Why is always the darkest before dawn?
Yeah I know I could google it.
For the same reason you find things in the last place you look for them.
I'm still trying to figure out why we park in the driveway...
Lisdexics drive on the parkway.
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I have turned nocturnal in my old age and I do enjoy the dark & quiet of 3AM.?ÿ
But I might be out walking dogs at any conceivable hour between sunrise and sunset...and I'm not so sure it's really any darker before dawn than any other time.?ÿ I'm sure everything else in the sky has a lot to do with it...including my neighbor's damned motion sensored 200,000 candlepower halogen security light that blinds me every time I step out the door after dark.
I'm thinking the saying is just a metaphor to let one know there is hope even when things appear hopeless.?ÿ And I'm hoping my neighbor sleeps sound at night after I figure out where my old pellet rifle is...?ÿ
That sounds a bit like the curmudgeons who complained yesterday about the church bells playing out quite a tune at midnight of New Year's Eve.
Ain't heard that before, I know it's always coldest at pre dawn but darkest? ?????ÿ
Well, it just has to be. If we look at the time period from one dawn to the next, there will be a period of light and a period of darkness. At some time during that period of darkness, darkness will reach a maximum and it will be darkest. The statement makes no mention of how soon before dawn maximum darkness occurs, but it has to occur before the next dawn.
By an analogous argument, we could also say that it's always lightest before the dawn. But, it's always lightest after the dawn, too, depending on which dawn you're talking about.
That's why I made Ds in literature. Everything was just too imprecise to make any sense.
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@flga-pls-2-2
Anyone who has sat in a deer stand for very long can testify to it being coldest just before dawn.
Andy
I, as well as your students (including us), would like to see a mathematical equation to support your hypothesis. ???? ?????ÿ
The longer you endure (insert tribulation here) the more unbearable it becomes. The cumulative effects would naturally be at thier worst just before relief.
I doubt a single equation could express this. Some trials would simply add, others (such as a crazy ex) would require one or more squaring functions..
@flga-pls-2-2
How about a graph instead? Kinda crude, better than those my former students had to copy off the board, but it explains all. My English Lit professors had no appreciation for this depth of understanding.
You must be well liked by your students because the picture (graph) explains the hypothesis better than an equation, at least to me. Do your students know you participate here with a bunch of renegade Surveyors? ????
I just like looking at enormous equations, they're like a something you'd see in a black and white kaleidoscope. ????
Cold and dire straits notwithstanding, I can't help but believe that, excluding the influence of the moon and other light generating or reflecting phenomena, the darkest time of the day is whenever the sun is 180?ø to the observer's location on the earth. Before that time it would be getting darker and after that it would be getting lighter. I know, I know, it may be in imperceptible degrees, but the physics have to bear that out. The sun is always shining on something like 50% of the earth, so the dark to light/light to dark transitions have to produce the same amount of light, er dark, no?
Using the "darkest before the dawn" theory would appear to discount a very nearly identical period of "darkest after sundown" a few hours earlier.
Do we have any astronauts that have seen the sun rise and set on the earth a few hundred times in this group that can chime in here and correct me if I am wrong?
My two cents.
JA, PLS SoCal
@flga-pls-2-2
I retired in 2015, so I don't currently have any students. I tried to develop a rapport with them, though, which some liked and others didn't. It's not a popularity contest, but if a student hates a teacher, it's difficult for either one to do well.
Equations, graphs, numbers, and words are all the stuff of mathematics. It took me years to learn how to use all four to teach. And I still screwed it up sometimes.
Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest guy on earth because you "renegade Surveyors" let me participate.
On the graph above that would be where the sine curve and dashed line intersects with the E-W solid line?
Then perpetual motion of the universe has to be considered as well as the perpetual motion of the perpetual motion, of the universe. Now, would such an equation be perpetual in itself?
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@flga-pls-2-2
Yes sir. Graph came in while I was composing my pitch.
JA, PLS SoCal
I disagree with using the sun as the only light source in the graph.?ÿ The night sky, while not as brilliant nor dominant as sunshine, still plays a factor in determining when the moment of "minimum light" occurs.?ÿ And then there's a wild card in any equation concerning the night sky...the moon.?ÿ?ÿ
Lots of factors to consider before hammering out solid hypothesis.
