Longwood Gardens - Know-it-all Shadow Tells Time
Channel: GeekaSeltzer
Date: 2008-08-08

In the event you need to know what time it is at Longwood Gardens and happen to be near the Topiary Garden on a sunny day, simply step on over to the sundial at the north end of the lawn and let the all-knowing shadow tell you what time it is. Each day a large wrought iron stand is manufully repositioned over precisely engraved marker dots in order to keep in synch with the sun, since the earth is constantly on the move around the sun. Spaced evenly around the perimeter of the sundial are 24 individual hour indicators where the shadow from the stand can be seen as it advances one silly millimeter at a time, all the way around the entire oval just once each day. In this quick clip, Angelina steps on III, but if you look closely you can see that the shadow is not pointing at Angelina. We can therefore reliably ascertain that it is not 3:00am eastern time as she seems to think. Also, at this latitude there is never any sunshine at three in the morning. But then, visiting from So Cal she may have been suffering jet lag and could have been confused about the time. Anyway, the result of all this ingenious engineering with only one moving part (well technically two if we include the shadow) is an impressively accurate time indication all sunny year long. Notice I said sunny? Funny thing is it's really only useful about half the time, or to be more exact, when the sun is bright enough to render a legible shadow. It has been rumored that the gardens are closed to the public after dark to reduce griping about how useless the gargantuan timepiece is when the Sun leaves town for the day. But that doesn't hold back night visitors from flocking en masse to the seasonal fireworks and fountain shows. And with such colorful splish-splashes shooting sky-high, the soul-stirring musical selections, and all that dazzling glittery stuff blowing up in the sky, the chronic complainers are never actually heard. (Find out what we encounter next in, "Longwood Gardens - UFO Sighting?")