[time-nuts] Gears.....Digital??

[Jim Lux]

Not surprising at all.
It's called an Orrery (After the Earl of Orrery, I believe) and it's not all that hard to do, especially if you approximate with circular orbits and don't try to do ALL the moons or deal with the rotation of the planet itself.

Getting within a fraction of a percent is probably pretty easy with 2 or 3 gear ratios.

The first hit on google says that Tufte's Envisioning Information has the gear ratios. I'll have to check.

The second hit is this, which is quite interesting:
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCOrreryNotes.html


-----Original Message-----
>From: lstoskopf at cox.net
>Sent: Aug 9, 2010 3:48 PM
>To: time-nuts at febo.com
>Cc: time-nuts-request at febo.com
>Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Gears.....Digital??
>
>I visited a house in Holland where the whole ceiling was one great solar system display and the attic a maze of geared mechanisms to control it all.  Supposedly all that needed to be done was to repaint each decade the year plank that moved along counting the years.  Strange that a man would spend all of his non-working life working on such a project, or that his wife would allow it!!
>
>I have some difficulty believing that the discrete number of gear ratios available could give that level of long term calculation, even if the exact ratios were available.  Various sized (analog) pulleys (timing belts of course) would have been easier.
>
>My wife could not understand the brass plates with all of the holes laying on the ancient desk.....
>
>N0UU
>
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