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A clock to mimick a normal office clock, but
with a little wheel in the back that lets
astronomy-interested owner adjust the length
of a 24-hour day to match the actual speed of
some other planet's rotation.
Prague Town Hall clock.
http://www.discover...e/oldtownhall_v.jpg
A really cool 600 year old clock... [StarChaser, Sep 15 1999]
More information on it.
http://otokar.troja.../RelatGrp/Orloj.htm
More in-depth info, including that it was burned down by the Nazis in WW2. [StarChaser, Sep 15 1999]
[link]
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Thanks to the commentators that have helped me
progress from medieval to rennaissance
models of planetary
motion. Obviously, (1) astronomy needs to become
a school subject and (2) I shouldn't be involved
in setting the curriculum... |
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Reportedly, during the Mars Pathfinder
mission, a number of JPL operations techs
started sleeping on Mars time so they'd
be awake when the (solar-powered) lander
was active. |
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Since (as far as I know) this idea hasn't
come to pass yet, I presume they used
computer programs and Mars/Earth time tables. |
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In a similar vein, there are clocks available that run on what astronomers call sidereal time. This is the time it takes for an object to return to the same apparent position in the sky (off-setting the Earth's movement around the sun) |
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In a different artery, has anyone seen the 'astronomical clock' in the city of Prague? I'd love to have a screensaver of that thing that kept time... |
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It'd be really cool if it was three dimensional with all sorts of orbit gizmos and such. |
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I knew these guys who decided to go onto a 10 hour day to be more in tune with the metric system. They would sleep from hours 9-1, eat at a certain hour, etc. regardless of when that occured in the real world. Needless to say, they didn't attend too many of their classes, and failed out of school, but hey, it was pretty funny. |
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The French tried to do a metric clock after the revolution...it bombed too. |
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[salmon]: That's called an
"orrery", and they do exist. |
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[MuddDog], [StarChaser]: We have
metric calendar ideas in plenty...
isn't there a metric time idea
floating around here somewhere? |
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