-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alec Rawls Sent: October 8, 2005 12:50 PM
"I need to find someone, perhaps a few people, who are willing to check my analysis. This is all very interesting to me, and I am not even a sundialist! If anyone wants to take a look, I have posted a substantial initial report on the Tower-sundial at http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2005/10/crescent-tower-is-islamic-prayer.htm l Sincerely, Alec Rawls" Hello Alec and all, On 16 September I noted the "controversy brewing over the proposed memorial marking where Flight 93 was taken down on 9/11. People are rightfully outraged that the memorial selected is a red crescent (crescent of embrace) and its axis is pointed at Mecca. What an inappropriate if inadvertent symbol. See http://www.flight93memorialproject.org/crescent_of_embrace.asp for the official story and http://forum.chronwatch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20960 for one of many strong opinions on this subject." I was surprised when no one commented on this posting. Your message brought up the topic of the Flight 93 Memorial again, this time with a direct sundial connection, a hidden "hafir" sundial using the "Tower of Voices" to show the Moslem afternoon (asr) time of prayer. After reading your note and linked blog, I wrote to you off list to say I was willing to check your analysis. Here is a summary of this review based on my knowledge of sundials (extensive) and Moslem traditions (limited). I agree that the concentric oval sections in the shadow of the tower look somewhat like the hafir sundial figure (F3Hafir 40.gif) from the article** by de Vries, Mattox and Oglesby. I also agree that your calculations of the shadow path from the top of the tower for the asr time of prayer is essentially correct and falls on the broad band of trees. But in my opinion, this data does not really support your premise that the "Tower of Voices" is a hafir sundial. Given two equally predictive theories, I tend to use Occam's Razor* and choose the simpler. Moslem pray times are generally astronomically defined. See James Morrison's sml note "East and West" 17 September and the de Vries article**. From this article, the figure F3 attached shows the noon and afternoon prayer time shadow lengths plotted in polar coordinates through the year. The concentric oval shape that looks like the concentric arcs of trees at the memorial is due only to the method of plotting in a circle. As you know, the resulting sundial is not fixed but must to be turned around the vertical gnomon to orient the sun shadow to the date to read the prayer time. Many portable altitude dials like Shepard's Cylinders work in similar ways. There are many examples of sundials showing Moslem prayer time lines. Check this example, a drawing by Claude-Henri Eyraud of a very complex horizontal dial with five gnomons and many lines at Kairouan, Tunisia. The asr prayer line "Nasr" is cast by the north gnomon. http://www.ens-lyon.fr/RELIE/Cadrans/Musee/Kairouan/PlanKairouan.pdf Here is the link to the description in French based on pictures by Rene Rohr. You can use google languages to translate it from French. http://www.ens-lyon.fr/RELIE/Cadrans/Musee/Kairouan/Kairouan.htm I will you send off list more pictures of vertical declining sundials on mosques in Istanbul with similar prayer lines. The shadow lines for prayer times on a fixed surface are quite different from the ovals in F3. In your blog site article, figure 4, they are the outer pink lines. Fer de Vries' ZW2000 program *** has the option of calculating the Moslem prayer lines. The attached figure F2 Prayers.gif is an example from ZW2000 showing the lines for zuhr, asr-awwal and asr-tani for the latitude of the memorial site. These lines are not a close or natural fit to the curved arc of trees at the memorial site. Between the two solstice declination lines the prayer lines are hour lines curved near the summer solstice and straightening out towards the winter solstice. If you had seen these figures first, I doubt that you would have come to the conclusion that the was a hidden sundial. Your procedure of changing the gnomon height to force curvature does tend to keep the line in the trees near the winter solstice. This seems to be one of several an extra step in your analysis to force the data to fit the hypothesis. Such extra explanations would be cut out by Occam's Razor. Although I don't agree with your hypothesis, I do agree that the memorial must be changed. There cannot be any possible suggestion that the memorial appears to be a red crescent oriented to Mecca with a minaret showing Moslem prayer times. It must be a memorial for the victims, not the perpetrators. It doesn't matter if the architect is a trickster, negligent or incompetent, the design is fatally flawed. Let's Roll! Roger Bailey Walking Shadow Designs N 48.6 W 123.4 * See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor ** See "Hafir and Halazun" Fer J. de Vries, Mac Oglesby, William S. Maddux, NASS Compendium 6-2 June 1999 or http://home.iae.nl/users/ferdv/haf-hal2.htm and the ZW2000 program at *** http://www.de-zonnewijzerkring.nl/eng/index-vlakke-zonw.htm
F3 Hafir 40 .gif
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F2 Prayers.gif
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