Talk:Sundial

For more details on this topic, see Talk:Sundial/Archive 1.

Moratorium on new upright images.

IMO the article is being swamped again with pretty but uninformative images. More so because they all have huge captions trying to explain and justify their inclusion, and many are far too tall. This is making the article unreadable, and the rendering abyssmal. Has anyone any suggestions other than some wholesale zapping. --ClemRutter (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I've moved 8 images (which didn't need to be locked to a section) to a Gallery at the end, also floted the TOC, to allow more text at the top of the page, hope that looks a bit better  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Any moratorium on new images of sundials should only apply to images of northern-hemisphere sundials. The article has no image of a sundial from the southern hemisphere. This lack needs to be remedied so the article complies better with WP:NPOV. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 11:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No. Two issues. The WP:NPOV is better handles by raising this in a new section- which I have done for you.--ClemRutter (talk) 13:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

After reconsideration, I agree. I'll also add to your section below.-- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 06:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Lack of meaningful sundial photographs from Southern Hemisphere

The article has no image of a sundial from the southern hemisphere. This lack needs to be remedied so the article complies better with WP:NPOV. Could someone upload some images onto commons. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, we need a few pictures of sundials that are located between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. In this region the sun can pass to the north or the south depending on the time of the year, and this places different constraints on the design of sundials as opposed to sundials in more temperate latitudes. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 06:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There are very few sundials in the Southern Hemisphere because the rapid variation of the Equation of Time ruins their accuracy during the southern summer. DOwenWilliams (talk) 05:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Mass dial / Scratch dial

BBC News article of 21 August 2009 discusses recent discovery of a Mass dial in Scotland - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8214948.stm .
6,000+ Google hits for "mass dial" - http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mass+dial%22 .
Apparently these are also called "Scratch dial".
Our article apparently doesn't mention either of these terms. We should add a mention of these, and make Mass dial and Scratch dial redirect here. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 13:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Future of this article as it is presented (March 2010)

Hello everybody!

The subject of “Sundials” is a complex one, even for those who have more than a passing acquaintance with it. I'm not put off by complex things, but I know that they don't necessarily have to be difficult to understand. The simplicity comes from the way they are presented.

The comment at the head of the article page (May 2009) and several on this page are concerned with the article's presentation and its evolving unwieldiness. It's been some time since there was any activity to improve it overall, and the situation is worse. It's still too long to read and navigate comfortably. The same thing could be said for this Talk page.

If you're put off by it, forgive my preaching to the choir ... ... ...

I believe this article must fulfil two objectives:

• To inform readers who wish to acquire knowledge about Sundials
• To provide encouragement for those who wish to explore the subject in greater depth.

I don't believe that the article, in its present form, achieves either of these things. But not only because it is long.

It must be presented in the most appropriate way for its audience. That's the most important element of its design and can be achieved without compromising purpose. There are two different types of people who read this article:

• Those who lack a prior knowledge and who want to gain a rudimentary grasp about a complex subject.
• Those who have a grasp of the subject and want a fuller comprehension of different types of sundials, their history, construction and so on.

The article tries to be encyclopedic about the entire subject, but there’s no evidence that attention has been paid to the approach of either type of reader.

• The article doesn't provide a good overview for novices. For example:

There are no diagrams (as distinct from photographs) showing the different parts of a sundial or the different types of dial.

There's no easy-to-read glossary. The Terminology section isn't one.

• The article doesn't provide easy and appropriate access to the deeper elements of the subject.

The Contents frame is too long to read at one glance.

Different terms are explained repeatedly throughout (e.g. gnomon) or are explained when they arise in the article instead of in a Glossary.

Some of the simpler concepts (e.g. Human Shadow, Shepherds Dials) are described after more complex ones (e.g. formulae for different types of reclining dials).

There are other things that don't help:

Some of the images in the gallery would be more useful if they were relocated adjacent to the appropriate section.

Although there's a To-Do list, any work on them wouldn't necessarily make the article any less complex. An increase in content will most likely make it more complex. The same thing would happen if other articles were redirected here.

This Talk page is no different in its unwieldiness. There have been (and still are?) tangential issues that have arisen and only serve to further obfuscate the work of editors in maintaining and improving the article. There's a huge morass to wade through for anybody who wasn't/isn't directly involved. Likewise, it could be easier to keep track of the changes here. Rather than letting its complexity dictate to editors, editors should be able to keep it simple.

I also don't believe that any other existing articles should be redirected to this one unless they are duplicates.

I agree that this would be resolved if the article was divided into several, each dealing with a discrete element of the entire subject of Sundials. In that, it would be no different than, say, an article about Europe which links to separate articles about France, Germany, Italy, etc.

To make any changes, though, in a subject that has already proven to be emotive, there has to be a consensus - at least one of intent.

If there is a general agreement that separation is the way to go, I suggest that it’s not a job for one person, but for a group of individuals to agree how it should be separated and to write discrete articles, each one linked back&forth, of course, to a main (summary?) Sundial article.

Thoughts, anyone? Twistlethrop (talk) 09:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes yes and no. Yes it is time to do a major re-edit. Since the last major edit I did, the article has become even more bloated- a wheelie bin for every fact relating to a sundial, noon mark and if we let them- garden gnomes. I am short of time at the moment and away from my reference books. So brief blunt commonts

• Photographs are a hazard- too many illustrate little- the pretty ones have been left in the gallery- they need to be culled not inserted.
• Aims of the article. I mainly agree but must add that a dial is primarily a mathmetic instrument and the geometry is paramount. If left unmonitored it becom es a collection of holiday snaps.
• Terminology- is inconsistent in the sundial world- take style/gnomon. Yes cull the repetitions but check that the inline def for that pargraph isn't at odds with the meaning in the previous paragraph.
• Yank out a whole section about pre-reformation time keeping methods- I was about to do this- just couldn't think what the new article should be called.
• Sundials in France article- anyone is free to do it- but it won't help here. This article is not a tourist guide for looking at the pretty pretty. An article on the Art on vertical declining dial plates would be cool.
• Articles on construction of dials that is for wikibooks.
• We are not the first ones to have hit these problems- look at the reference books- then examine the changes between the second and third edition of Mayall and Mayall.
• You are wrong on simplicity when it comes to shepherds dials- they look simple but mathematically you need the preceding concepts to understand them- the projection is hideously complex. They also are rare compared with preceding vertical decliner or garden dial. Fine, there are other ways to order the article.
• SVGs explaining the geometry. Yes. Using existing ones, no- they must be mathematically correct- most aren't. Doing a derivative from Waugh or Mayall- even there the maths needs to be checked.

When I did the last major edit, I built up the article in my sandbox. I like your ideas, but can I suggest the next stage is that you draft a proposal in your sandbox, and then invite comment. This is a well policed article- but the number of content providers has been limited. You do need to put in a sizeable of editing before there is a finished package ready to go live.--ClemRutter (talk) 10:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I have split the article today, spinning off History of Sundials. Even so, I have only lost 9000 bytes. I will do a ce and see if I can tx any more soon. --ClemRutter (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Sun dial coaching center

There is a coaching center established in 1985 in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, called Sun Dial. Which is the best coaching center for higher level education in the whole town. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.234.30.194 (talk) 18:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Pocket sundials

There's a image (currently unlnked) of a pocket sundial at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sundial_pocket_watch.JPG Might be worth adding to that section...

214.4.238.180 (talk) 21:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Shadow clock

Shadow clock redirects here, but nowhere can an explanation of what they are (sp. as compared to a "regular" sundial) can be found... CielProfond (talk) 03:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Questionable reference in "Sundials in the Southern Hemisphere"

I question the accuracy of this statement:

"Sundials are not as common in the Southern hemisphere as in the North. This is possibly because when Europeans arrived the mechanical clock was accurate enough for their purposes of time keeping and there was no need to erect sundials.[8]"

It points to "History of the Sundial" by Helga Nordhoff. The linked page is titled "Sundials in South Africa", and never extends the perceived (and somwhat questionable) lack of sundials in South Africa to the whole Southern Hemisphere. I think we can't possibly limit our information on the Southern Hemisphere to what goes on only in South Africa, am I right?

Also, both the freely-edited version as it is and the linked text fail to acknowledge the Southern Hemisphere's history before European arrival. Ancient civilizations are known for their vast knowledge of astronomy, so although I don't have any reference to base it, I'm pretty sure the use of sundials wasn't an exclusively-European phenomenon.

The linked text goes as far as to say:

"The general public in South Africa is very ignorant about the role sundials played in the history of time keeping and only a few people actually know how a sundial works.

One can easily notice how POV this sounds, and I have serious doubts about using any text from this source on this article. I'm not a frequent editor, so I'm choosing not to edit anything right now. Also, I don't know how can we verify if a source has Notoriety status or not, but I'd encourage fellow editors, possibly more experienced than I am, to look further on this reference number 8, Helga Nordhoff's History of the Sundial. Ebacci EN (talk) 10:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree the original reference was linked to the information in the text, I will try to go back and find it. In terms of the rest be bold, if you do not I am happy to. Thanks for pointing this out I missed the original edit.Edmund Patrick – confer 20:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

On the point about southern hemispheres and sundials what is referenced is the lack of public time telling sundials as if "brought" over from the northern hemisphere. Most excellent books can reference indian, chinese, mesoamerican etc time measurements as well as iniut, but no imperical records have yet been found, researched and published on time keeping from Southern Hemisphere, which would be absolutely wonderful to see how they measured time, as we now do, and even if it was it linear! Edmund Patrick – confer 21:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur.--ClemRutter (talk) 23:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Sundials are usually used in summertime, because the sun generally shines more. During the southern summer, a sundial is a hopeless timepiece, compared with a clock, because the Equation of Time changes fast. During the northern summer, it changes much less, and can be ignored without much error. Therefore, for simple physical reasons, sundials are better suited for use in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern.

Not only in South Africa are most people ignorant of sundials. In Chile, almost nobody has heard of them. I constructed one in Santiago a few years ago, which caused something of a sensation. It was photographed for the press. Of course, it was just a toy. Nobody tested its accuracy.

DOwenWilliams (talk) 05:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Questionable statement in "Globe Dial" under "Unusual Sundials"

I question the statement that this style of sundial was popularized by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.

It does not cite any sources to back the statement, and there's nothing about it either on Thomas Jefferson or Monticello.

I reckon this can be some sort of urban legend, but if so it should said so. Ebacci EN (talk) 11:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree.--ClemRutter (talk) 23:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Being bold

I see you have re-linked the reference to the book "The Story of Time", but I failed to find any source to reiterate that statement. I'll try to find the book but if you have a link, it would be much appreciated. It's not that I disagree with the "less common" statement, which I believe to be probably true. But on a quick search I could find evidence of pre-European sundials, and not just a few, in Ecuador, Mauritius and New Zealand - all oriented towards the South.

Also, the Thomas Jefferson reference remains without a source.

Acting as by your suggestions, I'm being bold and removing both controversial statements. I'll look for good sources in libraries that might corroborate or disprove such statements, but as it is now I believe some myths or misconceptions are being perpetuated (as I've seen many websites referencing this article, including the controversial statements).

I apologise if my actions were not taken in the correct manner. I'm more than willing to learn from my mistakes if you're kind enough to point them out for me. Ebacci EN (talk) 00:06, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Analemmatic sundials

Please forgive this newbie (both to Wiki and the Sundial article) question. In section 7.2 the last sentence of the section states in part "... object's shadow to measure time, not only the hours, as in normal sundials, but also weeks and months." (emphasis added). How exactly does the shadow of the gnomon measure "weeks and months"? Jcflnj (talk) 13:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)