Puzzle Description:

The symbol of the 13th sign of the Zodiac, Ophiuchus.

#1: bugaboo (bugaboo) on Feb 12, 2011

i didnt know what this was
no guessing
simple edge or contradiction logic on either side of the sine wave at the end

tell us more about this zodiac sign
by the way.. thanks for entry, Tyler

Nice job. Strange but interesting to have a new one.

Apparently, Ophiuchus was passed over when the zodiac signs were condensed to fit the 12-month Gregorian calendar.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/13/horoscope-hang-up-earth-rotation-changes-zodiac-signs/
Notice how Scorpio only gets a single week.

Thanks for an interesting entry Tyler!

Found to be logically solvable by Gator.

Well, now, this zodiac stuff is a bit more complicated than the article Kristen linked to indicates.

The calendar of signs quoted in that article is based on the dates at which the sun enters the various constellations. But where does one constellation begin and the other end? Well, those dates are based on the constellation boundaries defined by the International Astronomical Union in 1930. Very nice, but it's not obvious why the world's astrologers should need to comply with official IAU definitions.

The astrological zodiac simply divides the zodiac into twelve even sections, with Aries starting on the date of the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, March 21. So Aries, Taurus, Gemini are the spring signs. On the summer solstice, about June 21, Cancer begins, followed by the other summer signs, Leo and Virgo. The autumnal equinox, September 23, marks the beginning of Libra followed by the other autumn signs, Scorpio and Sagittarius. The winter Solstice, December 22 marks the start of Capricorn and the other winter signs, Aquarius and Pisces.

So the zodiac signs were designed by the Babylonians to match up with the season, just as our calendar months were originally supposed to, before they got messed up, only the Zodiac signs haven't gotten messed up, at least not in the sense of matching with the season.

Unfortunately, they were also supposed to match with the constellations that the sun appeared in during those seasons, and what the Babylonians didn't know was that that changes slowly over time, via a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes. Hindu astrologers noticed this problem long ago, and started shifting their signs slowly, so that the sign Aries still begins when the sun enters Aries in their system. But western astrologers seemed to feel that it was more important for the signs to keep in sync with the seasons than for them to keep in sync with the stars, so they kept the start of Aries on the vernal equinox.

Obviously there is no "right" or "wrong" way to translate the Babylonian's calendar to the modern day. I'm not believer in astrology, but I'd be more ready to believe that you can predict aspects of people's lives by the season they were born in than by the position of the sun relative to the stars, so I'd have to vote for the Western system.

I don't at all see the point of a system of signs defined by astronomers instead of astrologers, except that I suspect that my son will be happy to hear that he was really born in Ophiuchus (pronounced Ooh-FEE-yew-kus) not Sagittarius.

dang Jan... now i can't be a GREAT sagittarian lover anymore, and it worked so well for me

Goto next topic

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