(short correct answer: because the earth's axis is tilted, and therefore much more light falls on one of the hemispheres than on the other, and they smoothly change places after six months)

I was once asked this question during an interview (for a programmer).
Despite the fact that I studied at the physics department of Moscow State University, I did not know the answer.
So he said: “mmm... I don’t know.” Everyone was still surprised, like no one had answered like that before.
It seems they didn’t take me there, or didn’t write to me later, I don’t know, that was a long time ago.

I came home, started googling, studying, and discovered the answer to this seemingly simple, but in fact, simply wonderful and brilliant in its simplicity question.

It turned out that they can have fun testing people: watching how a person will behave when you ask him this question, and in public, so that others can hear, but not be able to interfere.

It has long been known that logic does not work for a person: everyone only adjusts and shuffles the facts so that at the end they can concoct those answers, decisions and conclusions that best suit him and will not cause him cognitive dissonance that he is not is right, that he is bad, that he is weak, that he made a mistake, that he was deceived, that he was mistaken, and the like.
And others perceive the persuasiveness of a speech almost entirely on emotions, and not on facts: it doesn’t matter what kind of nonsense the speaker utters, if at the same time he looks adequate and “respectable,” preferably with a bunch of dignities like “Academician of Such-and-such Academy” or “ Honored Minister of So-and-So,” and if he seems “confident in his words,” and speaks in the style of “I have brought you the truth, believe,” if he speaks assertively, and overshadows his opponents with his charisma, neutralizing their counterarguments with all known rhetorical techniques and tricks such as allegory, hyperbolization, translation of the topic, personalization, and the like - thousands of them.

So, you ask a person this question: “Vasily, what do you think, why is there summer and winter?”
At first, a person is usually completely sure that he knows the answer to this question, and begins to answer: “Well, how?! What do you mean why?! Everyone knows this: of course, because the Earth’s axis is tilted!”

In principle, this answer already contains the whole point - the words “everyone knows this.”
The classic school training system works here: Masha “knows” the answer to the question, Masha gets an A. In fact, a school is the same religious zombie institution as any parish theological seminary in the Middle Ages.
The person simply does not perceive the question that way.
Instead of “Do you know why Something like this?” he hears “But you don’t know, as they usually tell us, why Something Such and Such?”
That is, a person accepts that as the real state of affairs virtual reality, which society imposed on him, and at the same time he sacredly believes in it, and any doubt in it is automatically (society has developed this reflex) considered heresy.
It looks very funny from the outside, for example, when a person’s head is full of misconceptions that he does not question and firmly believes in, and when you try to explain to him something that goes beyond the framework, or something that challenges his beliefs, then a person, in especially advanced cases, immediately begins to demand “facts” and does not want to listen, much less believe. It is not without reason that they say that the best slave is the one who is completely sure that he is not a slave. And if a person comes across a low level of development (there are such people, just look at today’s crazy fascist Ukraine), then he will even begin to attack you, put pressure on you, aggressively and zealously defending his own virtual reality from destruction. For an analogy, imagine a slave who is confident that he is free, and at the same time zealously protects his master-enslaver.
This, of course, is not the person’s fault: people are designed this way, it is their nature, and there is nothing shameful in this. And no one is immune from this.

Returning to the question you asked, the real fun begins when you answer your interlocutor that he cannot build a normal logical chain from the mantra from the “tilted axis” to the answer to asked question, and that he therefore does not know the answer to this question.
Based on the reaction, one can make judgments about the person himself: will he behave aggressively in response, will he go into deep defense, inaccessible to logic, etc. In especially difficult and rare cases, after you reveal the correct answer, the person is so afraid of being wrong that he commits self-deception, and assures both you and himself that he said so from the very beginning.
Fear of error is programmed into human nature as a defense necessary in the early stages of the development of consciousness, but at the same time it is also one of the main factors hindering human development after passing through the initial stage of development.

Regarding the answer to the question itself...
By intuition, of course, one can assume (and take on faith the noodles that are being hung on everyone’s ears somewhere) that because one pole, due to the tilt of the Earth, is always further from the Sun than the other, and therefore it is summer in one hemisphere , and in the other - winter.
And some people are sure that this distance is the reason for winter and summer. In fact, such a small distance of one pole compared to the other is not capable of providing a temperature difference (and if suddenly there is such a difference, then it is negligibly small).

The whole point is that the hemisphere that is tilted outward receives the same light, only at more slippery angles to the surface, and the hemisphere that is tilted inward receives light at angles that are steeper to the surface of the Earth.
Therefore, per unit area earth's surface in the cold hemisphere there is less incident sunlight than the same unit area of ​​the earth's surface in the hot hemisphere: for example, the picture below clearly shows that the “blue” part of the light, which falls on the cold hemisphere, is almost half as much as the “yellow” “the part of the world that falls in the hot hemisphere - that is why (and no other reason) it is hot in the hot hemisphere at this time of year, and cold in the cold hemisphere at this time of year.

If you are familiar with the concept of a “solid angle” (the same geometric two-dimensional angle, only expanded to the concept of three-dimensional space - you get something like a cone)

, then I will tell you this: the same unit of area of ​​the earth's surface receives a smaller share of light (and, therefore, less heat) in the cold hemisphere, because there the solid angle from the sun to this unit of surface will be smaller; and vice versa, the same unit of earth's surface area receives a larger share of light (and, therefore, more heat) in the hot hemisphere, because there the solid angle from the sun to this unit of surface will be greater.

If there are astronomers among you who need mathematical formulas, then you can find them on this page: in the “intensity” section, a formula is immediately given that relates the radiation intensity and the solid angle to the site. Here is a formula for making my speech pompous and official, and for increasing the “persuasiveness” of my reasoning

Since the intensity of sunlight is the same at any point in space (this is, by definition, such a property of the intensity of radiation from a star in astronomy), then the energy transmitted sunlight to the surface of the Earth, depends only on the solid angle from the Sun to a unit area of ​​the Earth's surface: the larger the solid angle, the more energy it contains.

To refute the misconception that there is winter and summer because one hemisphere, due to the tilt, turns out to be a little further than the other, you can come up with some visual and obvious refutations in the style of “paradoxes”.

For example, what is the Earth's orbit around the Sun? Your interlocutor, of course, will answer that, naturally, it is ellipsoidal. And he will draw an ellipse on paper, so elongated. Where is the Sun located inside this ellipse? Your interlocutor will probably say that it’s in the center (an intuitive answer, that’s how we were all drawn in children’s books). Ask again if it is exactly there. If he is sure, then notice that, in fact, not in the center, but in one of the foci of the ellipse. If the ellipse is drawn very elongated, then the Sun will be strongly shifted to one side. Ok, if the Earth's orbit is a drawn elongated ellipse, and a small difference in the distances to each hemisphere due to the tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation would affect the temperature so much, then why, when we pass those two points of the ellipse that are closest to the Sun, Doesn't all life on Earth burn?

In fact, technically, your interlocutor dropped the correct phrase: technically, this is an approximately ellipse. Although in fact I would say that you are unlikely to distinguish it from a circle, because the eccentricity of this ellipse is 0.0167, and its largest diameter is 149.60 million kilometers, and the smallest is 149.58 million kilometers, that is, the difference in diameters - only about 20 thousand kilometers, that is, a little more than one tenth of a percent.

The sun is located at one of the focuses of this ellipse, and therefore is slightly shifted to one side.
(in the picture below the ellipse, apparently for dramatic reasons, is unnaturally elongated in width - do not forget that in fact the Earth’s orbit is indistinguishable from a circle by eye)

If we now return to the question you asked your interlocutor about why everything did not burn up at the points of the ellipse that are closest to the Sun, then we can say that we now know that the Earth’s orbit is in fact a circle, and these points are closest to the Sun by only 10,000 kilometers, which is approximately equal to the diameter of the Earth, and therefore not so dramatic. Ok, I have a couple more paradoxes up my sleeve...

Now you can dig into the difference in distances from the Sun to the Earth in summer and winter (see picture). Ask your interlocutor that if his theory is correct, then why in July, that is, when it is summer in our hemisphere, the Earth is further from the Sun, and in January, when we have winter, the Earth, on the contrary, is closer to the Sun?

Further, if you count: 152,100,000 km - 147,300,000 km =~ 5,000,000 km. Five million kilometers - this is the difference in distances from the Earth to the Sun in summer and winter. If your interlocutor claims that the tiny difference in distances given by the tilt of the Earth’s axis somehow affects the temperature, then let’s calculate it - it will certainly not be greater than the diameter of the Earth, which is 12,742 km. Now compare the distance of ten thousand kilometers, which supposedly creates winter and summer, and the distance of five million kilometers, which, in this case, would freeze everything into permafrost or burn all living things. Ten thousand kilometers and five million kilometers. Millions, Karl!

And one more, last, fact that I noticed from a series of refutations of this false theory, which everyone firmly believes in: if only distance really played a role, then in this case one of the poles would completely melt once every six months, and an oasis would form there.

Here is another link, from the encyclopedia for children.

Line UMK E. V. Saplina. The world around us (1-4)

The world around us

Geography

Why is it cold in winter and warm in summer?

“Why is it hot in summer?” - this children's question is very relevant, given the time of year. In winter, it will be replaced by another - “Why is it cold in winter?”, accompanied by an attempt to warm frozen palms through mittens. In our new column “Why” we will regularly answer in clear and in simple language to the most interesting questions of preschoolers and schoolchildren.

“Why is it hot in summer and cold in winter?” - this question is asked by both preschoolers and schoolchildren. It would seem, well, what is the difficulty: the tilt of the axis, the rotation of the earth, the Sun... But when you try to explain to a child, you begin to get confused yourself.

Answer to the question: the reason is the angle of the Earth's axis

Our planet Earth moves around the Sun, and the Earth's axis itself is located at an angle to the plane of this movement.

Around the Sun, the Earth rotates in an elliptical orbit, close to circular, at a speed of about 107,000 km/h in the direction from west to east. Average distance to the Sun 149,598 thousand km

Due to the elliptical shape of the orbit, the distance between the Earth and the Sun varies. The closest point in orbit to the Sun is called perihelion - at this moment the star is approximately 147 million kilometers away. The farthest is called “aphelion” - 152 million km. A 3% difference in distance results in about a 7% difference in the amount of solar energy the Earth receives while in those orbital locations.

But the main thing is that it is not the distance that changes, but angle of incidence of sunlight on the surface,- that’s why there are seasons.

The planet's axis forms an angle of 66.56° with the orbital plane. Accordingly, the equatorial plane forms an angle of 23.44° with the ecliptic plane.

If it were not for this tilt, then day and night anywhere on Earth would be the same in duration, and during the day the Sun would rise to the same height throughout the year.

The tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. Source: wikipedia.org

3 Geographical Reasons for the Change of Seasons

Seasonal changes in the length of daylight hours: in summer the days are long and the nights are short; in winter their ratio is reversed.

Seasonal changes in the height of the sun at midday above the horizon. in summer temperate latitudes at noon the Sun is closer to the zenith than in winter, and, therefore, the same amount solar radiation in summer it is distributed over a smaller area of ​​the earth's surface.

Seasonal changes in the path length of solar rays in the atmosphere affect the degree of their absorption. The Sun located low above the horizon gives less heat and light than the Sun located high, closer to the zenith, since the sun's rays in the first case overcome a thicker layer of the atmosphere.

The textbook for grade 2 continues the new integrated course “The World Around us.” Main goal textbook - to provide basic information about the Earth and Space: from the mythological ideas of ancient people to modern ones scientific ideas. The UMK includes an electronic application posted on the website of the Drofa publishing house, as well as workbook For independent work students and methodological manual containing thematic planning and comments on all course topics.

The equator does not move away from the Sun, is there no winter and summer there?

Yes. There are no seasons at the equator because it is always at the same - and close - distance from the Sun. For calendar year The sun's rays at the equator fall vertically (at right angles) onto the earth, warming the surface and the air above it well. In fact, it is always summer there. And the closer to the equator, the longer the summer and the shorter the winter.

Contest

This time we will not ask you to calculate anything, as we did in the material “Why is the sea salty?” Send us to social media your “whys”: this could be a question that worried you as a child, or it could be a question that a child or student recently asked. Among all participants we will choose the 3 most interesting questions and reward their authors with book prizes!

Why is it cold in winter and warm in summer? and got the best answer

Answer from Oblom[guru]
due to the fact that the earth is round and it rotates on an axis around the sun, read the textbook

Reply from Knapweed[guru]
It’s warm in the summer, because everyone walks around lightly dressed, some in just thongs, which heats up the air, but in winter, on the contrary, they put on fur coats and there’s nowhere for the air to get warm, so it gets cold...

Reply from *** [guru]
The thing is that there are 4 seasons and their change is caused by the rotation of planet Earth around the Sun. This happens in 365 (366) days, but at the same time the Earth also manages to rotate around its axis every 24 hours. This is how the days change.
If the Earth's axis (the imaginary line from the North to the South Pole) were at right angles to the Earth's orbit around the Sun, we would have no seasons and all days would be the same. But the Earth's axis is tilted.
The fact is that various forces act on the Earth. Firstly, this is the attraction of the Sun, secondly, the attraction of the Moon, and thirdly, the rotation of the Earth itself. As a result, the Earth rotates around the Sun in an inclined position. This position remains all year round, therefore the Earth's axis is always directed to one point - to the North Star.
This means that part of the year North Pole turned towards the Sun, and the second part is hidden from it. Because of this tilt, the direct rays of the Sun sometimes illuminate the area of ​​the Earth's surface north of the equator, sometimes at the equator, sometimes south of the equator. It is the varying exposure of areas of the earth's surface to direct sunlight that causes the seasons to change in different areas of the globe.
That is, winter occurs in the Southern Hemisphere if direct sunlight hits the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa. During winter, the sun illuminates both hemispheres, but some of the rays are scattered, so they are not able to warm the hemisphere to the same extent. This is what causes the cold in winter.
Isn't it strange: when winter reigns in the northern hemisphere, the Earth is 4,500,000 km closer to the Sun than when it is summer there.
The fact is that in this case the weather is determined not by the distance from our planet to the Sun, but by the inclination of the earth's axis relative to the plane of the earth's orbit. The angle of this inclination is 23.5 degrees.
The Earth rotates around the sun in such a way that its axis is always directed towards the North Star. Therefore, during one half of the year the North Pole of the earth tilts towards the Sun, and during the other half it deviates from it. In the first case, summer reigns in the Northern Hemisphere, in the second - winter. In South, of course, everything is the other way around.
The weather in a particular region of the earth depends on the angle at which the sun's rays fall on a given area of ​​the earth's surface. In winter, the low sun illuminates the earth with sliding rays, and in summer they fall vertically. Grazing rays heat the Earth's surface less for two reasons. Firstly, because the same amount of heat in winter is distributed across larger area than in summer. Secondly, in this case the rays pass through a thicker layer of air earth's atmosphere which leads to big losses their thermal energy.
Climate is determined not only by the amount of heat entering a particular area of ​​the Earth's surface from the Sun, but also by other factors. For example, in the vast seas and in the areas adjacent to them, temperature changes with the changing seasons are not so great. On the contrary, in the interior of the continents the difference between winter and summer temperatures is much greater. This occurs due to the fact that the earth cools and heats up much faster than water. Another factor influencing the weather is the difference in altitude above sea level. As altitude increases, the density of the air decreases, and therefore its ability to retain heat. As a result, the climate in mountainous areas is much colder than in the plains.

Simple questions. A book similar to an encyclopedia Antonets Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Why is it cold in winter?

Why is it cold in winter?

I found the correct and strict answer in the second volume of the “Physical Encyclopedia” in the article “Earth”: “Rotation around an axis causes the change of day and night, the tilt of the axis and revolution around the Sun causes the change of seasons.”

Indeed, since school days we have known that the Earth revolves around the Sun in a flat, almost circular orbit with a radius of approximately 150 million kilometers. It also rotates around its axis passing through the Northern and South pole and inclined relative to the orbital plane at an angle of just under 67 degrees. If the Earth's rotation axis is inclined relative to the orbit, then it turns out that the angle of incidence of the rays on the Earth's surface changes as they move along the orbit. It gets closer to vertical, then further away. If the rays fall obliquely, it turns out that the same radiation is distributed over large area. To put it more bluntly, this is not happening. Therefore, simply the amount of solar radiation falling on the surface is greater in summer and less in winter.

You've probably noticed that it's very hot on the roof in the summer. This is because the roof has an angle that is added to the latitude angle, and therefore in Russian latitudes the roof is often almost perpendicular to the direction of the sun's rays. That's why it's insanely hot there.

Thus, it turns out that cold and heat overtake us only because the angle of incidence of the sun's rays changes. If you want to use such rays to heat water in your country house, you must place your tank at an angle so that more sun gets in. Moreover, if you make a hill on which to plant, for example, strawberries, they will ripen better. You yourself know that berries always taste better on a sunny slope.

There are two parallels on Earth where the Sun is directly overhead once a year. They are called the Northern and Southern Tropics - this is approximately a latitude of 23 degrees, and since the inclination of the axis of rotation relative to the orbital plane is 67 degrees, the total is 90 degrees. That is why at these latitudes there is a moment when the Sun is directly overhead and objects do not cast shadows. These are very hot places.

A decrease in temperature is an objective cause of cold. But sometimes we feel cold in the summer too - when a person says that he is cold, but in fact he feels the heat exchange taking place. If a lot of heat is given off - no matter for what reasons: for example, a person is wet and the wind is blowing on him - then we feel cold.

As a result, it turns out that the rotation of the Earth around the Sun with an inclined axis leads to a change in temperature, but we perceive cold and heat according to the degree of heat exchange. So it's cold in winter because it really sets low temperature, which we feel due to the increase in heat transfer.

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From school, everyone knows that our planet rotates both around the Sun and around its own axis - an imaginary line connecting two poles - north and south. This arrangement of things affects the changing seasons and time of day.

If you ask the question why it is cold in winter, the most common answer will be: the Sun has moved away from the Earth to the maximum possible distance. There is some truth in this statement, but only partially, because other factors also influence the change of seasons.

Causes of cold weather in winter

Distance

In the process of rotation, our planet actually approaches the star and then moves away. The maximum distance at which two celestial objects are located (at aphelion, if we say scientific terms) – 152.1 million km, minimum (according to scientific terms it will be “at perihelion”) – 147.1. For formation this opinion influenced by the fact that the Earth has a spherical shape and moves in orbit in the form of an oval. When the surfaces of the planet and star move away, the sun's rays stop delivering their heat and therefore the temperature drops. The Northern Hemisphere experiences this situation between December and February.

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Short day

But the arrival of cold weather is influenced not only by the distance between the Sun and Earth. The axis of our planet is tilted relative to the orbit, the angle of which is 23.5 degrees. The North Pole is always directed towards a star called Polaris, which causes the Earth to tilt towards the Sun for 6 months and the planet's deviation from the star for the same period of time. Thus, the angle of inclination removes the surface, making the day shorter. The sun's rays There simply isn't enough time to warm the Earth.

Change in the atmosphere

In addition, the Sun rises less high in the sky. The combination of two facts results in a decrease in temperature, which leads to a decrease in evaporation. The concentration of water vapor is the main criterion for heat retention at the surface; its decrease leads to the escape of heated air into space. A decrease in temperature causes better dissolution in the atmosphere of carbonic acid, which can absorb infrared radiation. When its proportion decreases, thermal radiation occurs faster.

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Winter and summer in different parts of the planet

In the northern hemisphere it is winter, in the southern hemisphere it is summer. And vice versa. This happens because one half of the year Northern Hemisphere The Earth tilts towards the Sun, the second one deviates. That's why some celebrate the New Year and Christmas holidays when it's cold, while others celebrate it when it's hot.

But there is also such a thing as geographical zones. And the climate varies depending on the distance separating it from the equator - a conventional line dividing the planet into northern and Southern Hemisphere. The equator is perpendicular to the Earth's axis of rotation, so the angle of inclination is not decisive. The temperature in the regions passing along this conditional line is approximately the same throughout the year and is equal to 24-28 degrees with a “+” sign. This part of the land receives more heat, light and solar radiation, because the rays fall at right angles.