A watch dial,
written as text.
A small language describes the rings of a dial. A compiler checks that nothing collides and draws it. Then it goes on a watch.
A dial is a stack of rings, each ring one shape repeated around the circle. You write the rings; the compiler places them, warns when two land on the same spot, and renders the face. What follows are 58 faces built this way, each shown on a rendered watch.
Astronomy
10Eclipses, orbits, a pulsar map, the geometry of a black hole. Each one reads the sky and keeps the time.
The stars of the Plough, where they sit in the sky.
A head and a graduated tail across a field of stars.
A twenty-four hour dial in navy and gold.
Six planets on their orbits under the zodiac.
The Voyager pulsar map, drawn in binary.
Relativistic jets above and below the core.
Moonphase and date under a Roman ring.
Instruments
13Dials borrowed from cockpits, dive computers, radar scopes and slide rules.
An aircraft altimeter with a hundreds sub-dial.
A thirty-two point rose with a red north needle.
An attitude indicator split into sky and ground.
Grave to Presto, with beats per minute.
Fifty ticks over fifty-one, so the pattern beats.
Bearing ring, range rings, and a sweep.
A slide-rule logarithmic scale around a crosshair.
A decimal timer reading hundredths of a minute.
A seismograph trace, ninety amplitude lines.
Complications
2More than one hand wants more than one dial. Regulators and world time.
A regulator with three separate sub-dials.
Twenty-four cities against a day-night ring.
Mathematics
4Prime numbers, the golden angle, the digits of pi, laid out around the hour.
Markers at the Fibonacci minutes, growing in turn.
Sixty digits of pi around the rim.
The prime minutes stand tall; the rest are dots.
Thirty-four seeds placed by the golden angle.
Other bases
10Counting systems that never reached base ten. Base seven, base five, cuneiform, rune and glyph bands.
The Antikythera mechanism in bronze.
An atom, electron shells of 2, 8, 18, 32.
A hexagram in solid and broken rings.
A Maya count in base five and thirteen.
The hours spelled in dots and dashes.
Base seven, counted in tally glyphs.
Ornament
11Woven bands, carved rings, dot work and thorns. The pattern comes first and the time sits inside it.
Concentric dot rings that line up into rays.
Interlocking triangles, a woven textile.
Eight rings of broken arcs, a walkable maze.
A sun cross under eight wide rays.
Radiating wedges in three inks.
Dress
8Quiet faces. Roman and Arabic numerals, a name in serif, room to breathe.
Lace work in fine paired lines.
Engine-turned basketweave.
Didot numerals, small seconds at six.
A pearled minute track in gold.
