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28th September 2012, 10:04 PM #1
The Doodson-Légé Tide Predicting Machine
Hi All,
I was just watching "Coast" on SBS, i don't usually but it just happened to be on. They were talking about the tides around Liverpool and how long it took to produce accurate tide charts for the mariners. It all culminated in the late 40's in a marvel of engineering that took over 120 variables to produce accurate tide charts. The small amount of footage shown displayed an amazing amount of work in brass, steel and cast iron.
Unfortunately after a google i came up with very little, this page here: The Universal Machine: The Doodson-Légé Tide Predicting Machine and the National Oceanography Center site here: Dr A.T. Doodson, CBE, DSc, FRS, Hon FRSE - Influential scientists | National Oceanography Centre | from coast to deep ocean
Does anyone know anything else about this rather amazing machine?1915 17"x50" LeBlond heavy duty Lathe, 24" Queen city shaper, 1970's G Vernier FV.3.TO Universal Mill, 1958 Blohm HFS 6 surface grinder, 1942 Rivett 715 Lathe, 14"x40" Antrac Lathe, Startrite H225 Bandsaw, 1949 Hercus Camelback Drill press, 1947 Holbrook C10 Lathe.
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28th September 2012, 10:34 PM #2
me too
Hi Ewan
I watched that show . Yes what a mechanical marvel
They praised nylon but omitted to say that the worlds oceans are now plagued by bits of the stuff that will take centuries to break down .
The little horse drawn Victorian bathing boxes for women were rather novel
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28th September 2012, 11:35 PM #3
Thanks for posting that, a truly amazing bit of engineeering
The most complex real time software I ever wrote had zero inputs and only 1 output. It was to disable/enable a pump system based on tidal caclulations.
The algorithm was basically a calculation based on a large number of sine waves, with different phases and phaseoffsets.... , a little bit like a fourier series with some feedback components If I recall correctly, Just looking at the mechanicals I wonder if it's a mechanical implementation of the same algorithm?
I wish I could remember where the algorithm came from..
Regards
Ray
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28th September 2012, 11:58 PM #4
Hi Ewan,
Well there you go, it was using the Doodson Harmonic Analysis stuff after all...
Here is a link to the book...
http://archive.org/details/philtrans08044568
Regards
Ray
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29th September 2012, 09:38 AM #5
Thanks Ray, I just downloaded the book. I can't promise that I will read it (or possibly understand it) but I once wrote software to control an outfall valve (2 km out to sea) dependant on the tides.
It needed the tide tables downloaded from the maritime website and uploaded to the PLC every 3 months or maybe 6 months, I can't remember. A tide predicting algorithm would have been much better.Those were the droids I was looking for.
https://autoblastgates.com.au
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