Hi Steve: Your interpretation of the various dial classifications seems to be correct, although I'm certainly not an expert, as you know! Reading your letter, which was written so clearly, gave me confidence that I had interpreted the discussion correctly.
Thanks, John C. >Gianni wrote: > >>The Monofilar and Bifilar sundials can be built with any kind of Time: >>Middle Time (Standard), Local Apparent Time, with Italic, Babylonian, >>Temporary hours, etc. > >Ah ha! I must have misunderstood the issue being discussed. > >I can see that in abstract terms that we have dials which are > >- projection of a point onto a surface (perhaps curved) >- projection of a line (perhaps curved) onto a surface (perhaps curved) >- projection of two lines (perhaps curved) onto a surface (perhaps curved) >- other non-projection types, such as the wonderful CD-diffraction dial. > >If the third class is already known by common usage as Bifilar, then I >accept that it makes sense to call the second type Monofilar (even though >for me personally the word filar carries an implication of a wire or thread, >rather than being a general term for a line or edge). I assume the first >class are called Nodal. > >The other half of the discussion is what to call a dial with a seasonal time >adjustment. I though that someone was suggesting that because the existing >examples had already been called monofilar then that name applied to the >adjustment feature. > >So a monofilar dial can be > >Standard, Local , or other hours >Upright, polar axial (axial?), or other principal axis >Horizontal, Vertical or other dial face planes > >So the ordinary garden dial could be called Axial Local Horizontal >Monofilar, Mr.Singleton's dial is Axial Standard Horizontal Monofilar. The >various forms af azimuthal dials are all Upright monofilars. The Wenger dial >is a Local Spherical Nodal dial. > >Am I getting close? > >Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
