Dear Ken: You hit the nail on the head! You are absolutely correct in the need for the step-by-step recipe approach. Needless to say, I still don't know how to use a calculator using logrithmic functions. Until now, in this little e-mail of yours, you are the only one to begin to explain how. I'd love for somebody to (maybe you?) to write the much needed calculator article.
Thanks for your ideas. John Carmichael >Let me explain how I learned the math. More than twenty years ago I started >out with Waugh's book and I could make a vertical declining dial >graphically: Draw AB, draw CD perpendicular to AB etc. but I could not >calculate one mathematically. Where's the log sin on the calculator? ;-) > > I started reading the late Noel C Ta'Bois's monthly article called THE >SUNDIAL PAGE in CLOCKS magazine which is published in England. He gave a >step by step approach using the scientific calculator. Simply omit "log" >wherever it appears and substitute "multiply" or "divide" for "plus" or >"minus." He used a step by step approach using formulas and told what keys >to press to make a sundial from start to finish. > > This step by step approach in solving formulas is what I find missing in >most sundial instructions. The actual steps and what keys to press and in >what order is missing. The understanding will come later. Most new people >just want to make a sundial, and they give up when they see the formulas and >no instructions on how to solve the formulas. In a hobby that uses so many >formulas, what is needed are the instructions to solve the formulae so we all >get the same answer. The math can be complicated but if you know the steps >to follow, a new person may not be so quick to give up on a great hobby to >learn. > >Ken Clark >Elizabethtown, PA > > > >
