Equinoxe

Today is the spring (or vernal) equinox in the northern hemisphere. This is one of the four transitions — two equinoxes and two solstices — from one season to another: from winter to spring, to summer, to fall (aka autumn), and back to winter.

The reason that earth has seasons is that it is tilted on its axis at an angle of approximately 23.44 degrees (called its obliquity) due to a colossal impact early in its history around 4.5 billion years ago. The hypothesis is that a protoplanet collided with the early earth. This collision caused it to tilt off its perpendicular orientation relative to its orbital plane around the Sun.

During an equinox, the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and both hemispheres receive almost equal sunlight. The sun is positioned directly above earth’s equator, and the earth is tilted neither toward the sun nor away from it, resulting in nearly equal lengths of day and night across the globe.

The tilt is relatively stable but can vary slightly over tens of thousands of years due to gravitational influences of the moon and other celestial bodies. This variation is part of the Milankovitch cycles, which affect long-term climate patterns.

(I am sure that when the climatistas learn about those cycles, they’d like the government to tax carbon emissions or something to eliminate them because temperatures change with season, alternating between global warming and global cooling. We just can’t have that sort of temperature changes, can we?)

---

I look forward to the seasonal transitions and celebrate them with music, food and drinks. I can’t share the food or drinks but fortunately I can share the music with you. So here goes.

For this equinox, let’s listen to Jean-Michel Jarre. I have been a fan of electronic music for ages. Jean-Michel Jarre is one of my old-time favorites, among many others such as Mike Oldfield and Klaus Schulze. I owned many CDs of his albums. Fortunately all of that is on YouTube.

(Jean-Michel Jarre is approximately pronounced “zoh mee-shell zhaar.” You are welcome. Trivia: He is the son of the legendary music director Maurice Jarre who composed the music for the movie “Lawrence of Arabia.”)

Here are four songs: two from his album Equinoxe and two from Oxygene.

Equinoxe Part 4. This explains the apparent misspelling of the title of this post.

Next, Part 8. See they like to optimize on naming the songs. Just number them and get on with it.

Now from the Oxygene album. Oxygene Part 2. The visuals on this upload is pretty nice. All of these tracks should be heard on a decent stereo system or a set of headphones. This music is not meant for phone speakers.

Finally, Oxygene Part 4. In this we get a sense of the handsome Jean-Michel.

Be well, do good work, and enjoy yourself.