2011年科学美国人60秒1月份.docVIP

Another Ellipse around the Sun January 1, 2011 Happy New Year! And dont feel bad about taking today off. After all, youve traveled far. And Im not talking about the trip home from the party last night. According to NASA, just by being on the planet Earth in the last year, you’ve zipped about 584 million miles around the sun to get back where you were. At an average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour. Again, not talking about the drive home last night. Of course, the trip was not a perfect circle. As Kepler showed, the Earth’s orbit is an ellipse, with the sun at one of the two focal points. He also figured out the planet goes faster when it’s at perihelion, nearer the sun, than when its at aphelion, its farthest distance. Which would explain why summer seems to zip by, except the seasons are a function of the tilt of the Earth’s axis, not its different distances from the sun. And the Earth rotated 365 and a quarter times during its sweep around the sun. The trip took 8,766 hours. Or 31,557,600 seconds. Or 525,960 minutes just like this one. —Steve Mirsky Ancient Greek Symposium Featured Drinking Rules January 3, 2011? Did you hoist a few on New Year’s? Of course, getting together with friends over a few adult beverages has a long history. Here’s the University of Cincinnati’s?Kathleen Lynch, on the ancient Greek symposium: “And the symposium is an all-male drinking event. It’s a time where a small group of men get together, usually at the home of a friend. And the focus is on drinking. And so they may have had some food earlier, but the focus is on drinking together. And the drinking together forms bonds.” On January 7th, Lynch lectures at the?meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America?on the types of cups used at symposia over the centuries and how they give us clues to what was going on in Greece at particular times. As for the symposium, it had a couple of definite rules. First, participants reclined and arranged themselves in a circle or square. There