Twenty to Three

…on the sundial at Prince George’s Garden, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany.

My mobile showed 2.33 pm when taking the picture.

Considering that the sun in Darmstadt is 24 minutes (west) behind the 15th meridian, and according to the equation of time in the beginning of November is 17 minutes ahead of clock time, the true local time momentarily is seven minutes behind the clock.

So the sundial should show 2.26 pm. Obviously the sundial is some fourteen minutes fast. Its “hand” seems to be a bit misplaced.

Former centuries didn’t care about such small errors—and only very few clocks (mostly on ocean ships) would have been exact enough to control the time minutely.