage to notice it in the dark evenings or watching the morning dawn. Thanks to the rays of the Sun, the surface of the planet warms up, and we can see the changing darkness and light.
The rays of the sun and the light of the moon
The reasons for the change of day and night are that the Earth rotates around an axis that we can mentally imagine. But it simultaneously rotates relative to the Sun. This happens during its movement in orbit around the star.
The reasons for the change of day and night are the movement of the Earth along an axis passing through the poles of the planet. She manages to turn around in 24 hours. But around the Sun there is a slower rotation - in 365 days.
The reason for the change of day and night is the rotation of the planet. It is different on different continents. For example, in St. Petersburg there is a season of white nights, and polar days can last more than a month.
What causes uneven daylight hours?
The duration of day and night is not the same everywhere due to the fact that the imaginary axis of the Earth is slightly tilted relative to the Sun. Therefore, the rays fall differently on different hemispheres. Thanks to the redistribution of heat, life exists on the planet.
Having time to cool down during the night, the planet warms up during the day. Vital metabolic processes take place. We see the Earth in such a familiar form due to the unique movement of the planet. On different continents, vegetation and wildlife differ due to the length of the day.
The Pole can be in the shade for half a year - this time is called the polar night. Then comes the next six months a day at the pole. While it is night at the north pole, it is day at the south pole, and vice versa.
If there were no usual days?
Due to the fact that the Earth is evenly illuminated by the Sun, life exists on the planet. Let's imagine that it would stop rotating, and there would always be day on one side, and the other would be forever deprived of light. The hemisphere under the Sun would heat up to a temperature at which all living things would dry up.
The second part of the planet would begin to freeze due to lack of sunlight. So in the present we have an ideal planet for life. The diversity of living beings is amazing, and this is only possible due to the rotation of the Earth. The change of both day and night is important, as are the changes in weather due to the arrival of different seasons.
The change of day and night is explained by the rotation of the earth around its axis. Why does day and night change? Once upon a time, in ancient times, people asked themselves this question and did not find an answer. Thousands of years passed before man understood and explained this phenomenon. The ancient Indian myth "The Legend of the Creation of the Night" gives an idea of some of the features of the beliefs of the ancient Indians, who in their own way sought to interpret the origin of certain phenomena, such as the change of day and night, to tell about the meaning of time in human life. According to this myth, the first people on earth were brother and sister, whose names were Yama and Yami. When the brother died, the sister endlessly mourned him, “shed inconsolable tears, and there was no end to her grief,” because then there was still neither day nor night, and she answered all persuasion: “But he died only today! The gods realized that this way she would never calm down, and said: “So she will never forget him! Let's make the night! And they created the night. And when the night passed, the morning came. In the morning, Yami consoled herself and forgot about her grief. Therefore, the Indians say: "The succession of night and day brings oblivion of grief." The wisdom contained in the myth "On the Creation of the Night" echoes Russian proverbs and sayings: "Morning is wiser than evening", "Time heals". Such proverbs, like myths, arose in ancient times as one of the types of verbal art. And they also reflect the attempts of the people to understand and explain the various phenomena of reality. And myths are very similar to fairy tales, but if fairy tales are fictional embellished stories, then myths say what our distant ancestors firmly believed in. The change of day and night in ancient times was explained as follows: a certain underground-underwater monster with two heads - in front and behind - swallows the Sun in the evening, and spews it out in the morning. Day and Night, brother and sister constantly at war with each other, are the embodiment of Light and Darkness. They were presented to the ancient peoples as higher, immortal beings: the deity of light - Day and the deity of darkness - Night. Appearing in the early morning at the edge of the sky, dressed in a night veil, the Sun seemed to be born out of darkness, and its setting in the evening was likened to death; hiding to the west, it was given to the power of Morena, the goddess of night and death. At night, the Sun in a boat drawn by swans, ducks, geese and other waterfowl floats across the underground ocean. In the morning, it sails up to its golden palace in the east and soon leaves it on a chariot drawn by white, golden-maned horses. And so the circle of the day goes on forever. Some legends say that the Sun circles the vault of heaven, changing horses: it rides on light or white ones during the day, on black or black ones - at night. Morning and Evening Dawns harness these or those horses to his chariot. Likening Night to black horses is found in fairy tales. Let us recall how a girl goes to get fire from Baba Yaga, the sorceress ruler of heavenly thunderstorms. Two riders alternately fly by - one is all white, on a white horse, the other is red on a red horse. Night, usually identified with gloomy clouds, is also called a black cow in myths. Even riddles are devoted to this: “The black cow overcame the whole world”, “The black cow stabs people, and the white one resurrects”, - that is, the night lulls to sleep, and the day awakens. In Egyptian mythology, it was believed that the sun god Ra flies around the earth on a chariot, and when night falls, he passes through the underworld, fighting monsters, so that a new day has come! =)
