Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Water Lantern

 and because today’s my double half-anniversary, it’s also a clock
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A thoroughly modern wall lamp, it mesmerizes with its display of sparkling rings on shining water. A drop falls to the surface every second, and the changing level shows the time.

At the center of the lamp is a circular mirror inclined at 45 degrees towards the front, to show the expanding and contracting rings. Each water drop is 0.02 cm3 and leaves the upper, clear, one-liter tank, via a hole in the mirror, to a similar tank below.

Enclosed at the top is a pump to raise the water twice a day. At both ends are light sources to spectacularly illuminate the oscillating liquid in a programmable, timely, color scheme.

—FarmerJohn, Feb 28 2003

(?) diagram http://www.geocitie...e/waterlantern.html
[FarmerJohn, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

[link]






       Cool. Reminds me of the water trays we used in high school to study waves and reflectiong and diffraction and things.
—dalek, Feb 28 2003
   

       Nice.   

       Instead of a pump however, you could have the mirror silvered on both sides, and make the design elements and mechanics rotationally symmetric. Hopefully meaning that as the reservoir nears the empty state the clock could be spun about an axis like an hourglass. Just a thought.   

       Happy HBDay btw.
—Jinbish, Feb 28 2003
   

       Shirley the hour's scale should be at the bottom and the top should contain the reservoir? Twice a day all the water is pumped back up to the top to begin the 12 hour cycle again...   

       HHBB.
—phoenix, Feb 28 2003
   

       JInbish: What a great thought. Of course the drop feed tubes would have to go between the mirrors. On rotation, the former upper tank's floor would have to slide to become the now lower tank's floor, to achieve and see the ripples.   

       phoenix: I was going to have the hour scale there, but figured that the waves and 12-1 numbering would hinder readability.
—FarmerJohn, Feb 28 2003
   

       [phoenix] are you working this out with a pencil?
—po, Feb 28 2003
   

       Can't believe I missed this one.   

       [fries] Great, or what? This is a very scary sconce.
—minoradjustments, Dec 17 2023
   
      
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