As Editor of the BSS Glossary, I must humbly apologise for not giving the source of the Spencer fourier series which John Pickard very kindly made me aware of. I have no real excuse, other than a poor memory and that it would have been impossible to quote the source of all the information in the Glossary, though clearly this case could have been an exception.
By coincidence, the Second Edition of the Glossary is currently at the printers - I expect to have copies available at the BSS International Conference in Oxford next month.
Soon after the First Edition was published, Gianni Ferrari kindly contacted me with a number of corrections and improvements. These have finally been incorporated into the Second Edition. They include the equations for declination and EoT which Gianni mentioned in his posting, and the tables of averaged values for the first half of the 21st century. I have remembered to credit Gianni for supplying these this time. It seemed worthwhile replacing the Spencer equations in the light of the more recent expressions, though I intend no disrespect for Spencer.
The Second Edition Glossary is twice the size of the original, at 88 printed pages. It is now sub-titled "A Sourcebook of Dialling Data", includes far more illustrations, definitions, and a section on biographies. It is not currently planned to produce an on-line version, simply because of the work involved in producing a web-compatible version. Bob Terwilliger did a tremendous job on the first edition but it would be unfair to expect him to do it again. If I ever get fed up with actually making dials, I might learn how to do it myself!
Regards,
John Davis
-------------------------
John Pickard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
John Pickard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Gianni and others,
As a long-time academic and scientist, I am acutely aware of the principles
and practice of giving credit for previous work. Given the recent exchanges
on calculating declination, I have sent a copy of Spencer's original paper
where he published for the first time the Fourier series for declination and
EoT. I had posted this to the Sundial List several years ago, but in a
slightly different format. I assume this is the origin of the entry in the
BSS Glossary.
I am sure that no disrespect was intended when the BSS Glossary was
complied, but it would be nice if these equations were quoted as coming from
Spencer. In science, this is polite, expected, and considered basic good
practice. Doing otherwise is commonly known as plagiarism at worst, bad
manners at best.
One reply I have received in the last day or so! said that he had always
wondered at the source of the Fourier series for declination. He now knows.
By giving the sources of equations, etc. (unless they are lost in the mists
of time), people can track back to the original publication and check the
mathematics or logic used to derive the information. In the case of the
Spencer equations, reading the original paper in the (now defunct) journal
Search would NOT pick up a typographic error in one of the equations. This
was noted as an erratum in a subsequent issue of the journal. However, I
have made the correction in the version I posted a day or so back.
It would be nice to see the work of Spencer remembered in the BSS Glossary,
perhaps as "the Spencer Fourier series to calculate declination and EoT".
Cheers, John
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dr J R Davis
Flowton Dials
N52d 08m: E1d 05m
