Purpose of the article: Learn the history of the sundial. Create tasks for grade 7 students using material related to the emergence and development of sundials.
Pedagogical goal: to promote the development of interest in the history of the struggle of human genius for understanding and mastering the forces of nature through the example of improving sundials, fostering respect for ancient monuments.
Interest in the past has become characteristic feature modern society. In order to understand what is happening, one must look into the distant past.
This article attempts to characterize the sundial. The question of the importance of sundials is relevant, since, despite all the achievements of modern communication technology, every ship today certainly has a marine chronometer adjusted to solar time to determine geographic longitude, and in the event of a failure of ultra-modern space equipment, they use the old-fashioned methods of transporting watches, which were still open in 1510. The fundamental question of the project can be formulated in the words of Marshak:
The sun's shadow was an arrow for us,
And the sun was our watch.
Lazily time flowed like sand
But our ancestors captured him,
Found in him a harmony, and measure, and number.
Since then, it has lived in a clock, like in a cage. \u003e\u003e
I have two reasons for writing this article - a love for ancient monuments and a huge interest in mathematics.
And it will become even warmer on earth \u003e\u003e (V. Migulya)
The ancient desire of man to correlate the course of his own life with the eternal movement of heavenly bodies from time immemorial found its embodiment in various means of measuring time. His first assistant was the sun, and the first sundial there was a gnomon.
The sundial is the only and, alas, forgotten instrument for measuring that time, which is called true or local solar. It is by this time that nature and our Earth live, and only such a time has an objective meaning.
The sun was the first clock for man. A long time ago, a person determined how long it was by looking at the sun as it moved across the sky. It was easy to tell the difference between sunrise and sunset, but it was much more difficult to know the time when the sun rose above the horizon. It was during these daytime hours that it was difficult to tell the time, guided by the sun.
The question involuntarily arises: how was the sundial opened? Where and when were they first invented? What types of sundials are there? I will try to answer all these questions in my work.
FIRST SUNNY CLOCK
The person noticed that the length of the shadow changes throughout the day. It became clear that it is possible to determine the time more accurately if you look at the shadow, and not at the sun. It was only one step from this discovery until the invention of the sundial, which is actually a shadow clock. Instead of trying to look at the sun and associate the time of day with it, look at the shadow that reflects the position of the sun in the sky.
The first sundial was just a pillar stuck in the ground. The stones placed around the pillar showed the shadow's position as it moved throughout the day. So a person could measure the current time.
The sundial was the most important and most widespread simple chronometric device. Exact date the origin of the sundial, which in its original form had the shape of an obelisk, is unknown. Some historical sources consider the very first mention of a sundial in a Chinese manuscript Chiu-pi from around 1100 BC. e. The oldest surviving written document of a sundial, dating from 732 BC. e. , we find in the Bible, in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Kings. The obelisk sundial of King Ahaz, who lived around 732 BC, is mentioned here. e. Found ancient Egyptian sundials of the 13th and 15th centuries. BC e. indicates that the actual period of occurrence of the sundial was much earlier than it follows from the hitherto known written monuments.
So, the gnomon, a vertical obelisk with a scale drawn on the ground, was the first sundial that measured time along the length of a cast shadow (in Greek,\u003e means\u003e. The ancient records of the ancients say that these obelisks served the Egyptians at the same time to worship the sun god writers Aristophanes, Athenaeus, Eubolus and others. These sacred obelisks stood, as a rule, in front of the entrances to temples. The role of gnomons was also performed by straight pylons in public squares, in markets. The first obelisks and pylons intended in Egypt to measure time were built, in all likelihood, already in the XIV century BC There is still such an obelisk with a height of 35.5 m on St. Peter's Square in Rome, which was brought there in 38 by Caligula from Heliopolis.
Who lived in the 1st century BC. e. the architect Mark Vitruvius Pollion left us the following information about the design of the sundials of the ancient world and their inventors:\u003e.
So, a sundial consists of an object that gives a sharp and long shadow, and a dial on which divisions are applied corresponding to hours and fractions of an hour. Obtaining a countdown with the help of a sundial is based on the fact that during the day the shadow cast by objects illuminated by the Sun changes all the time. It moves, simultaneously changing its length: early in the morning the shadows are long, then they shorten, and in the afternoon they lengthen again. In the morning the shadows are directed to the west, at noon in our northern hemisphere - to the north, and in the evening - to the east. In accordance with this, time can be counted in two ways along the length of the shadow or along its direction. The second method is more convenient and accurate.
Many scientists and inventors of the ancient world were engaged in improving the sundial. In order to make them suitable for any day and month, the dial of the sundial was made in the form of many lines with divisions, each of which was intended for a specific month. Such, for example, were the sundials of the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos. In this watch, the dial had the shape of a bowl with a complex network of lines drawn on its inner surface. The watch of another ancient Greek astronomer, Eudoxus, was named\u003e - spider, due to the fact that the complex network of lines on their dial resembled a spider web. The sundial of Andronicus from Kirra with a grid of divisions calculated for different months of the year, which has survived to this day, belongs to the same type.
Egypt had especially favorable climatic conditions for measuring time with sundials. The news about the most ancient of the ancient Egyptian sundials dates back to the reign of Thutmose III - the first half of the 15th century. BC e. This is a relatively small device, the horizontal part of which - a ruler with a chronometric scale about 30 cm long - has another, perpendicular arm, which casts a shadow on the scale.
Earlier information is known about the sundial in Ancient Egypt, for example, the image of the sundial and the way they were used on the tomb of Seti around 1300 BC. e.
When measuring time, the ruler with the scale was set so that the shadow of the vertical shoulder under the ruler fell exactly on the ruler with the scale. The distance of the end point of the shadow from the zero line at the base of the pointer indicated the time of day.
Another type of Egyptian sundial was a stepped clock in the form of an obelisk with two inclined surfaces oriented along the east-west axis and divided into steps. At sunrise, the shadow fell on the edge of the upper step of one of these surfaces - the eastern one, then gradually dropped until it completely disappeared by noon. Then, in the afternoon, the shadow reappeared at the lower part of the western surface, from where it kept rising until, at sunset, it touched the edge of the upper step.
On the sundial described above, time was measured by the length, not the direction of the cast shadow. However, the Egyptians had a sundial and a scale for determining the direction of the cast shadow. The oldest evidence of this is, of course, the ivory vertical sundial, decorated with mythological reliefs, found during excavations at Gezer in Palestine. They date back to the era of the reign of Pharaoh Merneft in the early 13th century. BC e. Other wall-mounted vertical sundials were also found during excavations in Luxor. The chronometric scales of these watches were different. A portable watch with a perpendicular plane of the shadow had divisions at 13 °, and a stationary watch at 15 °. To get the correct time reading, it was necessary that the top line of the scale was horizontal and that the scale was at right angles to the plane of the local meridian. Since the Egyptians of that time did not know the compass yet, they were forced to observe the moments of the solstices or equinoxes for this purpose.
Egyptian gnomons were very inaccurate chronometric instruments. They showed the time correctly only twice a year - on the days of the spring and autumn equinox. Later, under the influence of the Greeks, the Egyptians began to build a sundial with special scales for different months.
An Egyptian obelisk 34 meters high has survived to this day. It is believed that during the reign of Augustus, he was transported from Egypt to Rome and, at the direction of the emperor, was installed on the Champ de Mars, and the mathematician Facundus Novus supervised this operation. The gnomon was placed in the center of a special panel on which the dial was drawn; hour lines were lined with bronze pieces. According to Pliny the Elder, the obelisk served to determine the time of the year and the length of the day. It stood for several centuries, but in the era of the decline of Ancient Rome it was thrown off and forgotten for a long time. In 1463 it was found again, but only in 1792 it was re-installed in Piazza Montecitorio in Rome, where it still stands today.
The first meeting of the Greeks with a sundial took place, apparently, on the Dodecanese island, where the Chaldeans brought them. The conquest of Babylon by Alexander the Great contributed to the fusion of the Chaldean and Hellenic cultures. And Anaximander of Miletus, who allegedly established the first gnomon in Greece at the end of the 5th century. BC e. , drew his knowledge, apparently, in Egypt, where he studied astronomy. It is indicated that it was Anaximander who built in Sparta in 547 BC. e. first sundial. However, originally this watch was not intended for measuring the time of day, but for monitoring and correcting calendar data.
The custom of measuring time by the length of the shadow from one's own body has spread among the common people. Knowing the time was important for the Greek, since, in addition to the duration of his work duties, time indicated the approach of the desired moment for reinforcement with food and for rest. In the book\u003e, written about AD 400, Palladium indicates that the length of the shadow was also measured by the length of a human foot. The correctness of this statement of Palladium is also confirmed by the tablets carved on the ancient temple of the 5th-6th centuries. in Techs in Nubia. The famous Roman architect and architect Marcus Vitruvius describes in his essay\u003e at least 13 types of sundials. These include horizontal hollow hemispherical clocks - the so-called hemispheres - which are not quite usual for the northern regions of Europe. The inner surface of the hemisphere was a celestial hemisphere with an equatorial line, two solstice lines, and a twelve-hour time scale. The invention of such a clock is attributed to the famous ancient astronomer Aristarchus of Sames, who lived in 320-250 years. BC e. , who also made a sundial with semicircular scales, divided into five parts (hours) of unequal length. The well-known mathematician, physician, founder of Greek astronomy Eudoxus of Knidos (a disciple of Plato), who lived in 408-356, also took a great part in the improvement of the Greek sundial. BC e.
The sharp end of the gnomon, which originally served the Egyptians to clearly limit the shadow on the scale, was later replaced by the Greeks with a small round hole, the so-called solar eye, which threw a small point of light on the scale. In addition to the above horizontal clocks, the Greeks also had more perfect vertical sundials, the so-called hemocycles, which they placed on public buildings.
The sundial came to Rome from Greece. The Roman warlord Papirius Cursor ordered in 93 BC. e. to build a sundial in the Quirinal temple, and 30 years later, the consul Manlius Valerius Messala brought another sundial from Sicily, which was then installed in the Roman Forum next to the oratory. This clock served in Rome for almost 100 years - until 164 BC. e. until Quintius Marcin Philippus built another sundial next to them. Around 250 BC e. in Rome, a portable sundial appeared in the form of plates made of bronze or ivory. During excavations in 1755, a portable bronze sundial of Roman origin was found, buried in Portica during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. On the surface of the clock there were seven horizontal and vertical circles, and under them - the names of 12 months. On the right side there was a rod that served as a gnomon.
Around 24 BC e. Vitruvius mentioned the travel sundial. The veracity of his message was confirmed by excavations carried out in 1894 at Forbach, during which such a watch was found in the form of a bronze plate with a diameter of 47 mm with a five-millimeter rim and two holes: one for suspension, and the other for the passage of a sunbeam.
All ancient sundials were based on the simple principle of the gnomon, in which the length and direction of the cast shadow depended not only on the position of the Sun at a given moment in the sky, but also on the season. With the Roman method of dividing day and night into 12 hours in spring and summer, the daytime hours were lengthened, and in autumn and winter they were shortened. The ancient sundial, due to its imperfection, indicated such a time, the main feature of which was that, under the influence of the changing tilt of the Sun, the length of day and night hours changed during the year.
MIDDLE AGES
During the 16th century and later in England, sundials began to be produced, which were no longer only attached to buildings or structures, but could be installed separately. Their designs were quite varied, often reflecting a return to early antique types of clocks. Hollows were hollowed out in the stones and hour lines were drawn, on which the shadow of the gnomon fell. Dials with cavities carved in stone began to vary so much in shape that as a result dials appeared unknown to ancient gnomonics: hemispherical, heart-shaped, cylindrical, rectangular, obliquely inclined, which were formed in stones with horizontal, vertical planes, etc. etc., which diversified the shape of the sundial. By creating combinations of cavities carved in stones with different planes, they tried to improve the sundial so that they were not only a good instrument for measuring time, but also an object of decoration. In addition, they generated widespread interest in the study of gnomonics.
By installing them in palaces, gardens, squares and squares, they tried to fit them into local architecture.
In 1582, a vertical sundial with an inclined central rod was installed in the portal of the Chartres Cathedral (France). The dial of this watch is inscribed on a semicircular stone slab held by an angel, full of the grandeur and dignity of Byzantine figures. No less majestic is the figure of a young man holding a semicircular stone slab with the dial of a vertical sundial inscribed on it, which is located in the portal of the Strasbourg Cathedral.
Sundial dials semicircular with hour lines radiating from the central gnomon, are very typical of the Middle Ages.
FROM early XVI at. and later, sundials, installed on public buildings, in cathedrals, were already adapted to counting equal hours with the help of a gnomon, placed parallel to the earth's axis. One of these clocks, installed on the wall of a public building and dating back to 1695, is shown in the figure.
In the cathedral of one monastery, such a gnomon was installed even in 1829. The largest gnomon that can be seen now was installed on the dome of the Florentine cathedral in 1467 by Paul of Tuscany. The hole was made 90 m above the base of the cathedral. In 1502 a gnomon was installed on the southern wall of the church of St. Lawrence at Nuremberg by Johann Stabius. The 19-meter gnomon was installed in 1636 by Gassendi in the Marseilles church. Ignatius Danti made a 25 m high gnomon in Bologna in the church of St. Petronia. In 1653 this church was rebuilt by Giovanni Francesco Cassini. Bianchini built two beautiful gnomon at 21 and 25 meters in a house church in Rome.Sulli and Lemonnier in Paris set up a gnomon at 26 meters in the church of St. Sulpicia.
In 1786, the astronomers Caesar and Roggio installed the gnomon in the Cathedral of Milan. In ancient observatories, gnomons are still found, but in modern times they no longer began to be used, since they do not provide the accuracy of determining the time of noon, which is achieved with the help of other instruments.
The earliest types of portable sundial are\u003e. Portable sundials, focused on determining time not by the length of the shadow, but by changing the direction of the shadow, have become widespread in Western Europe only after she switched to calculating time by the equinox hours and the compass came into general use. The earliest known compass clocks date back to 1451; they are kept in the Ferdinand Museum in Innsbruck. From about 1500 in Europe, interest aroused in the creation of a sundial that could show hours of equal duration.
A lot of ingenuity was shown in the manufacture of portable sundials. During the XVII - XVIII centuries. the sundial was still in use.
In addition to a sundial, suitable for determining the time during daylight hours, a device for determining night hours was known in Europe - the nocturnal, invented in 1520.
and used in navigation practice until 1700
Sidereal time turns into solar time and can be determined with an accuracy of 15 minutes. With the help of the nocturnal, noon and midnight can be recorded with approximate accuracy. The latitude of the site is based on the results of determining the noon. The device logs are complex.
We find a portable sundial that measures time by changing the length of a shadow already in the ancient world. Such a clock was an Egyptian sundial, a Roman clock made in the form of a pork ham. This type of watch is also known to be used in India. Pilgrims who came from the far north to the holy city of Benares carried with them a sundial - staff
In Western Europe\u003e portable sundials were cylindrical because they were easier to manufacture. The copies of such watches dating back to the XIII century have come down to us. Hour lines are drawn vertically along the cylinder, and the gnomon is located horizontally above the dial. These cylindrical clocks were also called\u003e,\u003e or\u003e. They were small cylinders of wood or ivory, ending in a figured lid on which the gnomon was hinged.
When the clock was used, the gnomon was turned and set against the division of the corresponding month, the cylinder was placed vertically, the tip of the gnomon had to be directed towards the Sun; falling on the curved hour lines, the shadow indicated the time.
In the XVII century. watches were often made in the form of notebooks. The dial was engraved on their gilded bronze covers. Ring sundials were widely used in Germany in the 17th - 18th centuries.
Since the XVI century. in Western Europe, a portable sundial began to come into fashion.
They are most widespread in England and Germany. There was a clock that was put on the table, there was one that was worn on a chain. In the XVI - XVII centuries. one could find a lot of portable sundials, which were precious items made of ivory, decorated with precious stones.
More convenient is a device for determining morning and evening hours on a sundial from Augsburg, which was made in 1720. The hour dial is equipped there with two hour circles, or rather segments. The hour circles are adjusted to a specific latitude with a small quadrant in between, so that they align themselves relative to the equatorial plane, and an asterisk engraved on the base of the graduated quadrant indicates the direction of the cardinal points. Beneath the rectangular base plate is a rotating perpetual calendar and a list that lists 40 cities and their latitudes.
In fig. shows a sundial made in London around 1620. On this dial, the sun's rays, penetrating through a special hole, fell on the central line of the hour circle and showed the time. The gnomon was a small hole in a sliding bronze plate that was moved according to the season. To determine the time, it was assumed that the outer circle was the meridional circle, the hour circle was the equator, and the plate with a slit along which the gnomon slid was the pole.
There are many varieties of this quadrant, some of which were used until the end of the last century, even in England.
The sundial, shaped like an ancient ship with towers at each end, may have been made in Germany at the end of the 16th century. Time is marked on them using a plumb line.
The use of a compass made a significant contribution to the use of the sundial. From the end of the XIII century. sundial compass clock appears in England. Usually they were a small round brass box with a compass, above which was a horizontal sun dial. The gnomon was strengthened so that the lid could be closed.
The attention paid to sundials by kings and nobles often forced watch builders to strive not only to make them more accurate, but also spectacular or funny. The mechanic Renier made a sundial, which, with the help of glasses, gunpowder and bells, rang the bell at noon. Master Rousseau made an even more original time indicator: with the help of an appropriately installed and directed incendiary glass, he made the sunbeam control the cannon, forcing it to fire at a certain time.
MIDDLE EAST
The development of astronomy in the Middle East is associated with the formation of the Arab Caliphate in the 7th - 8th centuries. The introduction of a new era of "hijra", calculated from the day of the passage of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina (July 16, 622), necessitated the creation of a new calendar with the dates of Muslim rites.
The rapid development and expansion of states required ever deeper knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, as a result of which astronomical observatories began to be created. At the beginning of the 15th century, the Samarkand astronomical school arose, the ideological and scientific inspirer of which was Ulugbek (son of Shakhrukh, was born on March 22, 1394 in the military train of his famous grandfather Amir Timur while staying in the city of Sultania (now the territory of Iran). The birth of Ulugbek was marked by an act mercy: in honor of the birth of his grandson, Timur, who was then fighting in Mesopotamia, announced mercy to the inhabitants of the city of Mardin, conquered the day before, and canceled the already appointed tribute.)
Fate intended him to be the heir to the throne great empire, and natural talent, intelligence and dedication opened the way to scientific achievement.
The main brainchild of Ulugbek, and perhaps the main goal of his life, was the observatory, which was built in 1428-29 on a rocky hill at the foot of the Kuhak (modern Chupan-Ata) hill on the banks of the Obirakhmat irrigation ditch and was a three-story building covered with beautiful tiles ... Ulugbek installed a sundial on the wall of his palace.
Nature generously endowed Ulugbek with the talent of a scientist: a sharp eye, excellent memory, the broadest erudition, adherence to an idea and dedication to its implementation. The astronomical school created by him is rightfully considered the golden age of medieval astronomy.
Ulugbek's enthusiasm for science, his educational activities provoked the bitterness of reactionary sheikhs. On October 27, 1449, Ulugbek's eldest son Abdal-Latif, incited by them, killed his father and seized power. The observatory was destroyed, but the library of Ulugbek and his main workfortunately were saved. One of their main associates of Ulugbek Ali-Kushchi left Samarkand and went to Herat. He managed to take out the star catalog and other treasures of the Ulugbek library. Thus, it can be assumed that Ulugbek's observatory worked, and observations were made in it for almost twenty years after the murder of the great scientist, and only then it was destroyed, fell into desolation, and over the centuries its location was completely forgotten.
After the defeat of the Samarkand Observatory and the fall of Constantinople, astronomical research in the Near and Middle East froze for a long time. And only in the XVII and XVIII centuries. in India, interest in astronomical research is reviving. This is confirmed by two Indian manuscripts compiled by Abu Mullah-Farid Dekleve, the court astronomer of the Indian Shah Jakone (1628-1698), and the Maharajah Sawai-Jai Singh (1686-1743).
Sawai-Jai Singh established his first observatory in Delhi around 1724. Then, in 1734, he founded an observatory in Jaipur that was even larger than in Delhi. Then he set up small observatories in Ujan, Benares and Muttra. They were equipped with a gigantic equatorial sundial Samrai, which were entire architectural structures made of stone. They are all similar to the clocks that were created in Delhi, Singh's first observatory. They differed only in size.
The gnomon of this clock was an architectural structure in the form of a right-angled triangle with a vertical leg of 27 m. The hypotenuse 45.1 m long is directed to the axis of the world. On both sides of the gnomon are the western and eastern quadrants (a quarter circle). Shadow falls in the western quadrant until noon, and the eastern quadrant in the afternoon. The plane of the quadrant is parallel to the plane of the equator, and the gnomon is perpendicular to the plane of the quadrant and is set, as we already know, parallel to the axis of the world.
To the west of the equatorial sundial, 12 other sundials were installed: they were reduced copies\u003e, but with the difference that the planes of the quadrants were oriented in relation to the plane of the ecliptic. Each of them was located in its own zodiac sign. Sawai-Jai Singh, creating observatories with gigantic dimensions of the main instrument, followed the tradition of the Samarkand observatory.
There is a description of wooden octahedral sticks 160 cm long, with a metal point and carved hour scales. This is a sundial (ashadah) used by Indian pilgrims in the Middle Ages. In the handle of such a stick, usually four through holes were drilled, into which a rod about 15 cm long was inserted above the scale for the corresponding month so that its tip, when the stick was vertical, cast a shadow on the scale. There should have been 12 scales on the stick. Since the same conditions were valid for the days at a distance from the solstice at the same time, it was enough to have 8 scales. The name\u003e these hours were given according to the season (June - July) in which the pilgrimages were made.
RUSSIAN SUNNY CLOCK
It was traditionally believed that watchmaking was not held in high esteem in Russia. But this is not the case. Even in very ancient documents of the 11th century, the chroniclers of Veliky Novgorod indicated not only the days, but also the hours of events that seemed to them worthy of mention. Of course, at this time Russia lived by the sundial.
During the restoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Chernigov (1036), a unique cylindrical solar clock was discovered. One of the towers of the cathedral, called the Red Terem, had a two-tiered system of shallow niches and a peculiar decor. Deciphering the decor and studying the niches showed that the entire tower is a huge sundial. In the summer, the sun falls sequentially into each of the seven upper niches, providing the readings of the time device from 11 to 17 o'clock and in the winter from 10 to 15 o'clock, when the niches of the lower tier and ledges - drainage, ornamented with the signs of the zodiac, are turned on. There were similar religious buildings with clocks in Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Suzdal, Rostov, Kiev, but, unfortunately, they have not survived to our time.
In 1569, there was a sundial on the bell tower of the Svyatogorsk Monastery, 4 km from Mikhailovsky (Pushkin Reserve). Above the tower of Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Ivan IV and Maria Naga (1582-1591), there was "a real sundial in a column". The surviving documents indicate that Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich acquired a sundial from the Moscow merchant Mikhail Smyvalov.
Peter the Great personally designed several types of sundials. Their description has been preserved. Peter's associate Yakov Bruce, having retired, built a workshop in his Glinka estate near Moscow, where he made sundials and other precision instruments.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries. According to the project of the architect Anthony Rinaldi, marble milestones for the Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof roads were made in the workshops serving the construction and decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. These pillars were equipped with a sundial, and some of them have survived to this day.
In 1795, Prince Potemkin organized in the village. Kupavna watch manufactory near Moscow. There serf masters made several types of sundials. This watch was famous and sold well. In the 18th century, sundials were very popular among the landowners. They are installed on the walls of manor buildings, or on special columns in courtyards or manor parks. The sundial is an element of prestige, a symbol of belonging to an educated and wealthy elite. The ability to use a sundial allows you to emphasize your exclusivity. For example, in 1790 Colonel Chernigov regiment, and later General Miloradovich PS, moved from one estate to another. The stationary sundial was disassembled and moved with it. The sundial is becoming almost an obligatory attribute of the garden and park economy. They are installed for themselves not only by well-known aristocrats, but also by poor landowners, and even peasants. Gnomonica enters educational programs and is presented in the mathematics course.
In the middle of the XIX century. sundials in Russia were already ubiquitous. They could be seen not only in county towns, but even at post stations.
The sundial, as a device for determining the time and as a cultural element, survived until the beginning of the 20th century. In the village of Glukhovo, Vladimir region, in the house-museum of the great Russian scientist N. Ye. Zhukovsky, a cabinet with a sundial has been preserved. Nikolai Yegorovich used this sundial until 1919. Gnomon is now lost, the dial is half worn out.
The improvement of pendulum and spring clocks, the development of radio communications, the introduction of global time standards led to the fact that the difficult science of gnomonics became unnecessary. By inertia, the sundial continued to be built, but the scale of this activity was no longer the same. The gnomon was remembered only in the most difficult circumstances. AT besieged Leningrad electric clocks on the streets did not work due to the lack of electricity. Professor Pryanishnikov built a sundial. They stood until the very end of the Great Patriotic War.
Some examples of sundials have survived. Until now, the cities of Russia adorn the sundial, the manufacture of which took place later, until the twentieth century. Only in Moscow can an ancient sundial be seen on Nikolskaya Street, in the Novodevichy Convent, in Kolomenskoye, on the building of Moscow University on Manezhnaya Square.
Sundial in Kadashevsky lane, house 7. Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kadashi.
Sundial on the wall of the Lopukhinsky chambers on the territory of the Novodevichy Convent.
This sundial is installed on the Cosmonauts pedestrian walkway leading to the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. VDNKh.
A unique sundial of its kind appeared in May 2008 in Siberia, in the city of Novosibirsk. They were installed on the left bank of Novosibirsk, in the Kirov park. According to the creators, there are no more watches of this design either in Siberia or in the Far East.
In ancient times, sundials were widespread. The disadvantage of sundials is that they are useless in the absence of the sun. But as Kozma Prutkov said: “A standing clock is not always ruined.” And today a sundial can be seen in St. Petersburg. The Museum of the Arctic and Antarctica contains three sundials discovered during excavations in Siberia. The sundial has been preserved on Moskovsky Prospekt and on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg, as well as in the city of Pushkin at the Oryol Gate.
Therefore, the sundial is not only a rarity today. Despite all the advances in modern communication technology, every ship today certainly has a marine chronometer, adjusted to solar time to determine the geographic longitude, and in case of failure of ultra-modern space equipment, they use the old-fashioned methods of transporting watches, discovered back in 1510.
The sundial has witnessed the emergence of water clocks, mechanical and even atomic, and survived them all, because the properties of sundials are unique. They not only connect two worlds: earthly and cosmic. They remind us of the most important secret of the universe - that someone stronger and wiser than us turns their arrows on, that time is irreversible and that every moment lived is priceless.
The sundial is like the human soul. They are\u003e only when it's light. They do not take into account the time of storms and storms.
\u003e God himself winds the sundial. The sun, planets, stars and in general the entire visible universe revolve around their arrow. The resource of this mechanism is eternal.
The sundial is a symbol of what our civilization is built on. Knowledge symbol.
CARPE DIEM - LIVE THIS IS - it's hard to find a more appropriate sundial motto than this one. This Latin dictum belongs to Horace. I want to finish the story about the sundial with the words of I. A. Bunin:
Our copper dial has turned green.
But our arrow in the dial
God himself leads. With the whole universe in harmony. \u003e\u003e I think that the problems I have compiled will be of interest not only to seventh graders, but to everyone who is interested in mathematics and historical monuments.
The history of sundials already has more than one millennium, but when exactly people began to use them is not known for certain. It has been established that in Ancient Egypt, Babylon and China, such devices were used earlier than a thousand years before our era. The first mentions of determining the time by the sun's rays using a special device date back to 1306-1290. BC.
Any sundial has a dial with a scale and an hour hand, called a gnomon. At the same time, according to their orientation, sundials are divided into horizontal, vertical and equatorial. There are many of their modifications, such as stepped, annular, plate, mirror, bifilar and others.
A sundial is not necessarily a disk with a perpendicular gnomon. So, the dial can be a hemisphere or a ring. The universal equatorial clock can be used at all latitudes. Their design involves two rings perpendicular to each other and a gnomon. To determine the time, you need to set the latitude on the scale on one of the rings and set the date. Then the watch is turned around the vertical axis until a dot appears on the dial, showing the time. At this moment, one ring is oriented north along the meridian, and the second is parallel to the equatorial plane.
In a horizontal sundial, the plane of the dial is not perpendicular to the gnomon, which should be parallel to the earth's axis, and also point to the north, that is, the angle between them is equal to the latitude of the area. The horizontal clock is convenient and easy to install. To use them at a different latitude, it is enough to change the angle and direct the gnomon to the north.
In ancient Egypt, various models of sundials were designed, for example, with a horizontal scale that made an angle of 90 degrees with the plane of the local meridian, and their gnomons were obelisks, the height of which usually reached several meters. In order to find out the time by them, the direction indicated by the shadow from the gnomon was used. Another sundial, called "stepped", had two surfaces inclined to the east and west and divided into levels. As the sun moved, the shadow moved from one step to another, and the time was determined by its length.
In Central Europe, until the 15th century, wall-mounted vertical sundials, the gnomon of which were horizontal, became widespread. True, the accuracy of determining the time from them was not high.
At the same time, there were several variants of travel chronometers, for example, a ring sundial. They consisted of two rings, in one of which there was a hole for the passage of the sun's ray, and the scales of months and hours were applied on the other. There were also plate clocks, the design of which included two, sometimes three, identical plates, which had a rectangular shape and fastened together, while a compass was installed on the lower one.
There is a description of medieval octahedral sticks with four through holes in the handles, into which metal rods had to be inserted to determine the time. Window chronometers appeared at about the same time. They belonged to the vertical. The principle of the sundial was to use the window of the town hall or the temple as a dial with a translucent scale applied. This made it possible to recognize the time while being indoors. The mirrored sundial used a sunbeam reflected by a mirror, which they directed at the wall of the building where the dial was located.
SUNDIAL
ancient device for measuring time by the sun. This is probably the oldest scientific instrument that has come down to us unchanged and represents the first application by man of his knowledge of the motion of celestial bodies. Although a wide variety of sundials are known, they can all be classified into several basic types. The most common are the horizontal type watches; they can be seen in many parks and gardens. Clocks with a vertical dial are usually found on walls oriented to the cardinal points. The turned dial is made for vertical clocks placed on walls that are not oriented to the cardinal points. And the deflected and inclined dials are inclined, respectively, from the observer and towards him. They are usually found on multi-sided watches that have three or more dials and are often cube-shaped; they are placed on rooftops and wall ridges oriented to the cardinal points. Rotated-deflected and rotated-inclined dials are placed on buildings not oriented to the cardinal points. Equatorial and polar watches have dial planes parallel to the plane of the equator and the polar axis, respectively. Armillary watches have an equatorial dial; they are often used for decorative purposes. They contain from two to ten rings, representing the large circles of the earth and celestial spheres... The hour markers are drawn within the equatorial circle, and the rod representing the polar axis serves as the shadow-casting gnomon.
The oldest known sundials were made around 1500 BC. They are made of stone in the form of a bar about 30 cm long with a vertical T-shaped pommel at one end. Time was counted by notches on the bar at unequal intervals. The clock was set horizontally along a plumb line. The T-shaped end was turned east in the morning and west in the afternoon. The shadow from the top edge of the "T" indicated the time. These and other ancient solar instruments showed "uneven clocks" resulting from dividing the time from sunrise to sunset by a fixed number of parts. Since the length of daylight varies throughout the year, the length of the hour also changed: in summer it was longer, and in winter it was shorter.
TYPICAL GARDEN SUNNY CLOCK. They show true solar time, which differs from standard time in different ways in different seasons of the year. "Gnomon" is the general name for a shadow casting indicator, and "pointer" is the edge of the gnomon that is counted on. For accurate time measurement, the angle between the pointer and the horizontal dial must be equal to the geographical latitude of the place.
It was not difficult to make such a watch. Many of them had hour lines for certain days of the year, separated by approximately a month, and for the dates of the equinoxes and solstices. Hourly marks for each day were obtained by connecting the points on which at a given hour the shadow cast by the gnomon on the days of the equinox and solstice fell. Around the beginning of the Christian era, the principle of the inclined gnomon was discovered, which made it possible to introduce "equal hours", which ensured more accurate time keeping. It was found that if the gnomon's rod is directed to the pole of the world, then it will, as it were, become the axis of that circle parallel to the equator, along which the Sun revolves. Dividing it into 24 equal parts, we got hours of the same duration. Thereafter, making an accurate and evenly running sundial became a simple geometric and trigonometric exercise. The evolution of the sundial went alongside the development of mathematics and astronomy. However, for many centuries the art of making sundials was owned only by masters familiar with gnomonics. From the 14th to the 18th century, many artisans showed ingenuity and skill in the manufacture of precision pocket sundials, which became jewels of watchmaking. Emergence mechanical watch did not abolish until the 18th century. using a sundial to keep time. The makers of sundials have kept pace with the designers of mechanical watches by inventing solar devices to determine the "mean time". When "standard time" was introduced, the sundial was adapted for this as well. (Standard time is the mean solar time at a particular meridian.) In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many very accurate sundials were made to determine standard time, called heliochronometers.
Clock construction. For a sundial to be useful, it must be erected in a suitable location. The latitude of the place must be known, as well as the position relative to the horizon and meridian of the site or surface on which the hour lines will be drawn.
SUNNY CLOCK FOR "MIDDLE TIME". In alidad (goniometer with sighting devices), the sunbeam falls on the analemma (figure eight showing the seasonal deviations of the sun). When the alidade is set so that the light point falls on the mark of the given day, the pointer shows the average solar time. So this watch "automatically" compensates for seasonal irregularities in the movement of the sun.
The most important part of the sundial is the dial, i.e. the surface on which the hour lines are drawn, and the gnomon for casting a shadow. Pointer, i.e. that edge of the gnomon, whose shadow indicates the time, is always directed to the pole of the world. The height of the pointer is the angle at which the pointer is tilted towards the dial, and the center of the dial (the point from which the hour lines radiate out) is the point where the pointer intersects with the plane of the dial. A node is a special point on a pointer, the shadow of which is used to read altitude, declination and azimuth, as well as time. Methods for determining the time by the sun. There are three methods of determining the time from the sun: by measuring its hour angle from the meridian, as in a conventional garden sundial; by measuring its height above the horizon and by its azimuth (the angle measured in the plane of the horizon, between the direction to the south point and the vertical circle passing through the sun), which requires a vertical pointer at the gnomon. Most stationary sundials measure the hour angle. The other two methods are often used in portable watches.
There are also three ways to indicate time: a shadow, a point of light and a magnetic hand. Most watches use shadow. Light is rarely used in stationary clocks. And in portable use all three methods. Magnetic hand watches are of two types. In the first, hour markers are made on the body of a compass, which is usually square. Turning the case so that the shadows on its side faces disappear, read the time in the direction of the arrow. In devices of the second type, hour markers are applied to an elliptical belt that moves in accordance with the day of the year, as in many azimuth clocks. In this case, the body is also turned until the shadow on the side faces disappears and the time is read in the direction of the arrow. This type of watch is more accurate; their error is determined only by the fact that the magnetic needle deviates from the true direction to the north.
Special sundial. As a rule, a sundial is arranged in a certain place, but a universal clock can be made for use in any place. Sometimes they are only done to indicate noon or holidays... In our time, the most common are horizontal clocks with a triangular gnomon and vertical clocks on the walls of houses. However, you can find many other designs. Making portable sundials has now become a popular hobby.
see also HEAVENLY SPHERE; TIME.
Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .
See what "SUNNY CLOCK" is in other dictionaries:
The SOLAR CLOCK, a device that began to be used about 5000 years ago in the Middle East to determine the time of day. Traditionally, a sundial consists of a short base with a flat top, on which a gnomon, a pillar, ... ... Scientific and technical encyclopedic dictionary
They consist of a dial and a rod, the shadow of which, moving along the dial due to the movement of the Sun across the sky, shows the true solar time ... Large encyclopedic Dictionary
- (Sun dial) device for determining true solar time. Consists of a dial and a rod. When illuminated by the sun, the shadow of the rod indicates the true solar time on the dial. Samoilov K.I. Marine dictionary. M. L .: State Military ... ... Marine Dictionary
This term has other meanings, see Sundial (disambiguation). Wall (vertical) sundial in the Solovetsky Monastery. Shooting time 13:40 Moscow time ... Wikipedia
A device used to determine time by the Sun. S. h. Consist of a rod or plate, casting a shadow, and a dial, on which the shadow falls, indicating the true solar time. Depending on the location of the dial plane ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
A device for determining the time by the Sun. Usually consists of a dial, located. vertically, horizontally or perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the Earth, and a rod or plate casting a shadow on the dial (see fig.). The position of the shadow indicates ... ... Big Encyclopedic Polytechnic Dictionary
They consist of a dial and a rod, the shadow of which, moving along the dial due to the movement of the Sun across the sky, shows the true solar time. * * * SUNNY CLOCK SUNNY CLOCK, consists of a dial and a rod, the shadow of which, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Sundial
In our time, the question "What time is it?" does not cause any particular difficulties, because you always have a wristwatch with you or set the time on your mobile phone. But these objects are the property of our time, but how did they define time in antiquity?
It is not known exactly when the sundial appeared. The first mention of a device that measures time by the sun's rays dates back to the period 1306 - 1290 BC. In Ancient Egypt, a description of an instrument was found that measures time by the sun's rays in one of the tombs. The sundial of that period was a rectangular area (plate) with markings. At one end of the rectangle was attached a short, long bar that served as an hour hand.
The Cairo Museum houses other types of ancient sundials. The design of this watch is somewhat different. Unlike a flat platform, the base of this watch is represented by two inclined planes with steps. One inclined plane was set to the east, the second to the west. In the first half of the day, the shadow slid along the first plane, descending the steps, as in divisions, and in the second part it passed to the second plane.
The name of the inventor of the sundial remained unknown; moreover, it is not known in which country the first solar time devices appeared. The primacy is disputed by: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and China.
In Chinese sources, the first mention of a sundial dates back to 1100 BC. The design of the Chinese sundial consisted of a stone disc that was installed parallel to the line of the celestial equator. A rod passed through the center of the disc. The bar line was parallel to the earth's axis. Chinese craftsmen also created a small sundial with a compass.
The ancient Greeks had a hemispherical sundial - scaphis; over time, the design of the sundial has undergone many changes. Many treatises have been written by Arab astronomers on the intricacies of the structure of the sundial. On the dials of the Arab sundials, there was another line - qibla, indicating the direction to Mecca. The time when the shadow of the gnomon (a vertical pole that acts as an hour hand in a sundial) fell on the qibla line was considered sacred.
There are several basic types of sundial designs: equatorial, horizontal, vertical and analemmatic.
In a vertical sundial, the dial, respectively, is located in a vertical position, and the gnomon (hour arrow) is set depending on the latitude of the area where the clock is installed and the azimuth of the wall where they will be located. Vertical sundials are installed mainly on the facades of buildings.
The horizontal sundial has long been a part of landscape design. They are installed in public gardens, parks, in recreation areas as a decorative element. In watches of this design, the dial has a horizontal position, and the gnomon is set based on the latitude and longitude of the area where the clock will be located.
The dial of an equatorial watch has a scale evenly divided by the hour, located in the plane of the equator. The equatorial clock includes the armillary sphere - a clock that repeats the structure of the solar system.
The stationary sundial has smaller models. In ancient times, Indian pilgrims took a staff with a sundial on their travels. Holes were made in the staff and a rod was inserted, which, when the staff was vertical, cast a shadow on the marking.
Today, despite the abundance of mechanical and electronic time carriers, interest in the sundial has not faded away. For example, Queen Elizabeth II of England received a magnificent sundial in 1977. The design of the watch is a sculptural composition: two dolphins support the dial, lifted by the sea wave. This amazing sundial was designed by Christopher Daniel.
Installing a sundial requires some knowledge of astronomy and geography. The dial and gnomon designs are calculated separately for each area. Without these calculations, the sundial loses its functionality, becoming simply an original element of landscape design.
The Temple of Relics is a special Great structure of the Forge of Empires, which gives a certain chance of dropping a certain reward during the passage of the expedition.
You can get the drawing of the Temple only as a prize from the chest during the passage of the point in the expedition or for the contribution to the AF of other players. For helping other players (clicking on the "Help" button), the drawings of the Temple are not issued.
All relics, that is, rewards in expeditions, are divided into three types: common (silver), unusual (gold) and rare (jade). The higher the level of the Temple, the greater the chance of getting both a relic in general and the fact that it will be rare.
|
Fancy |
Despite the fact that at the initial levels of the Temple, the chance of dropping relics is very small, they begin to appear on the map from its first level. Of course, most of them will be ordinary or - occasionally - unusual, but to get rare rewards, you will have to pump the aircraft as much as possible.
What relics are: what drops from the Temple of relics
Some players do not put the Temple at all, as they believe that the prizes that it allows to collect are too insignificant to waste space and strategic points on it.
To get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat relics can drop during an expedition, see the following table.
| Regular (Silver) | Fancy (Gold) | Rare (Jade) |
|---|---|---|
| 20 Forge Points | 100 Forge Points | Terrace farm |
| 25 Products (1 type) | 200 Products (1 type) | Sacred sundial |
| 5 Light units | 10 Rogues | Fountain of youth |
| 5 Missile Units | Ritual fire | Age Boost Pack |
| 5 Fast Units | Tribal area | Update kit |
| 5 Heavy units | Small Pack of Medals | Warehousing of buildings |
| 5 Artillery Units | ||
| Double drawing | ||
| Face of the Ancient | ||
| Sun God Gate |
As you can see, most rewards, including even ordinary relics, are quite pleasant and useful bonuses, because neither units, nor goods, nor strategic points are never superfluous, and in the initial eras they are quite a good help for development. One of the best prizes is the Terrace Farm - a building that allows you to produce 5 CO per day. But the decor with a size of 2x2 The Face of the Ancient One and the Gate of the Sun God is practically useless: it is not a scarce resource.
To pick up a relic, you need to click on its icon that appears on the expedition map.
Be sure to collect all the relics before you move on to the next level of the expedition, as otherwise they will disappear.