Two wheels for every heaven
There is no motor. In a physical Patient Machine every period is a fraction — a wheel and a pinion cut so that their teeth divide the year. These are the fractions we would cut, and how far each one drifts from heaven.
| Body | Sidereal period | Mean motion | Wheelwork · years | Drift |
|---|
Each arm also swings through the equation of centre — the pin-and-slot correction for its ellipse — so Mercury hurries at perihelion the way it should. Beyond that the machine is honest to a degree or two across the centuries. For navigation, consult an almanac. For patience, consult the machine.
Reading the machine
Take hold
Drag any planet. You are not moving the planet — you are turning time, and the rest of the train follows. Mercury runs forty-nine laps for every one of Jupiter's. Drag Jupiter a hand's width and watch it whip.
Set the sky
Give the machine a date — any date between 1600 and 2399 — and it winds itself there. The longitudes are heliocentric, measured from the vernal equinox, computed from each planet's mean elements at epoch J2000.
Let it run
The escapement offers four tempos, from hold to a year each second. At a week a second the Moon still laps Earth every four seconds — a silver bead that refuses, politely, to be patient.
The Patient Machine
Six wheels, six pinions, one Moon, one comet.
No motor. No hurry.