"TWILIGHT"

I posted this in December 2008, but I felt the need to post again! Enjoy!

"Twilight" (1820) by Caspar David Friedrich





I have something I need to get off of my chest. I have always been interested in "Twilight." Please do not let my wife know, she will never let me live this one down. Although, she reads my blog and will most certainly find out, please DO NOT let her know. It could damage the town. Twilight is very interesting to me. It even reaches farther than we know, even into other planets. and galaxies. That is how far reaching "Twilight" is.


There are many versions of "Twilight." My wife has all of these on our bookcase. I see them every day and wonder which version is best. Technically, there is only one truly defined "Twilight", but there are three established and widely accepted subcategories of twilight: civil twilight (brightest), nautical twilight and astronomical twilight (darkest). Civil twilight begins in the morning when the geometric center of the Sun is 6° below the horizon and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the center of the Sun reaches 6° below the horizon. Nautical twilight is defined as the time beginning when the geometric center of the Sun is exactly 12° below the horizon and ending when the sun's center is exactly 12° below the horizon. Astronomical twilight is defined as the time beginning when the center of the Sun is exactly 18° below the horizon and ending when the sun's center reaches exactly 18° below the horizon. I prefer the version "Civil Twilight in the Morning," but my wife prefers another version of "Twilight."


"Twilight" can have varied durations of time, depending on the latitude of the observer. In the Arctic and Antarctic regions, twilight (if at all) can last for several hours. I know that at my geographic location, "Twilight" can last all night and keep me awake for many, many hours. There is no twilight at the poles within a month on either side of the winter solstice. I am going to enforce this rule at my house, this sounds like a great idea. At the poles, twilight can be as long as two weeks, while at the equator, it can go from day to night in as little as twenty minutes. "Twilight" even reaches the Martians. Twilight on Mars is longer than on Earth, lasting for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset.




I know that "Twilight" will continue around my house for quite some time, but I guess I should be very grateful that "Twilight" is not continuous. Within the polar circles of Earth, twilight literally lasts for weeks in the polar fall and spring. Poor men. What makes me most grateful is that it could be much, much worse. There is a planet in a distant solar system, the name escapes me, that continually faces its sun. By doing this there is one side that is continually light and the other side is continually dark. Yes! you guessed it. Poor, Poor men, if any there. There is an area on this poor planet, roughly 200 miles wide, from pole to pole, that is in continuous never ending "Twilight." This sounds like a planet that my wife and many of her friends would like to visit, but not me. I will be happy with intermittent "Twilight" here at my geographic location.

Quotes that make you THINK!

I love quotes! Especially ones that make you think! Ones that inspire you to strive to become a better person. Listed below are some of my favorite quotes from some of my favorite thinkers and leaders.

"It was said of old that he who governs himself is greater than he who takes a city."
- Gordon B. Hinckley

"May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law."
- Immanuel Kant

"There are many things that I believe that I shall never say but I shall never say those things I do not believe." - Immanuel Kant


"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

"Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgement upon anything new." - Galileo Galilei


"We knew of old that God was so great that he could make all things; but, behold, he is so much greater even than that, that he can make all things make themselves."
- Charles Kingsley

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
- Albert Einstein

"Truth is what stands the test of experience." -Albert Einstein

"If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." - Albert Einstein

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." - Albert Einstein

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein

"Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man." - J. Robert Oppenheimer (speaking of Albert Einstein)

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." - J. Robert Oppenheimer (speaking of the atomic bomb)

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato

"Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil." - Plato

"I detest that man who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks for another."
- Homer


"A generation of men is like a generation of leaves; the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings forth - and the season of spring comes on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases." -Homer


"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." - Samuel Johnson

"It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours."
- Sam Ewing

"Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
- Elbert Hubbard

"This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men." - Captain J. A. Hadfield

"Latter-day Saints...do not deny that an evolutionary process, a reflection of the gospel law of progression, may be one of the methods of the Lord's labor in the universe." - John A. Widtsoe

"Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife." - Euripides

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain

"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it." - Herodotus

"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase." - Epictetus