(urth) Sundial with "multitudinous faces"?

[James Wynn]

>> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> Let me try to explain the same thing as Dan'l and Sergei.  When the 
>> sun is at a
>> certain place in the sky (I mean when Urth is aiming the Citadel at a 
>> certain
>> angle to the sun), the sundial will show a certain time.  A day 
>> later, the
>> sundial will show  a similar time, and 365 days later [*], an even 
>> more similar
>> time.  But if it was morning on Mongo during the first reading, 
>> there's no
>> reason for it to be morning on Mongo at the later two readings, since 
>> Mongo's
>> day presumably isn't the same length as Urth's.

I don't see why this seems unimaginable. The vibration rate of a quartz 
crystal is no less random a time-keeping sequence than the cycle of the 
Urth around Sol. A sun-dial that monitored the time on another planet 
would be extremely complex, and --for civilization that can travel to 
other stars-- more of a curiosity than an object of utility. But there 
is no reason that it would not be possible (as long as the other planet 
had a stable orbit). I don't really think that Wolfe ever considered 
what the various sun-dials monitored. They had symbolic value only.

> Jeff Wilson wrote:
> Is it the same time everywhere on Mongo at once? :)

Obviously this is an issue with any set of synchronized clocks, not just 
sun-dials. Presumably, in the case under discussion, it would tell the 
time a a major city on another planet.

>>> Of course, I might have been taken in by metaphor: They could have been
>>> actually saying that if you travel instantaneously to a distant 
>>> star, you are
>>> moving FORWARD in Time since the star we can see from Earth is some 
>>> number years
>>> ago. Or something along those lines.
>
> Jeff Wilson wrote:
> Since the rate of time's progression is relative, you can't say travel 
> is instantaneous without saying in which frame of reference it is 
> measured as instantaneous. Since other, equally valid frames of 
> reference measure the time between your departure and your arrival as 
> having finite, you can switch over to a frame where it was negative, 
> and do the instantaneous thing in that one, then find one where that 
> was negative, and do it again, etc., and that's how you end up  
> returning before you left.

See? I suppose this is why I get confused when they talk about travel in 
a wormhole being Time-travel. I got lost after your first sentence.

J