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Comment by vesinisa | Hacker News Reader

Love it!

One weird thing: the author of this clock/calendar portrays the year rotating clockwise (click on the calendar icon in top left to see the "annual" calendar): January in 12 to 1 o'clock, February in 1 to 2 o'clock, etc. and December in 11 to 12 o'clock.

In a poll of some close friends recently, we found out that most of us (>80% including myself) had always mentalized the year rotating counter-clockwise (starting from January at 12 to 11 o'clock, Februay at 10 to 11 o'clock etc. and finally December in 1 to 12 o'clock.)

Bizarely none of us could explain why we had such weird anti-clockwise mental image of the annual cycle, but all who viusalized the year running counter-clockwise said they had done so for as long as they could remember.

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I actually have exactly a clock as a mental model of the year and the seasons. December is 12 o' clock.

But weirdly, I dont have a mind's clock to represent the day. Precisely because it feels to me that the clock shape is unfit to show time. Because 03:00am feels wildly different from 03:00pm. My mental representation is a 3d spiral slightly offset and looping back on itself. So imagine two clockfaces when looking from up top, seethrough. The bottom one is a bit to the left so you can see both well. Each consecutive number goes a bit higher. After 12 midnight the numbers quickly decend down back to 06:00am. I have this image for as long as.I remember.

I wonder if that's a common thing generally or not. Definitely I should add it as an option though. Also whether the year starts at the top or bottom of the dial.

The planets do go around the Sun anticlockwise when viewed looking down from above the North pole [0], and most diagrams show it that way, so maybe that's where the idea comes from?

0. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year

Yes, this has to be where the picture originates. Given that almost all maps show the north facing up, picturing the Earth rotating anti-clockwise around the Sun throughout the year makes sense. A bit similar to how clocks for the times of day run clockwise probably because this aligns with the rotation of a sundial placed in the Northern hemisphere. In the Southern hemisphere, a sundial runs anti-clockwise.

Although, converse arguments can be made for both - even if we assume an observer located in the north. If we do indeed picture the Earth rotating in space from the outside - it actually rotates counterclockwise around its axis with the north up. So should day clocks actually run "backwards"? And the "fixed" background of distant stars seem to rotate around a northern observer in the clockwise direction throughout the year - so the image of the year rotating clockwise is just as correct.

Everything seems relative to the prespective chosen.

Interesting, I don’t have a circular mental image of the year at all. It’s more like a continuous line — the summers are light and the winters are dark(er) — where the previous year doesn’t coincide with the next year. Same for the week (and the month, but the months have different lengths anyway). Also not for the day, which takes two revolutions of the clock. Does anyone visualize the day as two circles? Probably not.

Agree. This is the first time I had thought about it this way and the clock representation seems fine.

Oddly the year is the only thing where I think I have a good 3D mental model without really thinking about it. Not sure if this makes sense to others but right now we are about 11/12ths of the way to the autumnal equinox and you can imagine the Earth’s tilted axis almost perpendicular to the arriving sunlight. I think of this as if I were observing from the sun so the axis is pointing up (north) to the left.

I picture day cycle in a single 24 hr counterclockwise loop. I’m always interested to learn about other people’s internal mental image frameworks! So fascinating.

I picture annual calendar the almost the same way (counterclockwise), although its an asymmetrical oval, and months have associated colors (i.e. December navy blue, January maroon/brown, February ice blue, March true maroon…August golden or wheat yellow). I don’t know why, but that’s been my mental image since childhood.

I visualize the year clockwise, but with summer at the top, and the new year at the 6 o'clock position. I'm not sure why, but I think it just makes more sense to me to think of spring as rising, and "fall" as descending. I guess that convention would work better in the southern hemisphere.

Right. If viewed with the north pole up, Earth indeed rotates counterclockwise around the Sun. Not sure if it would be any different for someone living on the southern hemisphere though, as all the maps used globally have the North up and the South down.

Same here, but i'm in the southern hemisphere, so summer is at the top already.

Did you go to the same elementary school?

No but possibly used same schoolbooks. An image or such in an old schoolbook could indeed seed such a visual idea.

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