Even confirmed Luddites like me have to admit that, on balance, modern technology has been a good thing. Since the World Wide Web was launched in 1989, life has become infinitely more convenient in a myriad of ways. People use computers for everything from listening to music to paying bills to churning out monthly columns for newspapers in southern Maine. The Internet is such a handy research tool that the only people who could possibly object to it are those attempting to make their living selling encyclopedias.

There isn’t a topic known to mankind that can’t be meticulously probed from the comfort of an easy chair, assuming one has an easy chair.

For example: According to www.nationalgeographic.com, a highly respected website, Daylight Saving Time began this past Sunday morning at 2 a.m. That extra hour of daylight each afternoon is a sure harbinger of spring, which begins officially this year at 1:14 a.m. on March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, a tidbit of information I picked up from www.almanac.com.

After Maine’s seemingly endless winter, nothing is as welcome or as uplifting as the annual arrival of the vernal equinox. As those who have studied Latin (like the folks at www.alphadictionary.com) eagerly tell those of us who haven’t, “equinox” means “equal night.” That’s why this event takes place annually in March at the precise moment when the sun is positioned directly above the equator, which means day and night are equal all around the world in both hemispheres.

According the www.world-mysteries.com, the 23.4 degree tilt of our planet’s axis is the reason we have seasons; were Earth rotating on an axis perpendicular to the plane of its orbit around the sun, day lengths everywhere would be the same year-round, and there wouldn’t be any variation in temperatures; thus, no spring, summer, fall, or winter.

At the start of spring each year, millions of people briefly feel spiritually reborn, or at least momentarily rejuvenated. The unusually bright dispositions you’re seeing displayed by your friends, neighbors and co-workers these days isn’t just your imagination, according to www.naturalhealthwellnessreview.com, while there is no long-term change of attitude associated with any one season, there is an upbeat (albeit temporary) mood swing amongst Northern Hemisphere residents each March as days begin to get noticeably longer.

The vernal equinox is significant for other reasons, some of which have nothing to do with astronomy. Thanks to www.christianitytoday.com, Christians can find out that Easter falls annually on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. In the days before modern meteorology, this occasionally led to some confusion. The most notable instance of this occurred in 1596, when, due to an unusual streak of overcast nights, Christians didn’t celebrate Easter until July 18, which we can ascertain was a Sunday thanks to www.timeanddate.com.

That confusion led to the embarrassing omission of Arbor Day observations that year, since even medieval nature lovers knew that the annual celebration of trees couldn’t take place after all the Fourth of July fireworks had been shot off. That information comes from www.stuffimadeup.org. A related historical note: George Washington’s birthday wasn’t celebrated that year, although that had nothing to do with the equinox or cloud cover on nights when a full moon occurred. According to www.morefakeinformation.edu, another imaginary Internet site I created out of whole cloth because I was bored one night, after many exhaustive studies historians now concur that the reason the Father of our Country wasn’t feted that year was because he wasn’t actually born until 1732.  

Paradoxically though, all equinoxes aren’t created equal. The autumnal one, which marks the official beginning of fall, occurs this year on Sept. 22 at 10:49 a.m. EDT. This is also known as the invernal equinox, which on more than one occasion has been mispronounced and/or misspelled as the “infernal equinox.” This is an easy mistake to make, especially here in Maine, since the end of summer lets northern New Englanders who don’t ski, snowboard, ice fish, ride snowmobiles or play hockey know that we are about to experience anywhere from five to eight months of hell. That information didn’t come from any website. I just know it for a fact, that’s all.

However, as a high school English teacher, I’ve seen some significant fallout from the ease with which one can conduct Internet investigations. I once received a bizarre essay on a serious topic from a young lady whose main source of information, it turned out, was www.theonion.com. Not every 15-year-old who is assigned to write a research paper can distinguish fact from satire, apparently.

But I know just the tool to help such students effectively fact-find in the future. Now all I need to do is find a reputable and still-solvent encyclopedia vendor to sell it to me!

— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk and lives in Cumberland.