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Clocks Through the Ages
by Hackchen Zahlen
http://www.filmclock.com
There are two main elements that have to be present in any
clock. One of these components is a regular recurring
movement to establish identical increments of time. And
the other element that every clock must have is a way of
keeping track of the increments of time and showing the
result.
In the past, the clocks were made by the civilizations from
the Middle East and North Africa. Their intention was to
maximize the time at hand, so as to successfully organize
the errands, meetings and other activities. In those days,
people used to measure time using annual and monthly
calendars. The Egyptians developed a system of measuring
time, in which a day was divided into parts. This system
used four sided pointed columns called obelisks. These
obelisks were kept at specific locations, and they
projected a shadow with the movement of the sun, which
helped in identifying the different sections of the day.
Thus, they could divide the day into morning and afternoon.
A few years down the line saw the development of a portable
sundial by the Egyptians. Using the sundial, a sunny day
could be divided into 10 parts, and two twilight hours in
the morning and evening. Calculation of the afternoon hours
required the sundial to be turned by 180 degrees. Merkhet
was another time-keeping tool that was used to calculate
night hours. Besides these, several other timekeeping
devices were also developed, in which no celestial body
needed to be observed. Water clock was one such device.
It was made up of stone containers, whose slanting slides
permitted the water to drop at a constant pace from a small
opening in the base.
The passing of time was measured using a scale that
coincided with the water level. After water clocks came
sand glasses, which became quite popular in the third
century. A sand glass was made up of two spherical glass
containers joined by a narrow passage. Sundials found a
wide use in the Middle Ages, while the 10th century
witnessed the development of pocket sundials. After that
came the spring-powered clock, which was developed by Peter
Henlein of Nuremberg between 1500 and 1510. The first
pendulum clock was developed in 1965 by a Dutch scientist
named Christian Huygens. But, this clock had an error of 1
minute per day, which was corrected by George Graham, who
further enhanced the accuracy of the pendulum clock to 1
second a day. Then came the quartz clocks. They were
accurate, and as they could be manufactured at a low cost,
they began to be produced on a large scale. These clocks
gave way to the atomic clock, which came into existence in
1949.
Now we have a number of clocks in the market that include
electric, atomic, digitals, alarm clocks and wrist clocks.
The wrist watch was the invention of the Swedish
watchmaker, Hans Wildorf in 1904. Keeping accurate time is
the backbone of life in modern society because things have
to be organized and regulated precisely on time. This is
the age of perfect accuracy and precision, which leaves no
scope for errors in the calculation of time. No wonder we
have clocks that measure time to the fraction of a second.
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