3 ms·

Hm, anecdotally I have seen this trick printed in so many kid magazines and books that I thought everybody knew it. Nevertheless, I have never had a need for it

• e12e 10y ago
  I remember reading about it a long time ago - since then I started paying attention to the sun while going to school (when there was a sun to watch, Tromsø has ~two months of polar night, and quite a few months where the sun doesn't rise until long after school starts). So now I can generally (roughly) tell the time by looking at the sun, if I'm somewhere familiar (I know where north is) - and I can generally tell where north it is by looking at the sun, if I know the time. I suppose most people (ie, those that don't live near the poles) can tell time roughly just by how high the sun is/how long the shadows are - but it's a little tricky in most of Norway, most of the year (except maybe around noon).