Dear Claude,

Those are fascinating pictures especially:

  http://www.gallerydiabolus.com/gallery/upload/utisz/my%20sun%20and%20your%20s
un3.jpg

This is almost straight out of M.C. Escher!

You ask:

  What's the declination of that wall?

That's a fun question.  As with many Escher
drawings the whole thing is delightfully
impossible so I would say that this is
"an undeclining wall".

Unfortunately, his high standard of
draughtsmanship is not quite matched
by his understanding of sundials:

 1. He has horizontal gnomons which are
    fine if you are on the equator or if
    you have a traditional unequal-hours
    design but...

 2. The hours go round clockwise which
    suggests north-facing dials but...

 3. They should go from VI to VI not
    from 7:30 to 4:30 or...

 4. If unequal-hours he should have VI
    at the bottom not XII.

 5. The two dials show different times
    which is understandable for an
    impossible figure but, since they
    differ by about one hour, maybe one
    is for daylight saving time?

I shall print it out and colour it in!

Frank H. King
Cambridge, UK

---------------------------------------------------
https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial

Reply via email to