Build a Better Clepsydra...

From: Gary R Switzer <gswitzer_at_loop.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 20:18:59 -0800


I checked out Trotsky's web-page and a wonderful place it is, not just for information on waterclocks. Very entertaining.

Anyway, I got to thinking that maybe the accuracy flaw in a waterclock is not in the container but in the fluid. What if you bound a water elemental into your Clepsydra and told it to flow at a steady rate? You would also have the additional benefit of a self-winding waterclock. I imagine a properly enchanted Yelm-dial could also be made self-adjusting to compensate for Seasonal Dome Tilt. Rare as hen's teeth, but what wonderful magic devices aren't? The 20 meter gimbal-mounted Yelm-dial in Yuthuppa, with its solid gold gnomon, is likely on every visitor's must-see list. :)

Then in #483, Peter Nash gives us his really swell skydome stats and background.   

Tweaking his dimensions a bit to a 12,000km radius does allow for RW-like time zones of 1,000km each, meaning that when it is True Noon at Kero Finn (on the Meridian with the Pool) it is just coming up on 10am in Sog City and 2pm in Sha Ming. A 30,000km radius would pretty much put all of Genertela in the same time zone, not nearly as much fun I think. Playing with my map further it occurs to me that the direction you face to take a sighting of Yelm at his highest point in the sky stays the same no matter what the radius of your model. Taking the day of the year when Yelm is directly over Magasta's Pool, some 3,000km due south of Kero Finn, you have to face just a bit South by East to take your sighting from Yuthuppa, while in Sog City you would face South East by South, and in Sha Ming, South West by South. A handy sort of direction finding method that only takes a couple of sticks to use.

Gary R. Switzer--Aero Hobbies


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