one summer afternoon in 1999
sitting alone at the table on Woodwind Farm
my mind set upon the problem of time
especially the dissonance between
humanity's various calendars
and natural/physical process

artificial time keeping is certainly useful
but I wanted to simply see the current state
of these basic periodic processes

• the orbit of the earth round the sun
• the phase (orbit) of the moon
• the rotation of the earth (sun/moon rise/set)

these dials show current state/position
within the context of the whole period
(without confusion of numbers/symbols)

day

the innermost ring is the day (earth rotation)
oriented nadir (solar midnight) at the bottom
the three grey bands between day and night
are twilight (civil, nautical, astronomical)
mark steps: five minutes, one hour

moon visibility (rise/set) is shown by
the thin line around the day dial

day-related data is dependent on location
which is automatically set by the browser
but you can change it manually
(edit the URL?query=string and reload)

month

the next ring is the lunar phase (synodic period)
oriented new moon at bottom
mark steps: one hour, one day

year

the outer ring is the earth orbit
oriented winter solstice at bottom
mark steps: day, week, lunar-period

marks

each mark (indicating current position) is a stepped swath
whose width extends from present into the past
to provide a moving measure of meaningful width
in contrast to a graduated dial face

cyclodial

as this method of display is naturally useful
for showing many kinds of cyclical processes
I am also developing a generalised system
which is prematurely named cyclodial