[time-nuts] Solstice Puzzle

[Jim Lux]

On 12/17/11 10:41 AM, Bill Hawkins wrote:
> "Just read decimal seconds..."
>
> Now that's interesting. It would be like visiting another country that
> uses a different temperature scale. After a while you'd be able to
> relate the numbers to your own sense of temperature. Similarly, you'd
> be able to relate the count of seconds to your sense of time of day.
>
> You'd be the only one on the block (and maybe in your house) that
> could look at the seconds count and know the time of day.

It's like those clocks that read in binary...


>
> There would have to be a reset message from the lowest order block
> when the seconds roll over at midnight. Ah, and a pushbutton to tell
> the low order block to add a leap second at midnight.
>
> Neat puzzle. Has anyone come up with an arrangement that would make it
> useful to separate the blocks? If they are separate, each has to have
> its own power supply. Or you could use RF to supply enough power to
> a nanoprocessor and a liquid crystal digit. Modulate the RF with 1 PPS
> and you can clock the simultaneous change of the digits. Although,
> there is a certain charm to watching the change propagate at some low
> serial message baud rate.


If you used an LCD display, and a tritium illuminator, you could run it 
on a battery for a very, very long time.

Optical sensor or inductive coupling.  Inductive coupling seems 
interesting.. When the block is directly adjacent, it would couple quite 
well, especially with an iron core (and one side could have a ring 
magnet, so the blocks would "stick" together)