gnomon

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gnomon

(nō`mŏn): see sundialsundial,
instrument that indicates the time of day by the shadow, cast on a surface marked to show hours or fractions of hours, of an object on which the sun's rays fall.
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gnomon

(noh -mon) A device used in ancient times to measure the altitude of the Sun and hence to determine the time of day and time of year. It consisted of a vertical shaft of known height (such as an upright rod or pillar) that cast a shadow of measurable length and direction on a graduated horizontal base. The ratio of height to shadow length gave the tangent of the altitude angle. The term is also applied to the metal projection on a sundial, used for the same purpose.

Gnomon

an ancient astronomical instrument consisting of a vertical column on a horizontal platform. The altitude and azimuth of the sun can be determined from the length and direction of the column’s shadow. The shortest shadow during the day indicates the direction of the north line. In ancient times the gnomon was used to determine the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator and the geographical latitude of locations. In modern times the gnomon finds use only as a sundial.

gnomon

[′nō·mən]

(engineering)

On a sundial, the inclined plate or pin that casts a shadow. Also known as style.

(mathematics)

A geometric figure formed by removing from a parallelogram a similar parallelogram that contains one of its corners.

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References in periodicals archive ?

This paper began with the evidence that da Vinci had a global conceptualization of the world in his youth, and would most likely have encountered Paolo Toscanelli in his role in the leading bottega in Florence working at the Duomo at the same time as Toscanelli's gnomon.

Leonardo da Vinci's world map

For example, the deletion of the G in GNOMON gives us NOMON, which is not an English word.

Derived Palindromes

this is reproduced almost verbatim in "Notes on the Arthurian Myth" 179 and in Gnomon 41-42)

The lost letter: seeking the keys to William's Arthuriad

Once the Vikings had determined the position of the hidden sun, they could have used a specially designed wooden slab called a shadow stick to simulate the shadow of the gnomon based on the angle at which the hidden sun would hit it.

Vikings used medieval compass for navigation even after sunset

3, in which the gnomon is once again pointing to the South Celestial pole, whose shadow is cast onto a plane inclined at 15 [degrees] to the horizon.

The Swallow Park sundials

Es una piramide escalonada truncada, una metafora de la montana, con un lavabo, trono y gnomon en la parte superior, se incluye canales de drenaje como parte de su construccion y se asocio con la iconografia felina.

Tawantinsuyu (the inka Empire) and the inka Provincial Settlement Pattern/El Tawantinsuyu y el patron de asentamiento provincial/Tawantinsuyu (l'empire inca) et le scheme d'etablissement provincial/O Tawantinsuyu e o padrao de assentamento provincial

gnomon, 'guia, maestro'], (4) el instrumento astronomico que permite medir--sin posibilidad de error, pues se trata de una maquina solar precisa--el movimiento del Sol por equinoccios y solsticios--por sus casas--.

Humboldt: en la Nueva Espana: --segunda de dos partes--

On that date, Eratosthenes measured the length of the shadow of a gnomon (the part of a sundial that casts the shadow) in Alexandria.

A sense of place: Tim Radford, author of The Address Book: Our Place in the Scheme of Things, considers how--ever since the ancient Greeks began pondering, studying and measuring our world--geography has been central to millennia of intellectual advances, helping us to answer some eternal conundrums: who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?

It was also a device for calculating time, namely a gigantic gnomon that calculated the hours in a day (vitally important for the daily life of Buddhist monks), the months, equinoxes and solstices in a solar year (useful for ceremonial and ritual purposes), and the much longer cosmic cyclical eras known in Sanskrit culture as yugas.

Alternative approaches to eighth-century Central Javanese Buddhist architecture

La scelta di ristampare in una raccolta di contributi sul romanzo latino una recensione al commento di Kortekaas all'Historia Apollonii (Leiden--Boston 2007), gia pubblicata in Gnomon (80, 2008, 301-307), e discutibile, anche perche alcune sue parti ripetono quanto espresso dall'autore nell'articolo precedente.

Giovanni Garbugino: Studi sul romanzo latino

Primero instrumento astronomico, el gnomon es hijo de las lejanas culturas del oriente medio.

Los filosofos presocraticos: la naturaleza como fuente de experiencia abstracta

Primero, el concepto de ushnu es mas amplio que la sola plataforma e incluiria posiblemente un agujero y sistema de drenaje, ademas de un gnomon (1) como senalan algunos trabajos para la ciudad del Cusco (Zuidema 1980, 1981, 1989, 2009).