What is a clock?
Clocks are devices that are useful for measuring, keeping, verifying, and indicating time. They are one of the earliest human inventions. A few predecessors to today’s clocks might be treated as clocks, and they were formed on the movement in nature. The job of a sundial is showing the time. This does this job by showing a shadow’s potion on a flat surface. You will find a huge range of duration timers, and a popular instance is called the hourglass. Besides the sundials, the clocks are most probably the most primeval time-measuring instruments. A huge progression happened with the innovation of the verge escapement.
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The History
Conventionally, in horology, a clock was utilized in the place of a striking clock, whereas a clock that didn’t strike the hours noticeably was acknowledged as a timepiece. However, today, this distinction isn’t made. Watches, along with other timepieces that people can carry, are commonly not known as clocks.
A spring-driven clock made its appearance during the fifteenth century. Clockmaking flourished during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. After the year 1956, the subsequent development happened when the pendulum clock was invented by Christiaan Huygens. A huge stimulus for augmenting the reliability and accuracy of clocks happened to be the vital importance of some precise time-keeping. The system of a timepiece with some gears that a spring or a weight drives is known as clockwork. This term is utilized by extension for a comparable mechanism that is not utilized in a timepiece.
In 1840, electric clocks were patented, and in the twentieth century, electronic clocks were made familiar to people. These clocks became widespread with the growth of a small battery-powered semiconductor device.
A harmonic oscillator is acknowledged as the timekeeping component of modern clocks. This is a physical object that oscillates or vibrates at a specific frequency. This object can turn into a pendulum, quartz crystal, tuning fork, or the electrons’ vibration because they emit microwaves.
The Method of Showing the Time of Clocks
Every clock has a distinct method through which it displays the time. The analog clocks indicate time with customary clock faces, and they have moving hands too. A digital clock displays a numeric illustration of time. A couple of numbering systems are utilized in a clock, and they are 12-hour notation and 24-hour time notation. The majority of the digital clocks make use of electronic mechanisms, and they are VFD, LED, or LCD displays. Again, there are present speaking clocks too that cater to blind people. You will also find clocks that cater to the blinds also, and they have displays that people can read by touching. Horology means the study of timekeeping.
Who Invented the Clock, or When was the Clock Invented?
If people want to know the answer to “Who invented the clock?” then they must know that the clocks that they utilize in the present time haven’t been invented in just one go. There were different people who made the minute hand and the hour hand. This way, the growth of clocks has happened in various stages. At a time when clocks were invented, people were habituated to finding out the time based on the fluctuations that happened with water and sunlight.
Today, people run at a clock’s tip only, and so, every person wakes up based on the time. Again, they go to offices, take lunch, and sleep also. In this situation, the question that arises is how people of that period would have managed a regular routine when there was an absence of clocks?
When the clocks were not invented people used to approximate the time just by observing the Sun’s direction. However, if some changes happened in the sky, then the matter used to become stuck. This is the reason when was the clock invented. For this, the credit goes to China. Here, in this country, a person called Su Sang had created a water clock.
Where was the Clock Invented?
Where was clock invented is a question that bothers countless people. In ancient Greece, about 2 and ½ thousand years ago, there were water-operated alarm clocks. In these clocks, the bell used to ring after a specific time, and it happened with the level of falling water. Pope Sylvester II is the person who must be given credit for inventing this clock. He invented this clock in AD 996. In Europe, these clocks were utilized during the 2nd half of the thirteenth century. Besides this, in the year 1288, clocks were installed in England.
Nonetheless, the watch that was created during this time wasn’t a complete watch like we people see it today. Joss Burgi, a native of Switzerland, invented the minute hand in 1577. Before Burgi, in Nuremberg of Germany, Peter Heinlein had made a clock that people could move from one place to another place.
Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, and mathematician made the first watch that people presently wore in their hands. Pascal is also the person who invented the calculator. Nearly 1650 individuals were habituated to walking around with watches in their pockets. Pascal tied the watches with ropes that happened to be in the palms of people, and this made the job easier for them to see the clocks when they worked.
Even in India, efforts were made to invent watches. For this purpose, Jantar Mantar, which is located in Delhi, was constructed at five different places in India. The mission of the construction was ascertaining the time based on the Sun’s direction besides the shadow that the Sun formed.
During the earlier part of the eighteenth century, 5 Jantar Mantar were built by Maharaja Jai Singh II in cities like Ujjain, New Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, and Mathura. All of them were finished between the period 1724 and 1735.
So, it becomes apparent from the description given above that the creation and development of clocks became vital events in history. This has altered the life of the human race completely, and today, people highly depend on clocks. Nowadays, if a person does forget to tie his watch, he would feel that something is amiss in his body.
Some Fun and Unknown Facts about Clocks
The earliest known Huygens-style pendulum clocks are dated 1657. You can see these clocks at the Museum Boerhaave that is located in Leiden.
Big Ben is considered the name of the biggest of the 5 bells that have in the clock, contrary to what people think.
A simple test that involves asking patients to draw a clock’s face is utilized in the form of a screening tool for different kinds of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1787, the invention of the very first mechanical alarm clocks was made, and the person who invented them was Levi Hutchins, a clockmaker.
For keeping the Big Ben clock of London, old penny coins are utilized.
Today, telephone companies possess their own atomic clocks. They help in keeping their computers accustomed to one another.
During the late eighteenth century, the Government of Britain imposed a heavy tax on all the clocks that were in use, and it included the clocks that were in the private homes too.
According to the custom of China, when a person gives someone a clock, then it symbolizes the end of their relationship and even the end of the life of the receiver. In China, a clock is considered one of the unluckiest objects.
FAQs on A Brief History Of Invention of Clocks
1. When were astronomical clocks made?
In the 14th century, the process of astronomical clocks began to start. The astronomical clocks are clocks that have special dials and mechanisms. They work for displaying astronomical information, like the relative positions of the moon, zodiacal constellations, Sun, and at times, major planets too. You will get to see the Prague astronomical clock to be mounted in Prague. This is the earliest but still working clock of its kind. In the year 1410, the mechanical clock was made and installed.
2. What is the power source of mechanical clocks and electric clocks?
In a mechanical clock, commonly, the power source is either a spiral spring known as a mainspring or a weight that is suspended from a chain or cord that is wrapped around a sprocket, drum, or pulley. You can wound mechanical clocks periodically when you turn the key or the knob. You can also pull on the chain’s free end for this purpose.
In an electric clock, the power source turns out to be an AC power line or a battery. When a clock uses AC power, then a little backup battery is habitually included for keeping the clock in a running condition at a time when you unplug it temporarily or at the time of a power outage.
3. What are called candle clocks?
A candle clock is another ancient timekeeping device, and it was hugely used all across the world, from England and Mesopotamia to China. In countries like Tibet and India, time sticks were formed. However, the hourglass arose after some time.
4. When were atomic clocks invented?
The atomic clocks were invented after the Second World War in 1955. These are clocks that use the atoms’ resonance frequencies as their resonators. Atomic clocks are very much accurate in comparison to earlier timekeeping devices, and they are utilized for calibrating other clocks as well as for calculating the International Atomic Time.
