Hi all, John Davis wrote:
> As traditional diallists, should we take the LAT (solar) time as the basic > value, and add EoT to it to give the artificial Mean Time? > > Or, as good scientists, should we adopt the astronomers' convention and > take universal Mean Time as the basic value and add EoT to it to derive > solar time? In either case, the matter is still not settled, as one could expect to have a tabulation of the DEVIATION of the dependent variable from the independent, or of the CORRECTION that should be applied to the dependent. > I don't think we will ever convince everyone to adopt a single convention. > Even if we did, we are stuck with a wide historical literature which is > fairly evenly spilt between the two possibilities. So we must always read > with our brains engaged, and make new diallists aware that they are likely > to encounter both options. Standardization is too important an issue to let go that easily, in my opinion. Thare are two large professional fields in which the EoT is playing a role: astronomy and the nautical field. If I'm correct, both use now the convention: EoT = AT - MT. It would make sense if the field of gnomonics also adopts this convention. Kind regards, ===================================== Frans W. Maes Peize, The Netherlands 53.1 N, 6.5 E www.biol.rug.nl/maes/sundials/ =====================================
