Hi John,

At 09:15 AM 10/13/99 -0700, John Carmichael wrote:
>
>First, someone could write an article or series of articles on basic
>beginning trigonometry as it applies to dialing.

Don't forget the quote from my old trig teacher, "All knowledge comes up
through a pencil." The best way to learn sundial trig is to do what you and
I have done. Work it through. Reading equations or hearing a lecture just
doesn't do it!

>Secondly, I was surprised by how few professional full-time dial makers
>attended the conference.  Maybe they weren't there because they don't exist.
>I saw a lot of dialing hobbiests with paper, plastic or wooden sundials.

Your stone dial weighs over 400 lbs. The sun sculptures of Kate Pond and
Robert Adzema weigh megatons. Real dials are not that transportable
although I once finished a presentation by unveiling the Walking Shadow
dial, a 4' x 8' triangular piece of heavy composition board. It stole the
show but transporting it over 100 miles inside my VW Golf was a problem.

Good to meet you at the NASS conference. Please continue to ask the
challenging questions. My challenge to all for today is to simply explain
the basic formula for horizontal dials: Tan HA = Sin L x Tan t.

Roger Bailey 
Walking Shadow Designs
N 51  W 115

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