Sundial with "multitudinous faces"?

beet 31425 · 12 May 2011, 16:09 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: beet31425 at gmail.com (beet 31425)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 09:09:31 -0700
Subject: (urth) Sundial with "multitudinous faces"?
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Thanks for the pictures, and thanks for the page that describes what a
multi-faceted sundial might actually be used for.
I wouldn't quite say of these sundials that each face tells "a different
time" as Severian does; I wonder if they're purposely configured that way
(as Antonin suggests), or if perhaps they just don't work very well billions
of years in the future.

(At any rate, on a symbolic or mood-setting level, this bizarre image of
multiple, contradictory times is another touch-- like the archaic words--
that serves to make the connection between Severian's time and ours obscure
and unfathomable.)

-Jason

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> One of the pictures is from this website:
>
> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/sun/access/sd3_moreinfo.html
>
> This explains quite a lot about how such sundials work.  Pretty
> fascinating!  The only quirk is that this particular one was more of a
> design and engineering feat, since all the faces were to show the same time
> at a given moment, while the one described by Severian shows different times
> on different faces.  I suppose it would not be too hard to configure the
> different sides so that they give times with a specific differentiation, so
> that you could know the time elsewhere on the planet.
>
>
> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Antonin Scriabin <
> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Here are some decent pictures of multifaceted sundials with multiple
>> gnomons:
>>
>> http://www.davidbrownsundials.com/chch14_cutout_med.gif
>>
>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/G%C3%B6ttingen_Cubic_Sundial_cropped.JPG
>> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/sun/access/images/sd3a.jpg
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>wrote:
>>
>>> I was asking the same question recently.
>>> On the page Jeff linked to, there is one that looks almost like a cube
>>> with cut corners. I'd seen it, wondering how it could be a sundial. Well I
>>> think the photoI saw was without the restored gnomons. I thought it looked
>>> like a good contender for the Multi-faceted form, but I couldn't see how it
>>> was a sundial. This picture makes it clear. Thanks.
>>>
>>> I love the idea that it's become it's own gnomon. Meta-Level-Alert!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 12, 2011, at 1:26 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > On 5/12/2011 2:27 AM, beet 31425 wrote:
>>> >> Hi folks-- first-time poster. Doing a pretty detailed re-read of New
>>> Sun.
>>> >>
>>> >> I'm having trouble visualizing the sundial in the Atrium of Time. It's
>>> >> described as "one of those old, faceted dials whose multitudinous
>>> faces
>>> >> give each a different time." And later, there is a reference to "one
>>> of
>>> >> its gnomons", implying it has more than one. What kind of a sundial
>>> has
>>> >> multiple faces and gnomons? I'm having trouble visualizing it. Any
>>> thoughts?
>>> >
>>> > http://www.harrietjames.sundials.co.uk/restoration.htm
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>>> > Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
>>> > < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >
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>>
>>
>
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