Fwd: Sundials, DNA, whatever
Mr. Epstein: Hi! The other month, I was busy building a nice equatorial sundial on the lawn of our villa on St. John. Some photos are attached; I CNC engraved the brass time strip, which is magnetically preloaded against Teflon glide strips in a slot in the equatorial arc. To implement the Equation of Time correction, you just grab a knob near one end of the time strip, and slide it until a wire aligns with the date.
Little St. James is one of twenty-some islands visible from our villa on a clear day. I keep a 110 mm refractor and a 320 mm reflector there, and shortly before we left, I was startled to spot what is obviously a rather large sundial of yours (photo through the 110 mm attached). Very cool! Not quite as accurate as an equatorial dial, of course...
We have a mutual acquaintance in George Church. I have been collaborating with George for some years now re-architecting DNA sequencing systems. The commercialized new "H" sequencer technology is still undergoing its initial shakeout, but we expect it to deliver a 30X whole human genome for well under $500, and to sequence nearly 1e12 bases per day.
I'm curious as to the boxy building on the summit of LSJ. Might it house a telescope? I am in the final figuring stages on a 685 mm ellipsoidal Zerodur primary for a telescope back home. My background is in physics (MIT '75), although I blew off grad school to join my friends on a farm for seven years. I then ran a private tech company, selling it in 1999 to a public firm that was promptly acquired by the goofy-large conglomerate (Danaher) that I'm still a part of.
I keep a trimaran sailing kayak at Coconuts, and would love to sail over some time to check out Little St. James, and "rap" (in the 70's sense). Our next scheduled visits are January 12-24, April 6-21, and most of October. Other dates are flexible, although our villa is rented when we aren't there. If you are up for a get-together sometime, let me know.
All the best,
Kevin McCarthy
Chief Technology Officer
Dover
159 Swanson Road
Boxborough, MA 01719
603-966-7432 (cell)
www.dovermotion.com
www.polonator.org
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Begin forwarded message:
From: "McCarthy, Kevin" Kevin.McCarthy@dovermotion.com
Subject: Sundials, DNA, whatever
Date: December 5, 2012 8:25:33 AM EST
To: "lesley.jee@gmail.com" lesley.jee@gmail.com
Lesley: Would you be so kind as to forward my email to Mr. Epstein? Thanks.