I grew up with an 18th century Japanese clock that kept solar time. It also had just one hand and a system of chimes that was just as complex as the clockwork that sounded them. (We never did figure out what they were telling us.)
Premodern japanese timekeeping is very complicated: The daytime and nighttime are each divided into a constant number of hours, independent of the season, which is possible to reckon with a sundial but hard mechanically. The daytime period should then have been had a period for different activities: work, various leisure activities, (personal) chores, which I suspect are what the chimes are for.
This is the most interesting reality check that has come my way in ages! The consequence of technology are subtle and amazing. You fleshed out this story with lots of detail that I really did not know nor even imagine. Thank you.
Indeed. I've been quite frustrated with the whole of it. I've used astronomy programs that allow you to see the night sky anywhere in the world at some precise time in history. And, I went to try and see the sky at the time of my birth. Unfortunately, I born when daylight savings time was only beginning to be adopted, and supposedly different counties were or were not not on daylight savings times. They said that buses going from county to county would have to adjust their clocks according every time they passed into a new county. So, I don't really get to know at what time I was really born. Oh, the research is not impossible; I just can't afford to put in the time for it. Oh well.
i like how you guys call it 'things you might not know' as opposed to thinking i already didnt know...but the difference in you guys and the others is that you tell me things i actually didnt know. fair play lads
The clocks in the new tower in Dubai are set a slightly different times depending on which floor. One has to pray at exactly sun down which because of it height, occurs at different times.
I remember visiting a sundial in Jaipur and it was breathtaking. Someone built a sundial that was accurate for every 2 seconds. It was humongous and absolutely crazy.
@@xiphosura413 it was in an area with a lot of different sundials and other really cool things. The whole collection is called Jantar Mantar. I think the sundial itself is called Samrat Yantra
I ended up watching this video with the song 'Needing / Getting from OK Go in the background. It synced perfectly and was actually pretty funny to watch. LOL :) I ended up muting the sound and tweaking the time positions, but I was able to get a perfect sync between movement. It looked like Tom was dancing to it, and singing along. LOL :)
@@lawrencecalablaster568 It's been about 6 years since I posted this... I've played with it and if you sync the start of the vocals of the song up with the start of this video, the movements that Tom makes either seem to go with the lyrics or when there's instrumental parts only it looks like he's conducting. I'm not sure if I used the music video version (in the car) or the album version. It's been a long time since I played with this.
Makes me think of the sundials (1 for each half of the year) we used to have at our university in Nijmegen. They told the time plus the (approximate) date (provided you new which half year you were in).
I love the idea that computers and smartphones would have to change their time display to reflect local noon -- beyond just which time zone they're in. Theoretically possible, but they'd still have to run on mean time themselves, I'd bet.
***** To get computers to correctly display local time, you'd probably need them all to be either fitted with a GPS or a mapping tool so you could pick your location and it would look up your exact latitude. For computer to computer communication, they'd probably use UTC for the sake of simplicity.
***** "I love the idea that computers and smartphones would have to change their time display to reflect local noon -- beyond just which time zone they're in." As a programmer, that makes me want to say very nasty things to you right now...
***** Tom's aware of the problems involved in time and date calculations... The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile - hence he recommends that any sane programmer would use pre-built libraries: let someone else tear their hair out rather than you :)
An analemma shows both the declination of the Sun (the angular distance it is from the celestial equator. and the amount of time you have to adjust. That's the figure 8 you often see on globes. One lobe is bigger because the Earth's orbit is elliptical.
Depending on where you look, the sun rises earlier in the western part of the country than in the eastern part. If the country is long enough in the north/south direction that is. For example - I currently live in Stockholm (18°15'E) and today the sun rose at 3:30 AM. In Ljusdal (16°05′E) the sun rose at 3:07 AM. That's 23 minutes earlier, despite being further west than Stockholm. This diminishes as you move further south though, but it's still there. For example, today the sun rose in Grigadale (the westernmost settlement of mainland Britain - W6°11') at 4:32 AM and in Dover (E 1°18') at 4:39 AM.
Yes, but only between spring equinox and autumn equinox (i.e. "summer"). The other half of the year, the sun will rise later and later and set earlier and earlier even if you move east. (Until you get so far north that you will have no sun at all, something the likes of you and I, who live in countries with large parts north of the arctic circle, are used to ;). )
ShamelessHorse > I think you just discovered the world is round! No. A round planet doesn't necessarily have this behaviour. This behaviour requires planet to be tilted on its axis.
I'm aware of the difference between clock time and true solar time. I think it would be interesting to have a clock that shows true solar time. Timezones just seem so arbitrary, especially with DST. I live in the Netherlands and the timezone here is UTC+1 (UTC+2 in the summer), even though the solar time here is generally closer to UTC!
IF! TIme is defined as noon is when the sun is directly over head(or highest in the sky as the longitude dictates) sundials are correct and its the precision time pieces that get to wiggle about for the not quite 24hr rotation of the earth. IF! Time is defined as the number of cesium emissions in a vacuum when excited with microwave waves than sundials are still right and precision time pieces need to get over it.
@@JimmyLundberg nah, the garden and the stadium where built at the same time, meaning somebody didn't care enough to make sure the sun dial wasn't covered Also the fact it would only be covered in winter, and they probably didn't plan for the garden to last beyond the summer olympics
@@mickys8065 You put so much money into the Olympic stadiums and surroundings, and you will plan for them to last and have some kind of use after the Olympics are over. More likely, seeing as it's a garden, they didn't expect it to see much use in winter, period, so the issue wouldn't have been important to plan around.
0:28 Left out the other kind of time, Sidereal Time, that measures how long it takes for the Earth to actually turn 360 degrees, relative to ITSELF, not relative to the Sun, which is not what makes a day by standard clock time or by the position of the Sun. As the Earth moves around the Sun in its yearly elliptical orbit, the position of the Sun relative to the Earth is different each day, measured at the same clock time or when the Sun is highest. It's weird, and it's only of interest to astronomers, and it's outside of the scope of this video from seven years ago, regardless. But it's something you might not have known!
I would rather call Sidereal Time a measure relative to the Galaxy, rather than relative to Earth itself. Solar time is in some sense more suited to the term "relative to ITESELF" as it partition years according to the Earth axial tilt towards Sun. Year is meaningless without constellation outside Earth as reference point.
So, if you order a pizza on the east coast at noon, you might receive it at 30 past noon or less, at least for the delivery guy. What kind of tip do you leave if you recieve it before noon?
+Mike Downs Assuming there that there is a time where one is ahead, and a time where one is behind. Then by the mean value theorem there would have to be yes.
+NWP // NWProductionsHD No not necessarily. That means that there must be a time at which they share the same reading, but there's no reason why that time should be 12 noon.
I am a sundial. Ordinary words Cannot express my thoughts on birds. I am a sundial, turned the wrong way round. I cost my foolish mistress fifty pound. I am a sundial, and I make a botch Of what is done far better by a watch. Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs (1977)
You don't. The only way that can be done is if the gnomon (the vertical piece that casts the shadow) stays put and you can turn ONLY the flat disk part forward or backward one hour. I built one from scrap wood, a 5 gallon bucket lid, a long screw and a couple of washers where it can be done though. Other than that you just have to mentally do it.
DST is one of the stupidest of all well intended constructs. The human brain can much more easily adjust to a few minutes per day of solar change rather than twice yearly being tossed ahead or behind by a whole hour. Plus having to change all clocks but still doubting all clocks nonetheless. Countries without DST rule.
So Clock Time is an artificial attempt to create the same time for all places in a designated time zone (which are very large). So the reality is that a sun dial will always be accurate for the area in which it is located. How big an area to keep it within one minute?
That's misleading. Sundials tell you what the position of the sun in the sky is. If you were to synchronize a (accurate) clock to a sundial, they would get out of sync through the year and would come back in sync after exactly one year (~365 days and 6 hours). In other words, days are 24 hours on average throughout the year (+/- a few ms) but if you take a particular day it may be off by several seconds. That difference adds up.
Sundials tell you where the sun is (e.g 12 o'clock) whereas clocks tell you the time (how many seconds since X. Because a day is defined as 24 hours, 1 hour as 60 minutes, etc, sundials do not read an accurate time, but an accurate sun position.
I thought the equation of time was the monthly variance in solar noon due to the changes in earth's speed as it gets closer to and farther from the sun - the acceleration and deceleration makes for slight changes in solar noon.
***** I know that a day would be approximately 24 hours, however are the hours shorter during the day in the winter back in those days. I mean, they used to use 'planetary hours' where they were shorter during winter and longer during summer but I had no idea they actually went with this time.
They would indeed. Chicken is talking about sundials-standardized-to-clocks. When you standardize to sundials, the hours do change in length. The ancient Egyptians even had hourglasses-standardized-to-sundials, with different sizes for the different hours.
No the sundial is still accurate, its just that we find that inconvenient. And High Speed travel (and communication) is exactly why we find it inconvenient.
"To put it another way, if we came from down there, and it's morning, the sun would be up there, but if it's actually over there and it's still morning, we must have come from back there, and if that's southerly, and the sun is really over there............. then it's the afternoon."
I say "noon" when the sun is at its zenit (~13h52 now), and "12 o'clock" otherwise :-þ Because "midnight" "should" be the middle of the night, and "midday" be the middle of the day (sic)...
Your true non will be different from someone that is just a few miles east or west of you. Now imagine how wide a timezone is and it tries to put everyone on the same noon. Then there's daylight savings time and stuff.
Tom, where are the druids robes? Future archeologists are going to be so disappointed. And, you forgot to got to bring a blood sacrifice. I'm so embarrassed for you. 😆
Well, I guess technically the earth isn't tilted as there's no up or down in space, but that would make a tilted orbit. The sun does orbit the galactic center, but we have an explanation for that without invoking a God.
All the bitter people moaning about the uselessness of sundials in Britain should move to the Sahara where they can use their sundials as much as they like.
A good sundial not only takes the time of year into account but also the analemma of the sun. that slanted 8 figure the sun is painting ober the year in the sky. also, if you really wanna get nerdy and dirty: Precession ;-)
+DasIllu That is true. Do a web search for "longwood gardens sundial" for information about a very large analemmatic sundial (37.2 ft x 23.8 ft) built in 1939. Some of the search hits will include an interesting story on correcting the sundial in 1978. It is claimed to have a 2 minute accuracy to local mean time.
Er that is actually the whole point of the equation of time and the whole point of the video. "The time of the year" that you have to take into account is the anallema. Precession is nothing to do with it.
The Legend of Zelda: Equation of Time
9 out of 10 players wouldn't be able to finish the game.
That hurt
That sounds so real
That’s funny
Like the anti life equation
I don't really see the point of sundials in Britain anyway. :P
savage XD
Clouddials
wanted to like this, but likes are at 404, so i can't
Raindials. I guess ”Klepsydras” or ”water clocks”. 🤔
1,000th like :)
I grew up with an 18th century Japanese clock that kept solar time. It also had just one hand and a system of chimes that was just as complex as the clockwork that sounded them. (We never did figure out what they were telling us.)
Premodern japanese timekeeping is very complicated: The daytime and nighttime are each divided into a constant number of hours, independent of the season, which is possible to reckon with a sundial but hard mechanically. The daytime period should then have been had a period for different activities: work, various leisure activities, (personal) chores, which I suspect are what the chimes are for.
This is the most interesting reality check that has come my way in ages! The consequence of technology are subtle and amazing. You fleshed out this story with lots of detail that I really did not know nor even imagine. Thank you.
Indeed. I've been quite frustrated with the whole of it. I've used astronomy programs that allow you to see the night sky anywhere in the world at some precise time in history. And, I went to try and see the sky at the time of my birth. Unfortunately, I born when daylight savings time was only beginning to be adopted, and supposedly different counties were or were not not on daylight savings times. They said that buses going from county to county would have to adjust their clocks according every time they passed into a new county. So, I don't really get to know at what time I was really born. Oh, the research is not impossible; I just can't afford to put in the time for it. Oh well.
i like how you guys call it 'things you might not know' as opposed to thinking i already didnt know...but the difference in you guys and the others is that you tell me things i actually didnt know. fair play lads
"earth is tilted because of the seasons" - it's the other way around, there are seasons because the earth is tilted.
Oops! Good spot. Hopefully it's obvious what I meant there!
there are seasons because the sun moves in a spiral and the earth is flat and immovable
Machiatta Chihuahua I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not
Libby Bollinger If you read your Bible you will know how very serious I am.
testingtheglobe dot com
The Emperor of Mankind Use your GOD given senses to see it for yourself.
I like that the series name is "things you MIGHT not know" as opposed to "Things you didn't know"
Well, he’s not telepathic :)
I feel my intelligence (though very low) is being respected by the title.
unlike those shorts videos
How does a sundial work in England?
+Noel Goetowski It doesn't
+Noel Goetowski if the sky is light grey then you complain about the weather today, if it's dark then you complain about the weather tonight
You stand on it and look at your watch
how does a sundial work without the sun? :p
Rarely.
I've been watching your videos for about 3 hours straight... I can't get enough ! Thanks for your time and stay healthy !! :)
Is that 3 hours on a sundial or a clock?
What a planning fail to put the sundial where it can't be used the whole year.
My guess is that the sundial was there before the tall building.
@Jimmy Lundberg: Then it's a planning fail to put a tall building there.
People who raise buildings tend to care more about money than sundials.
Jimmy Lundberg Well it's in the Olympic park so they were built at the same time
you mean by putting a sundial in Britain yeah?
it's always nice when you run into a rare tom scott video.
The clocks in the new tower in Dubai are set a slightly different times depending on which floor. One has to pray at exactly sun down which because of it height, occurs at different times.
No praying at sundown is explicitly forbidden to prevent sun worship. You're supposed to pray a little after.
\o/ praise the sun
How does that affect what time it is?
@@theblackwidower You can see more over the Earth's curve
Iyan Barone no the sun is a projection by “big something or other” to rob us all and take control to the alien lizard people
*clouds cover the sky *
Scientists of the olden times: no! The atomic clock has broken!
Love how there are videos from Tom that I still haven’t seen
I remember visiting a sundial in Jaipur and it was breathtaking. Someone built a sundial that was accurate for every 2 seconds. It was humongous and absolutely crazy.
Do you remember what it was called? This sounds fascinating!
@@xiphosura413 it was in an area with a lot of different sundials and other really cool things. The whole collection is called Jantar Mantar. I think the sundial itself is called Samrat Yantra
@@malup1117 thanks!
@@malup1117 Does it adjust for the equation of time?
@@Anonymous-df8it I dont know
I love watching the old ones. Time hasn’t harmed the content.
I would love to see the End of DST happen this decade.
Of course, then there's the inane argument about whether to abolish it or make it permanent.
@@chaos.corner "I don't like my schedule, therefore we should change time. What? Change my schedule? No, that would be far too sensible."
I can't believe this
Tom found sun in britain
I ended up watching this video with the song 'Needing / Getting from OK Go in the background. It synced perfectly and was actually pretty funny to watch. LOL :) I ended up muting the sound and tweaking the time positions, but I was able to get a perfect sync between movement. It looked like Tom was dancing to it, and singing along. LOL :)
That is a great song!
At what time do you need to start & stop them to get them to sync?
@@lawrencecalablaster568 It's been about 6 years since I posted this... I've played with it and if you sync the start of the vocals of the song up with the start of this video, the movements that Tom makes either seem to go with the lyrics or when there's instrumental parts only it looks like he's conducting. I'm not sure if I used the music video version (in the car) or the album version. It's been a long time since I played with this.
Makes me think of the sundials (1 for each half of the year) we used to have at our university in Nijmegen.
They told the time plus the (approximate) date (provided you new which half year you were in).
That's cool! I wonder if you could get the exact date by using a bigger sundial with a narrower gnomon...
This is a particularly lovely thing I did not know... imagine how complex the world would be if we had never changed the method of measuring time...
I love the idea that computers and smartphones would have to change their time display to reflect local noon -- beyond just which time zone they're in. Theoretically possible, but they'd still have to run on mean time themselves, I'd bet.
***** To get computers to correctly display local time, you'd probably need them all to be either fitted with a GPS or a mapping tool so you could pick your location and it would look up your exact latitude. For computer to computer communication, they'd probably use UTC for the sake of simplicity.
*****
"I love the idea that computers and smartphones would have to change their time display to reflect local noon -- beyond just which time zone they're in."
As a programmer, that makes me want to say very nasty things to you right now...
***** Tom's aware of the problems involved in time and date calculations... The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile - hence he recommends that any sane programmer would use pre-built libraries: let someone else tear their hair out rather than you :)
mittfh
You do know what a joke is, right?
An analemma shows both the declination of the Sun (the angular distance it is from the celestial equator. and the amount of time you have to adjust. That's the figure 8 you often see on globes. One lobe is bigger because the Earth's orbit is elliptical.
We have a sundial just like this at our local park. The kids just run over it, unnoticing. I cant help but stand on it every time we go. I love it
I can recall ever seeing Blue Sky in any of Tom's UK Videos
Depending on where you look, the sun rises earlier in the western part of the country than in the eastern part.
If the country is long enough in the north/south direction that is.
For example - I currently live in Stockholm (18°15'E) and today the sun rose at 3:30 AM. In Ljusdal (16°05′E) the sun rose at 3:07 AM. That's 23 minutes earlier, despite being further west than Stockholm.
This diminishes as you move further south though, but it's still there. For example, today the sun rose in Grigadale (the westernmost settlement of mainland Britain - W6°11') at 4:32 AM and in Dover (E 1°18') at 4:39 AM.
Yes, but only between spring equinox and autumn equinox (i.e. "summer"). The other half of the year, the sun will rise later and later and set earlier and earlier even if you move east. (Until you get so far north that you will have no sun at all, something the likes of you and I, who live in countries with large parts north of the arctic circle, are used to ;). )
I think you just discovered the world is round! :)
You could probably get an accurate estimate for the Earth's circumference from those readings.
ShamelessHorse
> I think you just discovered the world is round!
No. A round planet doesn't necessarily have this behaviour. This behaviour requires planet to be tilted on its axis.
A Tom Scott video I've never seen before? Impossible.
Every day's a school day with ***** . =) Loving your videos so much, man.
I'm aware of the difference between clock time and true solar time. I think it would be interesting to have a clock that shows true solar time. Timezones just seem so arbitrary, especially with DST. I live in the Netherlands and the timezone here is UTC+1 (UTC+2 in the summer), even though the solar time here is generally closer to UTC!
How did tom get so old in 6 years
Very cool, thanks for sharing!
IF! TIme is defined as noon is when the sun is directly over head(or highest in the sky as the longitude dictates) sundials are correct and its the precision time pieces that get to wiggle about for the not quite 24hr rotation of the earth.
IF! Time is defined as the number of cesium emissions in a vacuum when excited with microwave waves than sundials are still right and precision time pieces need to get over it.
They placed the sundial in a location where it would be in shadow by a known building? That's institutional-level stupidity right there, folks.
Or they built the building after.
@@JimmyLundberg nah, the garden and the stadium where built at the same time, meaning somebody didn't care enough to make sure the sun dial wasn't covered
Also the fact it would only be covered in winter, and they probably didn't plan for the garden to last beyond the summer olympics
@@mickys8065 You put so much money into the Olympic stadiums and surroundings, and you will plan for them to last and have some kind of use after the Olympics are over. More likely, seeing as it's a garden, they didn't expect it to see much use in winter, period, so the issue wouldn't have been important to plan around.
They should have had the building as the gnomon...
@@Great_Olaf5 That makes some sense. Why did they mark the footplate for January and December?
Video: a sundial in Britain
British: *insert british weather joke here*
Which is false, we have no more or less sun than anywhere else.
Who else thinks they should knock down that stadium so that the sundial can indicate 11 o'clock in winter?
I came here from Vsauses new video. This is cool.
I knew Tom when he had 200,000. He got shared on r/videos a while ago and went from 400,000 to 500,000
This is interesting, but I wonder why the RUclips algorithm is recommending so many of your older videos recently.
0:28 Left out the other kind of time, Sidereal Time, that measures how long it takes for the Earth to actually turn 360 degrees, relative to ITSELF, not relative to the Sun, which is not what makes a day by standard clock time or by the position of the Sun. As the Earth moves around the Sun in its yearly elliptical orbit, the position of the Sun relative to the Earth is different each day, measured at the same clock time or when the Sun is highest.
It's weird, and it's only of interest to astronomers, and it's outside of the scope of this video from seven years ago, regardless. But it's something you might not have known!
I would rather call Sidereal Time a measure relative to the Galaxy, rather than relative to Earth itself. Solar time is in some sense more suited to the term "relative to ITESELF" as it partition years according to the Earth axial tilt towards Sun. Year is meaningless without constellation outside Earth as reference point.
We're building a more accurate Sundial , we are painting it with Glow in the Dark Paint so it will work at Night ! :)
I'd love to see the world try the old method, even just for a year, see what happens.
Idk I’d argue that because of the definition of time, the sundials are still the accurate one even if they aren’t the version in use.
Longwood Gardens has a great equation sundial with a different position each day off the year, factoring in leap years.
anyone know where you can buy one of the "digital displayed sundials" mentioned?
So, if you order a pizza on the east coast at noon, you might receive it at 30 past noon or less, at least for the delivery guy.
What kind of tip do you leave if you recieve it before noon?
Here in my Yorkshire village there's a beautiful sundial similar to this but older with miniscule minute markers.
Which village?
@@ajs41 Nether Poppleton, just outside York. I think built in 2000 and it’s fairly hidden
So is there a day of the year when both share the same 12 noon?
+Mike Downs Assuming there that there is a time where one is ahead, and a time where one is behind. Then by the mean value theorem there would have to be yes.
+NWP // NWProductionsHD No not necessarily. That means that there must be a time at which they share the same reading, but there's no reason why that time should be 12 noon.
Robin Hartland this is correct. I misread the question ^_^
How much time ago does "once upon a time" mean?
exactly 2134213421.124 seconds
@@max010113 So 67.675463632800614278 years?
Can't believe they rendered an entire sun to make this clock
The shadow moves clockwise. That's why clocks go the way they do.
No
What do you mean? It's a fact.
Thanks Tom!
I am a sundial. Ordinary words
Cannot express my thoughts on birds.
I am a sundial, turned the wrong way round.
I cost my foolish mistress fifty pound.
I am a sundial, and I make a botch
Of what is done far better by a watch.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)
The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs (1977)
how do i adjust my sundial to deal with daylight savings time?
You don't. The only way that can be done is if the gnomon (the vertical piece that casts the shadow) stays put and you can turn ONLY the flat disk part forward or backward one hour. I built one from scrap wood, a 5 gallon bucket lid, a long screw and a couple of washers where it can be done though. Other than that you just have to mentally do it.
DST is one of the stupidest of all well intended constructs. The human brain can much more easily adjust to a few minutes per day of solar change rather than twice yearly being tossed ahead or behind by a whole hour. Plus having to change all clocks but still doubting all clocks nonetheless. Countries without DST rule.
Can't you use a certain british newspaper?
"Never stare directly at The Sun"
I didn't know there was a sundial in Olympic Park.
Certainly quieter than if you had done the filming in Seven Dials in Covent Garden.
That's really cool!
So Clock Time is an artificial attempt to create the same time for all places in a designated time zone (which are very large). So the reality is that a sun dial will always be accurate for the area in which it is located. How big an area to keep it within one minute?
That's misleading. Sundials tell you what the position of the sun in the sky is. If you were to synchronize a (accurate) clock to a sundial, they would get out of sync through the year and would come back in sync after exactly one year (~365 days and 6 hours). In other words, days are 24 hours on average throughout the year (+/- a few ms) but if you take a particular day it may be off by several seconds. That difference adds up.
Sundials tell you where the sun is (e.g 12 o'clock) whereas clocks tell you the time (how many seconds since X. Because a day is defined as 24 hours, 1 hour as 60 minutes, etc, sundials do not read an accurate time, but an accurate sun position.
At a 45deg latitude, 1 minute is very approximately 20km of longitude. In other words the sun "travels" at ~330m/s, approximately the speed of sound.
Thanks for that Alexandre, I kind of knew that (but not the details), and I guess I didn't think it through. Much appreciated.
Ah, 2014 tom. Can we go back?
I thought the equation of time was the monthly variance in solar noon due to the changes in earth's speed as it gets closer to and farther from the sun - the acceleration and deceleration makes for slight changes in solar noon.
So would hours be shorter during the day in the winter?
The average hour would still be the same length, since the day hours beeing shorter would be compensated by the night hours beeing longer. I guess....
*****
I know that a day would be approximately 24 hours, however are the hours shorter during the day in the winter back in those days. I mean, they used to use 'planetary hours' where they were shorter during winter and longer during summer but I had no idea they actually went with this time.
They would indeed. Chicken is talking about sundials-standardized-to-clocks. When you standardize to sundials, the hours do change in length. The ancient Egyptians even had hourglasses-standardized-to-sundials, with different sizes for the different hours.
Very interesting! Thanks!
December ... England ... what is this "shadow" you speak of? ...
Fascinating
Thank you algorithm for throwing a bunch of Young Tom Scott at me
No the sundial is still accurate, its just that we find that inconvenient. And High Speed travel (and communication) is exactly why we find it inconvenient.
"To put it another way, if we came from down there, and it's morning, the sun would be up there, but if it's actually over there and it's still morning, we must have come from back there, and if that's southerly, and the sun is really over there............. then it's the afternoon."
it's glasses tom
this vid got recommended to me randomly
Purrrrb. Can't stop saying that ATM
Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!
wassup with the glasses tom?
Am I the only one distracted by the stand of Birch trees?
I was also a little distracted by the stand of Birch trees, but pleasantly so. They're beautiful.
imagine being 4ft tall and standing there
Something I may not have known...
can't we just move the sun?
I did know this because my elementary school had a sundial like that! It’s really cool to see a video about it tho!
That's fine but I need to get back to 1985!
Tom, do you have Asperger's? I do.
What makes you think that?
I tried to find the equasion of time by using formulae but no matter what I treid is was always something like t0=d-s.
dude, you cool
I say "noon" when the sun is at its zenit (~13h52 now), and "12 o'clock" otherwise :-þ
Because "midnight" "should" be the middle of the night, and "midday" be the middle of the day (sic)...
why is it 13h52 now? im thick as a brick why have the sundials change
You should be saying "local apparent solar noon"
Your true non will be different from someone that is just a few miles east or west of you. Now imagine how wide a timezone is and it tries to put everyone on the same noon. Then there's daylight savings time and stuff.
Interesting
Neat
Tom, where are the druids robes? Future archeologists are going to be so disappointed. And, you forgot to got to bring a blood sacrifice. I'm so embarrassed for you. 😆
Can i ask? What time sundials is not useful..
Well, nighttime for starters.
What's the point in having a sundial in the UK? From what I've heard of the weather there, it seems a bit pointless.
We have no more or less sun than most parts of the US. Don’t believe everything you hear.
Sundials are still accurate, they're just in a different timezone :)
And then we have things as leap days and leap seconds...
IM SQUINTING INTO THE SUN AAAA
earth is not tilted. the sun moves in its circuits ordained by God.
The sun doesn’t move, the Earth does.
Well, I guess technically the earth isn't tilted as there's no up or down in space, but that would make a tilted orbit. The sun does orbit the galactic center, but we have an explanation for that without invoking a God.
All the bitter people moaning about the uselessness of sundials in Britain should move to the Sahara where they can use their sundials as much as they like.
I thought the title said Socks vs Sandals...
such an old video XD
Thank you for breaking my head
A good sundial not only takes the time of year into account but also the analemma of the sun. that slanted 8 figure the sun is painting ober the year in the sky. also, if you really wanna get nerdy and dirty: Precession ;-)
+DasIllu That is true. Do a web search for "longwood gardens sundial" for information about a very large analemmatic sundial (37.2 ft x 23.8 ft) built in 1939. Some of the search hits will include an interesting story on correcting the sundial in 1978. It is claimed to have a 2 minute accuracy to local mean time.
Er that is actually the whole point of the equation of time and the whole point of the video. "The time of the year" that you have to take into account is the anallema. Precession is nothing to do with it.
@@donaldasayers The analemma shows both the declination of the Sun and the amount of time you have to adjust.
Happy zero day!
Apply the flat earth model to this and boom! It all fits
I surely hope you aren't being serious.
There was one of these at Durham uni, was a terrible idea as they built it surrounded by buildings, so no sun gets to it ever.
Thought he'd talk about entropy and the arrow of time....
Well, if somebody hasn't yet written a program for this, it should happen.
Holy analemma, Batman!
Wait, people still use sundials?
Also I would classify sundials as clocks but maybe that’s just me
All this faffing about with sundials and clocks is why I choose to rely on Time Cubes instead.