What is a day and how are they divided into parts?

Every adult can determine what isday? If you think about it, we often call this word only the time when we are awake, equating them to the day. But this is not true. To once and for all to understand this issue, it will take quite a bit of time.

What does the reference book and dictionary say about this?

If you look in them, you will find severalinterpretations of this word. And the first of the answers to the question, what is a day, is the definition: the unit of time counting, which is equal to the approximate value of the period of revolution of the planet Earth around the axis. Why approximately? Because it is not even, but has minutes and even seconds. To be precise, then 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds. Divide them into an even number of parts is not obtained. Yes, and up to 24 hours is not enough quite a bit.

But this theory is not circumscribed. It turns out that the day can be solar and stellar, planetary and used in civilian life.

In order to determine what a day is,you need to select any point in time and count from it 24 hours. Usually the account of the day begins with the sunrise, although it is more convenient to count from midnight. That is, from the hour when a new calendar day begins.

How is the day divided?

First, 24 equal parts. Hence the logical answer to the question: how many hours in a day? It is 24. Each of them consists of 60 minutes. So, in all there are 1440 minutes in a day. But that's not all, the latter are divided into seconds. Their number is equal to 86,400.

Secondly, there is still such a concept asTimes of Day. In other words, morning, day, evening and night. Here the division is no longer as unambiguous as in the previous paragraph. This is due to the subjective perception of the day by every person and different peoples. And technical development has erased the boundaries between the concepts of "morning" and "day." If earlier the morning came with the rising of the sun, because only then it was possible to start working on the street, now using artificial street lighting you can work in the open air at least night.

And yet, technical progress and the ability to communicate with people from different countries required the introduction of a unified division. Therefore, the time of day by the hour was as follows:

• from midnight to 6 hours - night;
• the next six hours - morning;
• 6 o'clock in the afternoon is a day;
• The last six hours are evening.

What day divisions were in the past?

The Arab peoples, for example, singled out such moments of the day's development:

• dawn;
• Sunrise;
• the time of its movement in the sky;
• sunset;
• dusk;
• a time when there is no sun in the sky, that is, night.

But the natives of the islands of the Society in those days,when they were discovered by Cook, they divided the day into 18 intervals. And each of them was different in duration. The shortest parts of the day were morning and evening. The greatest duration was at midnight and midday.

What words exist in Russian to determine the time of day?

In addition to the generally accepted large stretches, such as morning with day and evening with night, there are even smaller ones. And they are given their own names.

The first of such concepts is "dark". That is the time when it is dark or dark. This happens just before dawn, as well as immediately after sunset.

The next day is dawn, its other name is dawn. It precedes the sunrise. That is, during it is already lightening, but the sun is still hidden behind the horizon.

The third period is sunrise. It is associated with the immediate appearance of a star in the sky.

The culmination of the movement of the sun is connected with the followingthe time of day - noon. Closer to the evening there comes a time, which is usually called "light". By analogy with the term "darkness" it is the gap when it is still light.

Sunset is associated with the time when the sun is hiding behind the horizon. Immediately after sunset comes the semi-darkness, which is usually called dusk.

And what is bigger than the day?

It is logical that the week, month and year. Therefore, after deciding the question of what a day is, you will also want to understand the definitions of the remaining units of time.

The smallest of them is a week. It consists of seven days. The calendar is counted from Monday to Sunday. But it can be any sequence of seven consecutive days.

Somewhat larger month. It contains from 28 to 31 days. The difference in this quantity depends on the non-integral value of the lunar month, which is slightly more than twenty-eight days. Initially, the number of days in months was alternated and it was 30, then 31. And one, the last one in the year - February - was the shortest. It was 29 days old. But over time, there have been small changes. One of the months - July - was named after Julius Caesar (this month the emperor was born). Augustus replaced the ruler. By the decision of the emperor, one of the summer months began to bear his name. The number of days in it, too, was changed to 31. It was decided to withdraw it from that month, which is already the shortest. So, February became even a day less.

The largest unit of time in the calendar wasyear. And he, too, was not a whole number. Therefore, its value ranges from 365 to 366. The first value is taken for simple years, and the second corresponds to a leap year. The latter give the opportunity for February to become somewhat longer. Namely exactly for a day.