MDDM: 65 an extra minute

[Samuel Moyer]

629-9 "As who would not?" Dixon replies. "Five degrees. Twenty minutes out of a day's Turn..."

Here Dixon switches units from Physical Space to Time.  The math is easy...  5 degrees of 360 is 1/72nd of the circle... 20 minutes is 1/72nd of a 24 hour day.  And as Captain Zhang wants to add a quarter of one degree - or 1 part in 20 more than 5 degrees in 360, thus, one more minute.  

629-15 "Or twenty-one minutes, if you add another Quarter of a Degree," twinkles the Chinaman, "Crossing Ohio, as you might say. It was five and a Quarter Degrees that the Jesuits remov'd from the Chinese Circle, in reducing it to three hundred sixty."


We have come to this point to see partially several instruments made by the Jesuits, rather than to see an entire single instrument. A portion of one of the many ornamental dragons upon which the instruments are mounted is very near, so that we are able to inspect details, though of course this is only for decoration and does not show the delicate mathematical accuracy of the instruments. In the court below the instruments made by the Chinese themselves, not only antedate these Jesuit-made instruments by over four hundred years, but are much finer in scientific and artistic workmanship...

The horizon is inscribed with the twelve cyclical characters, into which the Chinese divided the day and night. Outside the ring these characters appear again, paired with eight characters of the denary cycle, and four names of the eight diagrams of the book of changes, denoting the points of the compass, while the inside of the ring bears the names of the twelve states into which China, in ancient times, was portioned out. An equatorial circle, a double-ring ecliptic, an equinoctial colure, and a double-ring colure, are adjusted with the horizon ring. The equator is engraved with constellations of unknown antiquity, while the ecliptic is marked off into twenty-four equal spaces, corresponding to the divisions of the year. All the circles are divided into 365 1/4 degrees for the days of the year, while each degree is sub-divided into one hundred parts, as for everything less than a degree the centenary scale prevailed at that period. I take these instruments to be of great interest, as indicating the state of astronomical science in China at about the end of the thirteenth century."  http://www.boondocksnet.com/china/china_uu100_090.html

629-18 "Bit like the Eleven Days taken from your Calendar, isn't it?  Same Questions present themselves, -Where'd that Slice of Azimuth go?  

... hold this thought, next post coming right up...

sam
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