Talk:Sundial

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Universal equinoctial ring dial inconsistency

According to the article & citation the ring dial "was likely invented by William Oughtred around 1600" (currently reference #60, Tuner p.25 ), however the painting The Ambassadors from year 1533 shows what scholar John North (amongst others, cited in the painting article) identifies as a disassembled ring dial as one of the scientific instruments in the painting.

I don't have a specific source that purports an earlier invention of the ring dial, but I think the conflicting analysis (not to mention potential visual evidence) makes it a bit difficult to say Turner's claim is "likely." If it is a ring dial in the picture (I'm unaware that this is in dispute) from seventy-ish years before it was "likely invented", we should probably be less assertive with Turner's analysis. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 05:10, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A very valid point worth more investigations. In the wiki page for the painting it is listed as such alongside the polyhedral example, amongst others. Interesting??? Edmund Patrick – confer 10:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

but see this, others have headed down this road before. Edmund Patrick – confer 10:16, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Edmund Patrick:Thanks to the Wellcome donation we have many clear illustrations of these portable dials. Compare the unnamed instrument in the Ambassadors with this one. I would love to know exactly what Holbein had found? ClemRutter (talk) 14:44, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interference by reindeer

@ClemRutter: do you have an RS for sundials being unusable because of herds of reindeer? You'd only have to wait for the obscuring reindeer to move, as they do, to be able to read the time. Contrast the situation with a nearby pride of lions, where you would not safely be able to stay around long enough to get a reliable reading of the time.

definition of hour

During ancient times and the middle ages, people were often more interested in diving the time between sunrise and sunset into 12 hours, than they were in dividing the whole day-night period into 24 equal hours (such uniform-length hours were often mainly of interest to astronomers). This article doesn't even discuss the different definitions of "hour", as far as I can see... AnonMoos (talk) 22:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You will need to explain why an article about sundials needs a definition about Hours, it most certainly could do with a link to Hour and History of timekeeping devices. The obvious placement to me would be in the Apparent motion of the Sun section. Edmund Patrick – confer 06:39, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Because sundials have been around a long time, and many ordinary people in ancient times and the middle ages were often more interested in dividing the interval between sunrise and sunset into hours, rather than in abstract uniform hours (i.e. 1/24 of a full day-night period). Therefore I assume that there probably should be some types of sundials which track the sunrise-to-sunset interval. That was the question that I came to this article to find the answer to, and I was a little surprised to see that it completely avoided the whole issue... AnonMoos (talk) 09:08, 14 April 2018

Greenwich

I know that there are already enough pictures so I won't add this one, but in case anyone wanted a picture of the Greenwich (England) sundial, it is here:

Gah4 (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sundial

Is a horological divise that tells the time of day when the direct position of the sun in the sky — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.188.243.152 (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]