When small talk is your choice of communication, no topic can ever come to your rescue better than the weather. But with the Weather Channel around, your knowledge of natural phenomena and current statistics will only take you so far. You need more. And the one of its kind Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder will provide you with more weather-related data to talk about than youâll ever need. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the authentic sun recorder is the most widely used gadget used by meteorologists till date. First developed by scholar James Francis Campbell in 1853 and later refined by physicist George Gabriel Stokes in 1879, the gadget basically records the amount of sunlight received at a particular place in the whole year.
The recorder features a 4â diameter annealed optical glass sphere which focuses the rays of the sun into a fine point and onto a paper card which makes a line indicating the hours of sunlight received each day throughout the year. The sphere is attached to a solid brass arc which has latitudinal degrees marked on it and the arc in turn is supported on a non-corrosive gunmetal base. The recorder can be displayed on a wooden platform and comes with a yearâs supply of cards which correspond to sunâs behavior according to changing seasons (summer, winter, and equinoctial). Wow! Who would have ever thought that for just $1,999.95, you can avoid bonding with your father-in-law for good!
Source: Hammacher Schlemmer