It would be useful for those new to dialing to establish a taxonomy of dials, based on features, including what entity specifies the time (uually a shadow - but could be a light beam), what the surface geometry is (flat, if so orientation; hemispherium, etc), what the orientation to the sun is, and so on. Most of us know this for different types of well known dials, but it would be fun to elaborate from a didactic point of view. Then have fun fitting into the taxonomy odd balls - like reflecting light dials, dials at the bottom of pools, etc.
Its just a thought, - Ben Frank Evans wrote: > > Greetings once more, fellow dialists, > > It seems to me that in the same way as we have difficulty in naming > various forms of time (local apparent time, zonal true time, etc.) we > lack words to describe your ordinary run-of-the-mill sundial. We have > mass dials, analemmatic dials, even the Foster-Lambert dial that Fer de > Vries recently very kindly identified for me, but what is the right > generic name for modern vertical and horizontal dials that have the > gnomon parallel to the earth's axis? I use "gnomon dial" when > distinguishing modern common-or-garden dials from mass dials but this is > not exact, of course, as most dials have had gnomons since classical > times. Any suggestions? > > Regards, Frank > > -- > Frank Evans
