Tuesday 21 August 2018

"DDO Park Archivists" Online Catalogue Launched

Revision history: 

  • 20180822t013000Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded base version. 

A short public-service announcement: 

As I prepare for my envisaged 2018 October permanent emigration from my native Canada to the Tartu Observatory dark-sky compound (in the hamlet of Tõravere, in Nõo Commune, Tartu County, about 20 km southwest of Tartu, in my ancestral Estonia), I and some friends are putting casework archives from the David Dunlap Observatory and Park ("DDO&P") heritage-conservation case into order. We hope to donate the casework archives to one or more branches of government in Canada. The beginnings of an online catalogue for the archive, with also a couple of background essays in already-polished prose (explaining the guiding values of the project, and some of its mechanics) can from about 2018-08-20 onward be viewed at  http://ddoparkarchivists.blogspot.com/

[This is the end of the current blog posting.]

Tuesday 7 August 2018

MUNICIPAL ADVISORY: child hazard at Richmond Hill Public Library now corrrectly managed; thoughts on public art, including precision sundials

The telescope-like artwork, in essence a kaleidoscope without the moving beads,  installed in the rose garden of the Richmond Hill Public Library in the early afternoon of 2018-08-07. My iPhone3 photo, from perhaps a half hour after the installation was completed by the artistic crew. I have rotated the artwork on its azimuth axis into a dangerous position, such as a child might unwisely select when pointing the device at the morning sun during the winter months.  (At that season and time, the sun lies rather low in the sky, in the southeast.) Note the fine cooper detailing, with an open-book motif on the pedestal heat-treated under oxyacetylene; the fine selection of matte-or-similar stainless steel for the tube body; the fine selection of copper rings at sky end and ocular end; and the short-focal-length converging lens, in plain glass, at the sky end.

Revision history: 


  • 20180809T153000Z/version 2.0.0: Kmo added a big update, not only documenting a facourable response from the Town regarding the public-hazard question but also addressing a related topic: might the Town some day commission, as public art from the already-known artists, a -precision sundial? 
  • 20180808T164300Z/version 1.2.0: Kmo identified further aspects of the problem and wrote again to Clerks (appending the fresh correspondence as an "UPDATE"). 
  • 20180808T150200Z/version 1.1.0: Kmo added (1) photo, (2) update regarding municipal response.  
  • 20180807T172800Z:/version 1.1.1 Kmo wrote base version, and at the same time e-mailed his base version to clerks@richmondhill.ca


This starts out as a hasty posting, addressing a kind of civic emergency, but morphs into a rather significant reflection, at my customary "quality assessment" of 4-out-of-5, on high-precision sundials in the context of public art. So scroll down, folks, until you get to the meaty part, on sundials.



OPEN LETTER TO CLERKS, TOWN OF RICHMOND HILL, 
AS clerks@richmondhill.ca,
FOR RAPID FORWARDING  BY CLERKS
TO APPROPRIATE PUBLIC-SAFETY AUTHORITIES

On 2018-08-07 (TUE), around 12:20 EDT or 12:30 EDT or 12:40 EDT, a team of artists finished installing a decoration in the rose garden of the Richmond Hill Public Library Main Branch, in Ontario.  

I discussed the hazard with the artists in a friendly way during their installation, which I stumbled upon through sheer accident (having taken my mid-day coffee into the Library rose garden). Pretty much as soon as the installation was complete and the artists gone, I went out again, inspecting the installation carefully to confirm my suspicions. 

The installation is a device which on a casual glance resembles a telescope, but in fact is identical to a classic kaleidoscope except in lacking the classic kaleidoscope's moving beads. Upon sighting through the eyepiece end one encounters, as with a classic kaleidoscope, a set of mirrors, producing multiple reflections. The view through the eyepiece is beautiful. Still more beautiful is the exterior of the installation - finished, as it is, in oxydized, partly torch-treated, copper, and in black matte-or-similar stainless steel, with an emblematic open book (worked in copper) on its pedestal. 

At the sky end of the device is a converging lens of short focal length. Between the lens and the ocular end (the end opposite the sky end) are one or more diffusing screens. 

Dangerously, the device is free to move through 360 degrees of azimuth, and to be pointed up to an altitude of very roughly 45 degrees. 

The danger scenario is the following: Some child, on some sunny morning or some sunny afternoon, when the sun is rather low in the sky and yet clear of nearby treetops, takes the device to be a telescope and points it to the Sun. The child does not sustain dramatic retinal burns, since (1) the converging lens at the sky end is of short focal length (surely bringing incoming parallel solar rays to a point far in front of the child's eye, rather than to a point within or near the eye), and (2) interposed between the converging lens and the child's retina are one or more diffusing screens. Nevertheless, the child sustains mild retinal burns, as a child might on staring at the Sun for a while through a piece of tissue paper or Kleenex. 

The danger scenario can be blocked (as I pointed out in a friendly way to the artists) by installing restraints, in peg form, preventing the device from moving through a full 360 degrees of azimuth. If the device were allowed to move in azimuth only within 20 or so degrees on either side of North, the danger would be gone, and the artistic integrity of the installation - I reiterate that it is of quite breathtaking beauty - would be unimpaired. 

I gather from the artists that this installation has cost the Town about 7,000 CAD. This is in my judgement money correctly spent. But where were the Town officials who are paid by us, the residents, to consider public safety? The artists told me the Town had been worried about the mechanical integrity of the mounting, fearing that the installation tube could come loose and fall. Although the Town had been right to worry about this (and the worry, as I saw, was duly addressed, with the wielding of a formidable spanner at installation time), the Town seems to have neglected the bigger, purely ophthalmological, problem. 


TOWN: I recommend your replying via the standard blogspot reply interface, so that full public transparency is maintained. My blogging-comment rules, as laid out here in 2006 April,  would be adequately met by a reply giving the name of the replying official, and an e-mail address for him or her, and the simple phrase "writing from Town of Richmond Hill, Ontario". 

********

UPDATE: At UTC=20180807T1902Z, Clerks wrote me as follows: /.../ your concerns as detailed in your email /.../ have been forwarded to senior staff at the Public Library and the Town.

UPDATE: Around UTC=20180808T160740Z, I wrote again to Clerks, as follows:


Coordinated Universal Time (= UTC = EST+5 = EDT+4): 20180808T160740Z


Dear Clerks, with subsequent cc to my blog:


I have now updated http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com with a photo of the problematic artwork at the Richmond Hill Public Library (the subject of our correspondence yesterday, and of a blog posting yesterday under heading "MUNICIPAL ADVISORY: child hazard at Richmond Hill Public Library (telescope-like device capable of pointing to Sun)").

On brooding over this problem at lunch time today, I suddenly notice two things which i should have noticed yesterday, but failed to notice then:

(1) Since the converging lens at the sky end of the tube is of short focal length, and since there seems to be a diffusing screen just behind the lens, there is some danger that the lens could, when pointed at the Sun, form a (in ray-optics terminology "real and inverted")  image of the solar disk inside the tube, close to its presumed internal diffusing screen. If the lens-screen distance is within a millimetre or two of the lens's focal length, the consequent concentration of light on the diffusing screen will be high enough to raise its temperature, possibly to the point of combustion. The design of the device therefore needs to be checked. It will be necessary for the Town to learn the focal length of the lens, AND the lens-screen distance, and to check that the distances are safely far from equal. - Admittedly, if the device can be prevented from pointing to the Sun, with the azimuth-pegging solution I proposed to the Town yesterday (allowing the device to move in azimuth ("left-right", as opposed to "up-down") only within plusminus 20 degrees or so of North), rays from the Sun will never be parallel to the tube, and the combustion scenario will be blocked.

(2) On asking myself today (I should have thought of this yesterday) how the problem plays out in Ward terms, I note to my sudden grief that the problem sits in the ward of Councillor Cilevitz. I don't quite now where this leaves us. Perhaps the Councillor will want to reach out to me, taking this problem in the Town as an opportunity for the meeting which she owes me? - If it helps the Clerks, do please note (a) that I continue to request a meeting with Councillor Cilevitz, in my capacity as a resident of Richmond Hill, as I have already long been requesting; and (b) that the Councillor is formally required to grant my request, since she does meet with other residents of Richmond Hill, and since her oath of office formally commits her to impartiality.

I might further note (c) that I now, without referring SPECIFICALLY to the Cilevitz-Karmo 2014 out-of-court settlement, in GENERAL terms deprecate the idea of civil litigants settling their cases out of court. My legal reasoning for this deprecatory stand is the reasoning set out by jurist Dame Hazel Genn in her 2009 Hamlyn Lectures, to which I refer at http://www.karen-vs-toomas-legaldocs.ca/GNOC____20140505__settlement_schedule_c.pdf.

I would respectfully submit to Clerks that whatever the general merits or general demerits of out-of-court settlements in general jurisprudence, at any rate points "(a)" and "(b)" cannot be undermined by my out-of-court settlement with Ms Cilevitz, and that in general no out-of-court settlement can be used by any Councillor in any municipality as a reason for evading formal oath-of-office obligations (including the obligation to meet with any resident requesting a meeting).

Perhaps you could tersely acknowledge receipt of this e-mail, and in your receipt assure me that you are doing what you in legal and moral propriety are ABLE to do in the matter of Cnclr Cilevitz? I do note that you may not be able to do very much, and that I will therefore have to exercise restraint, good humour, and tolerance in this particular aspect of the Library-safety casework.


Sincerely,


Toomas Karmo

86 Crosby Avenue - 647-267-9566


UPDATE: At UTC=20180808T1740Z,  an official with Community Services, Parks and Recreation, Town of Richmond Hill, sent me a mail with the following key passage:  The artist will be making alterations to the installation to address the possibility of someone looking directly at the sun, through the kaleidoscope. Signage is in place reminding visitors to keep safety top of mind while they interact with the installation.

I replied as follows, raising the idea of a high-precision sundial in our current public-art context:

UNIVERSAL COORDINATED TIME ( = EDT + 04h00 = EST + 05h00): 20180809T1447Z

Dear Ms ((REDACTED)), with also cc to http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com:

Thanks so much for your briefing. The Town and its library have taken
appropriate steps.

It is a pity that this exceptionally fine piece of creative metalwork
is leaving the Library after the end of September.
i would therefore like to suggest now, in a respectful civic spirit,
that thought be given to some eventual PERMANENT
installation in the Library rose garden, along the same general aesthetic lines.

One idea that particularly comes to mind involves a high-precision
sundial. Low-precision sundials abound.
We have one at the David Dunlap Observatory, where I worked from
2006-11-15 to 2008-07-02. High-precision
sundials, however, are rare. As a kid, I did construct one in
cardboard, following instructions from the _Scientific
American_ from around 1963. I think my device was good to plus-minus
five minutes. Might a high-precision
sundial some day be worked in brass and steel by these same artists?

A five-minute precision, although more
impressive than what it achieved by the typical garden instrument
(such as at DDO), is still not impressive.
It is theoretically possible to achieve something better than
plus-minus one **SECOND** (with respect to
official civil time, not merely with respect to Local Mean Solar
Time), if the device
incorporates setting screws that are adjusted by an engineer every
time the Bureau international des Poids
et Mesures, in Paris, tweaks official civil time by proclaiming a "leap second"
(an unpredictable Paris event that tends to occur
not every year, but occurs perhaps once or twice every decade).

A high-precision sundial, somewhere in the Richmond Hill parks and
library system, would put Richmond Hill
onto the map internationally - the tighter the attained precision, the
more prominently onto the global map.

If you are inclined to pursue this line of thinking at some future
time, you can continue to reach me as
Toomas.Karmo@gmail.com (although from 2018-10-31 or so
I am liable to be physically at the dark-sky compound of Tartu
Observatory, in Estonia). A key local contact person, I would imagine staying
here in Richmond Hill over coming years, is Dr Ian Shelton
(DDO Defenders). He for his part would ideally establish a liaison
with the scientifically best-trained
member of the former daytime DDO engineering crew - an electronics
specialist who, being also
mechanics-literate, would be able to exercise the necessary
supervision on machining within the
atelier of the actual artists (checking tolerances with vernier
calipers or micrometer, etc etc).

It occurs to me this morning, as I continue worrying about that source
of intermittent municipal angst
which is Councillor Cilevitz, and in whose Ward the current
kaleidoscope-styed artwork happens
to my alarm to sit, that Ms Cilevitz could take this sundial idea on, working
closely with Dr Shelton. Although she may be upset if I
write to her directly, you could forward this present letter to her,
asking her for her views.

I also note that the artists, having demonstrated their skill in
metals, might now profitably
consider commissions for the PRIVATE sector, by making custom
mid-tower and full-tower
gaming-class computer cases, in a "Steampunk" aesthetic. This has
already been done, somewhere
in the world. But perhaps these artists could take the idea further.
Had I 8,000 CAD to expend, I would myself
commission such a computer case, specifying black glass, black steel,
and patina copper,
in Full Tower, and on the thermal-engineering side demanding water
cooling of CPU and GPU,
with external flow gauge and external water-temperature gauge! ;-) :-)

I add as an Appendix to this e-mail a slab of prose from my 2003
environmentalist manifesto,
"Utopia 2184", laying out my own fantasy of a high-precision sundial
(set, for narrative reasons,
in the Kentish countryside of 2184, with Saint Thomas More serving as
an interlocutor and guide).
My treatment of precession in the Appendix is not necessarily
accurate, though the essence is
okay. (Perhaps I err in implying a requirement for precession
correction in the first-order
terms of the overall precession equation? I can't get my head around
the problem right now.
Still, it is correct that SOME precession correction is required, with
respect to at least the
HIGHER-order terms. Some prof ought to set this as a problem in a
"Problem Set", as in what
I recall was the  UofT AST225H course.)

Perhaps you could also convey this letter to the artists, with my
regards and good wishes?


Sincerely,


Toomas Karmo

((APPENDIX
SOURCE="http://www.metascientia.com/PNNN____lit/BXPI____utopia__chap02.html"))

Ahead of us lay a steadily widening patch of daylight,
the far end of the Yew Walk. England! - with the sun
bright now, and the Saint conversing easily in my own
debased English, as though cheerful enough to shed
the brocaded encumbrances of high Tudor idiom. As for
those other brocaded encumbrances: while he kept his
Holbein robes, they fitted him well in that
subtropical heat, as black and flowing robes
befit some solemn prince in the shimmering sands of Dubai.

'You really must start,' said he - we emerged now from
yews onto a fine open lawn - 'with a look at the Dial.' This
was most unexpected. Did he mean the dial of a television receiver?

But in a moment his meaning was plain, as we followed
the paving through severely trimmed herbs up the
steps on a low terrace. (A scent of sandalwood mingled
there with the English propriety of Lavandula angustifolia.) The
'Dial' was a dial in a sense Newton, or even Erasmus, would have
grasped, a sundial. And verily a sundial worthy of the practical
astronomer's art, a towering instrument in black glass and fine metals,
with many a pivot, many an adjustable parameter. 'The year we set
here, and here the month, and here the day,' remarked the Saint,
pointing to small, exact wheels. The year I knew without requiring further
instruction, through the same kindly inward light that told me it
was the Feast of Benedict. In a moment,
then, I had turned the yearscrew to 2184, the month to 07, the day to 11.

The yearscrew! A great, exquisite brass worm, the first in a train,
its finely pitched thread ultimately slewing the base of the
two-metre-high mechanism ever so slightly on altitude
and azimuth axes to compensate correctly for year-to-year precession.

Precession, I should perhaps add here - all Observatory people
everywhere and in all seasons show off - is that slow, stately gyration
of Earth's axis that makes celestial bodies shift their apparent
positions in our sky, for instance shifting the Sun's spring equatorial
crossing-point by on the order of fifty seconds of arc each twelvemonth,
as the celestial poles ever-so-slowly circle the ecliptic poles.
The effect is, although tiny, relentless. Thanks to precession, native North
Americans living 4000 years before Christ beheld the Southern
Cross from North Dakota. Thanks to precession, whatever humans
may ponder the skies in Anno Domini 16000 are destined to find not Polaris,
but Vega, marking the approximate location of the North Celestial Pole.
The precession circle repeats itself (or more accurately, comes close
to repeating itself) every 25,770 years, and I was much gratified to note
that the Dial was built with a sufficiently ample worm, and sufficient play in
its foundation mounting, to cover a generous quarter or third of that
immense period. If I recall correctly, the gear train allowed even for a
few of the more obscure of the ten or so terms in the full precession equation
(those are terms making it only reasonably, not fully, accurate to describe
precession as a tidy circular movement in the celestial poles):
a small regular nutation, or "nodding", in Earth's axis,
and a steady secular, nonreversing, tidal drag exerted by the Moon,
come dimly to mind.

The work of the second and third wheels was less dramatic,
more homely. Their joint action caused the sunlight to pass through
the appropriate short segment, hardly more than a pinhole, from a
long and judiciously sinuous slit. This little sliver of sunlight, duly
selected for the given month and day, in turn fell upon a black-glass plane
ruled in silver with curving hour, minute, and second lines. The
spacing of those curves
was evidently varied so as for any selected day firstly to reduce
local apparent solar
time to Local Mean (solar) Time - that's LMT, the time told by a fictitious
Sun that crawls along the equator instead of the ecliptic, and consequently
puts an unvarying twenty-four hours between each pair of adjacent noons -
and secondly to convert the LMT of that particular longitude to the LMT
of the zero meridian. (That's the meridian through Greenwich. The
French once did their best to refer the zero to Paris, but of course
Britannia rules.)

Well, as I say, Observatory people do show off when they get the chance.

Both of us stared, entranced, grinning schoolboys once again,
as we beheld the tiny sunlight sliver creep
forward on the fine black plate: 14:56:56, 14:56:57, 14:56:58.
((/APPENDIX))




[This is the end of the current blog posting.]