----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 10:47
PM
Subject: BSS Glossary,Fourier series and
declination
Dear John, Gianni et al,
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:
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
