Gianni wrote: >The Monofilar and Bifilar sundials can be built with any kind of Time: >Middle Time (Standard), Local Apparent Time, with Italic, Babylonian, >Temporary hours, etc.
Ah ha! I must have misunderstood the issue being discussed. I can see that in abstract terms that we have dials which are - projection of a point onto a surface (perhaps curved) - projection of a line (perhaps curved) onto a surface (perhaps curved) - projection of two lines (perhaps curved) onto a surface (perhaps curved) - other non-projection types, such as the wonderful CD-diffraction dial. If the third class is already known by common usage as Bifilar, then I accept that it makes sense to call the second type Monofilar (even though for me personally the word filar carries an implication of a wire or thread, rather than being a general term for a line or edge). I assume the first class are called Nodal. The other half of the discussion is what to call a dial with a seasonal time adjustment. I though that someone was suggesting that because the existing examples had already been called monofilar then that name applied to the adjustment feature. So a monofilar dial can be Standard, Local , or other hours Upright, polar axial (axial?), or other principal axis Horizontal, Vertical or other dial face planes So the ordinary garden dial could be called Axial Local Horizontal Monofilar, Mr.Singleton's dial is Axial Standard Horizontal Monofilar. The various forms af azimuthal dials are all Upright monofilars. The Wenger dial is a Local Spherical Nodal dial. Am I getting close? Steve
