Retorts

Seeing the Light

Brian Carter's article "The First to see The Light" [August 98] provided an interesting overview of the physical issues in calculating and observing sunrises.

We agree that calculating a sunrise time to the nearest second appears irrelevant when the observed time may differ by a greater period due to atmospheric refraction. However, in researching our paper, "An Assessment of where People will witness the First Sunrise of the New Millennium" (published by the Royal Geographical Society, 17 September 1997), we found this necessary when systematically comparing the precedence of various neighbouring observation positions.

Our objective in publishing our paper was to end speculation as to what location would see the first light of the New Millennium and we believe that our conclusions have been accepted globally. Pitt Island is the first inhabited place to see the Millennium sunrise. This is supported by the US Naval Observatory.

The statement in the article that there are "two stings in the tail that spell the death knell for a New Zealand location being the first place" is, in part, rendered invalid by the subsequent statement that such a conclusion may be negated by Resolution 4 of the 1884 Washington Conference.

In regard to the first sting, the assumption that the new dawn for all the world starts at 00:00 UTC is incorrect. Our perusal of the original Conference documents in London revealed the statement: To the east of the prime meridian all possible local days will be in advance (up to 180^o Longitude East); To the west all possible days will be behind the universal day...the universal day will be at once the mean of all possible days. Clearly then our advanced day in New Zealand has a basis in international convention.

We suggest also that the second sting is not that at all and this is signalled by Mr Carter's making light of Kiribati shifting the International Date Line to encompass the uninhabited Caroline Atoll. The British Admiralty Hydrographic Office set the longitudinal variations in the International Date Line. This line has been universally observed for over a century and is necessary to sensibly co-ordinate global time.

Lastly, our research reveals that while various peoples do observe different calendars, the great majority of the world does observe the Gregorian Calendar either as its primary calendar or as an important parallel to their own. The advent of the Third Millennium is of significance many people quite removed from our western culture -- and, after all, any anniversary can be a lot of fun.

Peter Lechner, Philip Blain, The Millenium Adventure Company, Auckland