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The Development of Clocks

Updated: 9/27/2023
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Clocks are timekeeping devices everyone is familiar with, and it is easy to take their ability to show their users the exact time down to the second. However, at one time, clocks weren’t nearly as sophisticated, and didn’t even use the same principles as today’s timepieces.

The sundial was one of the first clocks that was used by many people. By looking at the shadow cast by a sundial’s “styleâ€� – a rod or straightedge that projects from the surface of the sundial. To work properly, the style has to be pointed towards true North, and the angle it has compared to the horizontal surface must be adjusted for the latitude of its location. The biggest hitch is that the Earth doesn’t rotate at a perfectly constant speed. This can throw off sundial time by as much as 15 minutes. Also, sundials show the local solar time unless compensations are made to bring them in line with clock time. Keeping up with Daylight Savings Time changes would require a further realignment of the sundial.

It is no wonder that people kept looking for another kind of clock, given the drawbacks of using sundials. Mechanical clocks had the promise of being able to keep accurate time regardless of the sun’s position, as well as working during all 24 hours instead of just during the day. At first, however, mechanical clocks weren’t very accurate or reliable. Therefore, people would still arrange meetings and other events by using terms like “around lunchtimeâ€� instead of trying for specific times.

As technology improved, the ability to accurately track hours, and then minutes, became standard. These clocks, powered by springs, first appeared in the 1400s. Clockmakers then worked on various mechanisms to allow them to keep time at a constant rate, even as the spring relaxed.

One big development in clock design was the basic concept of using an oscillating mechanism to tick off the increments. This allowed clocks to be much more accurate and reliable. This development, along with other continual advances in design, have made clocks such a workable method for telling time that it’s hard to imagine a society without them.

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