xkcd codified the concept of wiki walk : looking for an intelligent subject on Wikipedia and you end up with twenty tabs open on the completely frivolous stuff. In my case, I do not see that. I edit too. Sometimes my original editions are completely random.
Sunday evening, I was looking for a gadget to do in order to put off going to bed. I went to see the base Palissy, the great French collection of everything and anything vaguely heritage. I open the search form and, moved by a sudden inspiration, I wonder how it has sundials in the stomach, the base (after all, there's always list of sundials in Paris to complete). So I go "dial" in the "object type" and I click on the lexicon, because the base Palissy, you never know in what the widgets are stored. A collection of various terms happens in the figure ("Cache-heater", "lock table", "frame with bells, etc..). "Sundial" is in the lot. Cool.
Ah yes, but.
Just above, I came across the word 'moon dial.
Hey, what's that?
one answer on the base: one moon dial on a house in Varennes-sur-Loire . No more explanation than the mere existence of my stuff. I type the term into Google, got no really satisfactory answer, goes to English Moondial falls on a television series described on the English WP. The presence of parentheses makes me think that there is homonymy in the air. Indeed, there is an article " Moondial .
So a moon dial is like a sundial, but with the moon. Basically, it does not work only around the full moon and we must introduce a ton of adjustments to account for the apparent motion of the star. Photo of the beginning of the article is a moon dial to 1733, painted on a wall Queen's College, Cambridge. I have no idea how it works, there's lines everywhere and a table fix for an entire lunar cycle, that is to say, even when the moon is new, which is totally absurd. In short, the moon dial, it seems überg33k. So I create " moon dial" on en:.
And then I tell myself: "Poulpy, my friend, a pseudo-scientific BITONIO dating from the eighteenth century e , you do not believe can be traced elsewhere?" Because I know I absolutely correct, I open the Trévoux on Wikisource and search entry " Dial. I get:
"Dial lunar, or moon, one that indicates the time of the night by means of the moonlight."
My intuition is good, but I stay on my hunger. I need some ammunition larger. Capilotractage of the compet '. Types capable of holding forth on anything at all for pages and pages. I open the Encyclopedia in " Sundial . I'm not disappointed.
"Draw a moon dial. Suppose, for example, that it requires a moon dial horisontal: describe first a sundial horisontal: raise then both AB and CD perpendicular (Fig. 19.) Row of twelve hours; & dividing the GF interval into twelve equal parts, by the different points division, draw parallel lines. Now if we intended the first line CD on the day of the new moon, and the second day when the moon reaches the meridian, an hour later than the sun, and at length the line AB last day of full moon: the intersections of these lines with the hourly and give points, by which we will draw a curved line 12 12, which will be the meridian of the moon will be determined later in the same way other hour lines, 11, 22, 33, & c. which will cut the hours corresponding solar & respectively, or by the shadow of the moon, which will lay the style of the dial. It will erase the hour lines of the sundial, as well as perpendicular, where they shot hours lunar & GF we divide the interval by other parallel lines in fifteen equal parts, which respond to the fifteen days between the new & full moon. Finally we write these lines from the different days of the age of the moon. "
" Now, knowing a calendar age of the moon, the intersection of the line of age of the moon, with the hourly and the moon, will give the time of night. "
Immediately, it is clearer! Finally, clarity full moon, of course.
What is the moral of this story?
- the eighteenth e had not ThinkGeek , but we knew anyway machin produce unnecessary and complicated.
- Whatever happens, encyclopedias are written by big hairy geeks.
- I do not understand what happened to the boards of the Encyclopedia dedicated to sundials.
- Palissy wallows like a sea lion stuffed with vodka on a waxed linoleum when I ask him to remove me from his list of sundials. I did well to focus on lunar dials.
- I propose to launch the competition for the best photo of a moon dial period, taken at the nominal operation of the machine.
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