There may not be anyone else who reads this series, but here goes:

So, I've been recently reading a book series by Iain M. Banks about a civilization named "the Culture." I've already read two books, Use of Weapons (my favorite) and Player of Games, and I'm starting on Look to Windward. If you've read the series, you'd know that Iain has set up an extensive universe around the books, painstakingly describing their government, history, conflicts, social issues, anatomy, population demographics, AIs, technology, wicked spaceships, the habitats they live in, and even creating an entirely bogus cosmology based on a seven-dimensional shape called a "7-torus." It's all very impressive. But what I don't understand is the space habitats called "orbitals." Imagine, if you will, taking a Ringworld, shrinking it down to about 3 million km across, spinning it to create gravity, but removing the night-blocks and tilting and turning it to create a 24-hour night-and-day cycle. This is where I'm confused: if it was turning at such a speed, wouldn't the night only last an hour or two, while the day lasted much, much longer?