A digital sundial
Like a digital clock, the digital sundial displays the current time using digits. In the true tradition of all sundials, the device is purely passive - it operates without electricity, and has no moving parts. Instead, the sunlight is cast through two cleverly designed masks in the shape of numbers that show the current time of day. The sundial is available in two versions, for use in either hemisphere. Placed on the inside of a south-facing window (north-facing in the southern hemisphere), the sundial can be read through the horizontal mirror. The display updates every 10 minutes, and gives a remarkably accurate record of the time during the daylight hours.
More info at
Digital Sundials International.
Now this is neat!
ReplyDeleteThe more I read, the more awesome this is. Great find, Minnesotastan.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for realising that the Southern Hemisphere people exist !
ReplyDeleteSo often I have to engage my minuscule brain to work out what people are on about when they post geospecific items of (local ?) interest.
And I may have forgot to thank you for your title adaption a while ago, from math to mathematics.
Regarding the digital sundial. As a child of 8 my parents dragged me across the globe, and during that sea trip (this was way before people flew in aeroplanes) I passed through the band of the earth where the Coriolis force has no effect (now, as a grown man, I live where, I am told, toilets and drains empty the opposite way to how yours do).
The pictured sundial comes in two versions, one for the northern hemisphere and another for the southern.
So that begs the question, does this sundial not work in the equatorial regions ?
I had a sundial in my back garden at my last house, in the middle of June when I got home from work it never used to work, a waste of time !
Of course, here in New Zealand June 22nd is the shortest day, dark by 430 at my locale.
Christmas time is hot and sunny with sundown happening about 9pm.