Dear Steve, I have read the replies to your enquiry and I am not yet convinced by the responses to either Part 1 or Part 2!
I'll restrict myself to Part 1, where it is asserted... ...that Louis XIV issued some kind of edict that all clocks manufactured in France were to be Equation Clocks (that is, clocks that showed solar time through a mechanical Equation of Time 'reversal' adjustment). One point of note is that Louis XIV reigned from 1643 to 1715 so this edict must have been sometime in those 72 years. Roderick Wall's reference... https://books.google.com.au/books?id=d1oUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA462&lpg=PA462&dq=all+clo cks+manufactured+in+France+were+to+be+Equation+Clocks&source=bl&ots=ih4yWalJ9E& sig=6u-sTxpfyTqZNPxRjfbAn7Q_ECk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW9oruqrbTAhVEGJQKHU-NDrs Q6AEIIzAD#v=onepage&q=all%20clocks%20manufactured%20in%20France%20were%20to%20b e%20Equation%20Clocks&f=false says on page 462... Equation clocks were first made in France, about the year 1717, by Le Bon and Le Roy. It seems unlikely that Louis XIV could have insisted on something that didn't exist in his time. As king, Louis XIV no doubt had up-market clocks in his palaces and he could simply have instructed his clock-keepers to set the clocks using a convenient sundial. The solar day typically differs from 24 modern hours by a small fraction of a minute and it is unlikely that the clocks early in his reign kept time to anything like that precision. Frequent setting to sundial time would have been required. When he upgraded to pendulum clocks he may have noticed that his clock-keepers had changed their procedures... I think the first EoT tables used for "correcting" clocks were published by Huygens in 1665 and better tables were published by Flamsteed about 7 years later. Enthusiastic clock-keepers may have used these tables and the king may not have approved. The only edict that he need have issued would have been of the form: "Do not use the equation of time when setting the clocks." I know how to dig out ancient English Acts of Parliament but I do not know how to find old French edicts. Please can someone nail down this edict? Until I can read this edict in 17th century French, I shall deem this to be another example of a much-repeated falsehood gaining widespread acceptance. Now to ponder part 2! Frank Frank H. King Cambridge, U.K. --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
