Physics, asked by cherry72, 1 year ago

The length of shadow played an important role in determining time. Justify with an example..??

Answers

Answered by LavishKumar
1
If you know length of shadow and object height (assuming vertical object casting shadow of an horizontal surface), you can tell time if you know date and you can tell date if you know time. If you know direction of shadow (e.g. relative to north) you can tell date and time without knowing any of them.

The most tricky part is to measure objects and shadows from a photograph - because you need their real length and perspective distorts object and shadow lengths -. To do this you need to make some assumptions about the geometry of the objects in the photograph. In fact, if you know the geometry of the settings, after some geometrical calculation you can find the Sun position and therefore date and time.

For example, with an image like this oneand a detailed map, you can find date, time, position of camera and even focal length of lens - with a lot of measurement and geometry calculation, of course.

However, if the only objects casting shadows in your image are trees and people, measuring their exact position and size would be impossible and date and time estimations will be quite rough, specially if the image doesn't show any other identifiable and measurable features - and even worse if you can't tell the north from features in the photo. In general, finding date and time from shadows works better with buildings, specially with sharp shaped buildings with known orientation.

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