The midpoint of this calendar year 2026 comes today, July 2, at 12 midday. (For anyone’s clock.)
This is what happens in common years. In leap years, such as 2024 and 2028, the midpoint comes at July 2, 0 (midnight, the beginning of that day).
It’s not immediately easy to “get the mind around” the logic of the rule, if the mind is as arithmetically slow as mine. This suggested a conundrum you might like to solve. Explain why there is no contradiction between these statements:
A. In a leap year, the midpoint is earlier in the middle day, by half a day, because the first half of the year is one day longer.
B. In a leap year, the midpoint is half a day later, because the year is one day longer.
I’ll allow some time for answers, then give mine.
Sometimes too hot to think
The Sun was farthest north on June 21, but the heat waves follow.
Once on my way back from a hitchhiking journey to Morocco I visited Robert Graves, who had settled in Mallorca. One of the things he said to me was: “You can’t go farther south than Mallorca to write; no one can write in the hot countries.”
He might have agreed to a fuller version: “It’s difficult for a North European person to be a writer while living in the hot countries.” He certainly knew of the mass of Arabic literature.
He told me that he himself, and the British royal family, were descended from the Prophet “Mahomet” because of Pedro of Córdoba, who married one of the Nasirids, who were the Muslim rulers of Granada.
Graves was a deeply learned scholar – it was amazing that he could survey so much literature while living so far from large libraries, before the age of the internet – but I think he had this a little garbled. Apparently he referred to a Castilian nobleman Pedro Venegas, also known as Pedro de Granada, who was born at Córdoba, was captured as a child, raised at the Nasrid court in Granada, and married a princess named Cetti Merien. Unfortunately, the Nasirids claimed descent not from the prophet but from one of his Companions; and any Islamic link to British royalty seems to be through Eleanor of Castile, not this Pedro.
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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
Love your article about the midpoint of the year! Yes, the two statements say the same thing from two different perspectives. Statement (A) addresses the reason why the midpoint occurs 12 hours earlier (midnight as opposed to 12 noon). Statement (B) addresses why the midpoint occurs a half day later because February 29 is added in a leap year. The common link is the time of day it occurs is 12 hours earlier even though the midpoint happens a calendar day later. It actually makes perfect sense to me and I think you explained it well in spite of your self criticism as being “arithmetically slow”.
I’ll allow some time for answers, then give mine.
I’m trying to understand how “B” can be true, much less not contradictory to “A”. Failing thus far, but I’ll get back to you, Guy, if I do figure it out! As always, thank you for enriching my life with your writing. There is no one like you!