water clock essay

As Old As Time: Ancient Invention of the Water Clock

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Today, the ability to keep track of time seems to be taken for granted. One just simply needs to glance at a watch, clock, or mobile phone to know the exact time, even down to the nearest second. Prior to the invention of such battery-operated gadgets, timekeeping was done quite differently. In the ancient world, for instance, sundials were commonly used. This method of measuring time, however, had its flaws. Sundials would, of course, only function when there was sunlight, and they could not maintain a constant division of time. To compensate for these shortcomings, the water clock was invented. Although no one is certain when or where the first water clock was made, the oldest known example is dated to 1400 BC, and is from the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. 

In the ancient world, there were two forms of  water clocks : outflow and inflow. In an outflow water clock, the inside of a container was marked with lines of measurement. The container was filled with water, which was allowed to leak out at a steady pace. Observers were able to tell  time  by measuring the change in water level. An inflow water clock followed the same principle as an outflow one, i.e. the steady dripping of water. Unlike the latter, the former’s measurements were in a second container instead. Based on the amount of water that dripped from the first container, one was able to tell how much time had passed.   

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Ancient Water Clock of Karnak

The most ancient water clock with tangible proof traces back to approximately 1417–1379 BC, dating back to the rule of Amenhotep III, when it was employed within the Temple of Amen-Re at Karnak. The earliest recorded mention of the water clock is found in the tomb inscription of court official Amenemhet, from the 16th century BC Egypt.

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The Clepsydra of Karnak, now at the Egypt Museum. ( Egypt Museum )

The Karnak Clepsydra was discovered fragmented, crafted from alabaster. Its design resembles that of a sizable flowerpot, featuring distinctive depictions arranged in three horizontal rows on the exterior, along with a vignette portraying King Amenhotep III.

The water clock features 12 carved columns with 11 spaced markings, representing the hours of the night. Water trickled through a minute hole positioned at the center of the bottom, emerging externally beneath a seated figure of a baboon. To tell the time, individuals would peer into the basin, noting the water level and determining the time based on the closest spaced marking.

Introduction to Water Clocks in Ancient Greece

Around 325 BC, water clocks began to be used by the  Greeks , who called this device the  clepsydra   (‘water thief’). One of the uses of the water clock in Greece, especially in Athens, was for the timing of speeches in law courts. Some Athenian sources indicate that the water clock was used during the speeches of various well-known Greeks, including Aristotle, Aristophanes the playwright, and Demosthenes the statesman. Apart from timing their speeches, the water clock also prevented their speeches from running too long. Depending on the type of speech or trial that was going on, different amounts of water would be filled into the vessels.  

Illustration depicting a clepsydra clock, characterized as an automaton or self-regulating apparatus. Upon water entry, a figurine ascends and indicates the current hour of the day. Excess water triggers a mechanism of gears, facilitating the rotation of a cylinder to adjust the hour durations according to the present date. The ancient Greeks and Romans had twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. Due to the variation in day lengths between seasons, summer hours were lengthened compared to winter hours. ( Public Domain )

The water clock, however, was not without its flaws. First of all, a constant pressure of water was needed to keep the flow of water at a constant rate. To solve this problem, the water clock was supplied with water from a large reservoir in which the water was kept at a constant level. An example of this can be seen in the ‘ Tower of the Winds’  which was built by the Greek astronomer Andronikos in Athens during the 1st century BC. Still standing, it is an octagonal marble structure 42 feet (12.8 m) high and 26 feet (7.9 m) in diameter.

Each of the building’s eight sides faces a point of the compass and is decorated with a frieze of figures in relief representing the winds that blow from that direction; below, on the sides facing the sun, are the lines of a  sundial . The Horologium was surmounted by a weather vane in the form of a bronze Triton and contained a water clock (clepsydra) to record the time when the sun was not shining.

The Tower of the Winds was built by the astronomer Andronikos in the 1st century BC and is located at the Roman Agora of Athens. It was a water clock, sundial, and weathervane. (George E. Koronaios/ CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Seasonal Calibration of Water Clocks

Another problem with the water clock was that as the length of day and night varied with the seasons, it was necessary for the clocks to be calibrated each month. Several solutions were employed to counter this problem. For instance, a disc with 365 holes of varying sizes was used to regulate the flow of water. The largest hole corresponded to the  winter solstice , as the day would be shortest, while the smallest hole corresponded to the longest day of the year, the  summer solstice . These two holes were at opposite ends of the disk, with the other holes arranged between them in increasing or decreasing sizes. The holes corresponded to the days of the year and would be rotated by one hole at the end of each day.

Although the fundamental principle of the water is a relatively simple one, there were some challenges related to the physics of water pressure and the changing seasons that the ancients had to deal with, resulting in the water clocks becoming more and more complex over time. When compared to the ease at which we keep track of time today, it seems that we have come quite a long way.  

Top image: Images of the Ancient water clock, the Egyptian Clepsydra. Source: Left;  Archivist /Adobe Stock, Right;  Egypt Museum

Bellis, M., 2014.  The Invention of Clocks .  Available at:  http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa071401a.htm

Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, 2007. Water Clocks.  Available at:  http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0855491.html

Lamb, R., 2014.  How Water-powered Clocks Work . Available at:   https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/sustainable/water-powered-clock1.htm

Mintz, D., 2007.  Timekeeping in the Ancient World: Water-clocks . Available at:  http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Water_clocks.html

The British Museum, 2014.  Fragment of a basalt water clock . Available at:  https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/f/fragment_of_a_basalt_water_clo.aspx

Wikipedia, 2014.  Water clock . Available at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock

The article states that water clocks had to be adjusted as the length of the day changed. Since Modern time keeping ignores the length of the day, doesn't that imply that in ancient times the length of an hour varied throughout the year so there would always be 12 hours (or 12 parts) of day light and 12 hours of night?

Hmmm...weekend diy project....?

love, light and blessings

Frequently Asked Questions

The oldest water clock of which there is physical evidence dates to 1417–1379 BC, during the reign of Amenhotep III where it was used in the Temple of Amen-Re at Karnak.

The water clock was the most accurate and commonly used timekeeping device for calculating the amount or the time that a farmer must take water from a qanat or well for irrigation, until it was replaced by more accurate current clocks.

This tower had many uses during ancient times. It was originally constructed as a solar clock, to estimate time, based on the position of the sun. It was also used for weather indicating and forecasting. The tower features a combination of sundials, a water clock, and a wind vane.

Wu Mingren (‘Dhwty’) has a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History and Archaeology. Although his primary interest is in the ancient civilizations of the Near East, he is also interested in other geographical regions, as well as other time periods.... Read More

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Janice Kamrin Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

February 2017

A hallmark of almost every known culture is some system to track the passing of time. It is thought that, like most agricultural societies, the ancient Egyptians originally organized their calendar according to the cycles of the moon and the agricultural seasons ( 30.4.2 ). Most scholars agree that the Egyptian day began at dawn, before the rising of the sun, rather than sunrise. The daily cycle was divided into twenty-four hours: twelve hours of the day and twelve hours of the night, the latter apparently reckoned based on the movement of groups of stars (“decans”) across the night sky. Beginning in the New Kingdom (ca. 1500 B.C.), there is evidence that sundials, shadow clocks ( 12.181.307 ), and water clocks ( 17.194.2341 ) were used to measure the passing of the hours. There is no evidence that the Egyptians tracked minutes or seconds, although there are general terms for time segments shorter than an hour. The month was organized into three weeks of ten days each, with the start of the lunar month marked by the disappearance of the waning moon.

By at least the middle of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2450 B.C.), and quite possibly several centuries earlier, the Egyptians had developed a “civil” calendar composed of twelve months of thirty days each (360 days), divided into three seasons—Inundation ( Akhet ), Emergence ( Peret ), and Harvest ( Shemu )—of four months each, with five epagomenal days (days outside the regular months) added at the end of the year. Official dates were expressed according to this system, as a specific day within a specific month of a season (e.g., Day 15, Month 3 of the Inundation Season). At least as early as the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030–1650 B.C.), the months had alternative names ( 22.3.522 ) that seem to echo some sort of lunar reckoning.

It is likely that New Year’s Day ( 30.8.214 ) originally was associated with the heliacal rising of the brightest star in the night sky, Sopdet (also known by its Greek name of Sothis or Latin name of Sirius). In Egypt, this star reemerged after a seventy-day sojourn beneath the horizon at about the same time as the first signs of the annual Nile flood that brought the life-giving waters down from the highlands of Ethiopia. The correlation between Sopdet and the New Year is based in part on an ancient text (from ca. 2500 B.C.) that reads: “It is Sopdet, your daughter whom you love, in this her name as Year”; an inscription from the New Kingdom that mentions the rising of Isis-Sopdet on the morning of New Year’s Day (ca. 1250 B.C.); and a reference to Isis-Sopdet from the much later temple at Dendera (late first millennium B.C.), which says specifically that the years are “reckoned from her shining forth.”

Since a true astronomical year has 365.25+ days, the Egyptian civil calendar fell back by a quarter day or so each year. This meant that the rising of Sopdet/Sothis and the seasons of this calendar did not correspond to the actual agricultural seasons for much of Egyptian history. Scholars have attempted to use this disconnect, especially between the actual Sothic rise and New Year’s Day in the civil calendar, which correspond only once every 1,460 years, to calculate when the civil system was first established, but no agreement on this point has yet been reached.

Lunar-based month names, the importance of the heliacal rising of Sothis, the fact that some Egyptian festivals were scheduled according to the lunar cycle rather than tied to specific days in the civil calendar, and some double dates, have led scholars to posit an early luni-stellar calendar that would have operated alongside the civil calendar. This presumably would have been corrected regularly (perhaps by adding a thirteenth month or an extra epagomenal day every several years) to stay in step with the actual astronomical year ( 66.99.73 ).

Although the exact format changes over time, years were for the most part counted according to the reign of a specific ruler ( 10.176.42 ; 09.184.183 ). In Dynasty 1 (ca. 3100 B.C.), each civil year within a reign was identified by important events such as the founding of a temple or the installation of a cult statue, a practice that lasted well into the Old Kingdom (ca. 2649–2130 B.C.). It is also during Dynasty 1 that the germ of a system to number the years by reign appears, in a record of “the first occasion of the Djet (“eternity”)-festival,” probably referring to the first time this festival had been celebrated during the reign of King Djer. By late Dynasty 2 (ca. 2900 B.C.), regnal years were being labeled according to the apparently biennial census of the country’s mineral, animal, and/or agricultural assets. This soon seems to have become the key event by which years were counted: through to the end of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2130 B.C.), years can be named as either renpet zep N (Year of the Nth Counting) or renpet em-khat zep N (Year after the Nth Counting). Scholars long assumed that these counts were always biennial, and that minimum reign lengths for Old Kingdom monarchs could be estimated by doubling the highest attested census. However, recent scholarship has begun to question this construct and to suggest alternatives such as biennial counts that gradually became annual; counts carried out as needed to raise funds for government projects; or counts carried out in years during which a thirteenth month was added to the theoretical luni-solar calendar. It seems likely that annual counts became the rule by Dynasty 6 (ca. 2323–2150 B.C.), but overall, this question remains open.

At some point, most likely during the First Intermediate Period (ca. 2130–2030 B.C.), years began to be numbered according to each king’s tenure on the throne. During the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030–1650 B.C.), these years were counted from one New Year’s Day to the next; the period of time between the new king’s coronation and Day 1 of Month 1 may have been counted as his Year 1, but alternatively may have been left to his predecessor. In the New Kingdom (ca. 1550–1070 B.C.), the regnal count began when the new king took the throne, and years were calculated from one anniversary of the coronation to the next ( 50.6 ) all according to the civil calendar. It is likely that the same system pertained during the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070–664 B.C.). During the Late Period (ca. 664–332 B.C.), the second option outlined as a possibility for the Middle Kingdom was in use: the king’s Year 1 was counted from coronation to New Year’s Day, and his Year 2 began with the new year, so that a Year 1 could last anywhere from a week to almost a year.

Also extremely important in the ancient Egyptian conception of the world was their larger attitude toward time. Inscriptions refer to two kinds of eternity. Linear time, or djet , associated with the funerary god Osiris ( 56.16.2 ), had a beginning and would have an end, albeit in the infinitely far future. Neheh , cyclical time, was tied to the passage of the sun through the sky during the day and the Netherworld during the night ( O.C.81 ). Ideally, an Egyptian who had lived according to the precepts of maat by supporting and maintaining the proper order of a just cosmos, and who had been accorded a proper burial, would live forever ( djet ) and ever ( neheh ).

Kamrin, Janice. “Telling Time in Ancient Egypt.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tell/hd_tell.htm (February 2017)

Further Reading

Clagett, Marshall. 1995. Ancient Egyptian science. a source book Volume II . Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.

Spalinger, Anthony P., 2001. “Calendars,” in Donald B. Redford, ed., The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt . Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 224-227.

Wells, Ronald A. 2001 “Astronomy,” in Donald B. Redford, ed., The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt . Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 145-151

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How did Archimedes's water clock work?

I read that several principles of Al-Jazari's monumental water clocks were based upon earlier designs of water clocks by Archimedes, for example the use of valves, feedback system and flow control regulator. Apparently, Archimedes even wrote a treatise On the Construction of Water Clocks. So what innovations did Archimedes introduce in his hydraulic clock?

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• 3 $\begingroup$ The short answer: it is not known. A treatise of Archimedes if he wrote one, did not survive. There is no descriptions of clocks made by Archimedes, if he made any. The rest is useless speculation $\endgroup$ –  Alexandre Eremenko Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 21:19

2 Answers 2

Jazari is referring to " an Arabic treatise of unknown date and authorship " that describes a monumental water-clock. It is not listed among Archimedes's works in any ancient sources, and according to Hill , most of it was written by several Arabic authors. The "author" is now referred to as Pseudo-Archimedes. Ridwan al-Saati built Jayrun water clock based on the Pseudo-Archimedes's design. He also mentions some Hormuz, who invented a water clock used by his father in the construction of the Damascus clock:“ the design continued in the land of Fars for a long time, and was transmitted from there to the land of the Greeks, and its construction spread out in the land until it was transmitted to Damascus, where it was constructed up to the days of the Byzantines and after that in the days of Banu Umayya, according to what is mentioned in the histories ". For details see Hill's Arabic Water Clocks ,

It is known that a public water clock was erected in Gaza in fifth century AD, so Hormuz might have lived before the rise of Islam, and possibly re-invented the water clock independently. But simple water clocks were already used by ancient Babylonians and Egyptians. A perfected version, clepsydra ("water thief") is due to Archimedes's contemporary Ctesibius (c.285-222 BC), a renowned engineer, the founder of pneumatics, and possibly the first head of the Alexandrian Museum. Unfortunately, none of his works survived to our times, but his inventions are described by Vitruvius, Athenaeus, Philo of Byzantium, Hero and Proclus. A detailed analysis of Ctesibius's work is given in Russo's Forgotten Revolution .

Some modern engineers credit clepsydra as the first automatic feedback device. The problem Ctesibius faced was that the speed of water escaping a container through a hole depends on the water level in it. To make it work for keeping time he needed a container where the water level remains fixed. This is accomplished by a float with a valve that blocks the inflow when the level rises, and lets it through when it falls, a feedback controller in modern terms. The clock involves three containers, the first one serves as a water reservoir, and empties into the second, which has the float with a valve ensuring that its water level remains constant. So the speed at which it empties into the third container is also constant, and a float in the third container will rise uniformly. A pointer attached to it indicates time. See a nice illustration at Lahanas's site .

• $\begingroup$ So how did this automatic feedback device work? I want to understand how it's possible to regulate the flow of water. And by the way, i'm not sure that archimedes didn't contribute to the design of water clocks. Many reference credit him with at least a less perfected clepsydra than ctesibius's, while some credit him with designing another kind of clepsydra. At least he was the first inventor of a feedback system. $\endgroup$ –  user2554 Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:54
• $\begingroup$ @user2554 See edit. The references you mention all have Pseudo-Archimedes's treatise as the source. If Archimedes's work on water clocks existed in antiquity it is likely that Vitruvius, Hero, etc. would have mentioned it along with Ctesibius's. $\endgroup$ –  Conifold Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 0:44
• $\begingroup$ Sounds like the feedback system is an early version of the mechanism in a toilet cistern. Anyone with a leaky toilet which constantly dribbles water into the pan has a Ctesibius water clock. $\endgroup$ –  IanF1 Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 5:07
• $\begingroup$ Perhaps i should change my question - my question is - what are the ideas behind the complicated historical water clocks. According to wikipedia, modern versions of the historical water clock rely on the principle of the syphon. So i ask how to translate it to the mechanical language.In particular, i'm interested to know the inner-workings of al-jazary's "castle clock", which is an early example of programmable analog computer. $\endgroup$ –  user2554 Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 11:05
• $\begingroup$ @user2554 It would be better to ask a new question since it is quite different from this one. Also, a question on detailed inner workings might be a better fit for Engineering SE with a history tag engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/… since this sight focuses on history. But it really depends on the level of detail and where the focus of the question is. $\endgroup$ –  Conifold Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 21:11

al-Jazari (and Ridwan too) explicitly says that Archimedes is the source for several of the components of his clock(s); he also says that one component of Archimedes' clock (the flow regulator) does not work, and proposes a solution where the regulator is a full circle rather than a semi-circle.

The Arab treatise on the construction of water clocks that is attributed to Archimedes describes a clock that is very similar, from a mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic point of view, to al-Jazari's and Ridwan's clocks, so it is very probable that both those engineers based their own designs on this treatise (or on the tradition it is based onto).

Scholars such as Hill believe that the work might have been originally written in Greek, but that the treatise was heavily reworked by Islamic authors; others, such as Drachmann, believe that it might be a compilation of several Greek authors.

More recently, Anette Schomberg recognised the treaty as (mostly) a translation of a treatise on water clocks by Philo of Byzantium; the clock described by Philo, therefore, should be imaged as similar to the Gaza clock described by Procopius, or the water clock described by Cassiodorus, which later were adopted by the Islamic engineers (see al-Jazari Castle clock for a very similar example).

Furthermore, Schomberg recognizes both the clock and the flow regulator in the description of Ctesibius' clock written by Vitruvius: this flow regulator is the same as that described by al-Jazari, so the basic idea should be:

• Philo of Byzantium invents a water clock based on a floater sinking in a vessel that provides the motion for several mechanical, hydraulic and pneumatic automata (including the hour indication). Philo's flow regulator is semi-circular
• Ctesibius improves Philo's clock on a couple of points, including a circular flow regulator
• This clock is know to Vitruvius and some implementations are known to other authors (Procopius of Gaza, Cassiodorus and Boethisu, maybe Teophanes)
• Arab authors translate a treatise that describes Philo's clock (including the semi-circular flow regulator)
• al-Jazari and Ridwan receive this tradition and build several clocks on the same principles; they either receive the tradition that links directly back to Philo (maybe the same Arab treatise we have), and re-invent the circular flow regulator, or they receive Ctesibius' tradition and present this innovation as their own (the second possibility has a higher probability, due to the presence of another of Ctesibius' improvements into al-Jazari's and Ridwan's clocks)

So to sum it up:

What were Archimedes' innovations to the water clock? Probably none, he did not build any as far as we know. What were Philo's innovations to the water clock? He probably built the original one, with all the automata and the sounds, and also wrote the treatise that is currently attributed to pseudo-Archimedes. What were Ctesibius' innovations to the water clock? He definitely produced a better outflow device (Vitruvius explicitly says so) and he probably invented the circular flow regulator. "Ctesibius clock" was, in any major sense, similar to al-Jazari's Castle clock How did the flow regulator work? It was composed by two parts, one to make the inflow to the tank regular (through a cone-shaped floater that matches a cone-shaped spout) and one to make it vary with the day of the year (the semi-circular/circular stuff I mentioned above) What about the syphon in Ctesibius' clock? Very probably never existed, it was probably due to the imagination of Perrault, who produced a lavish and accurate edition of Vitruvius' in the 17th century, but proposed the wrong reconstruction for Ctesibius' clock

Source: Schomberg, A. (2017): "To amaze the world" - A contribution to the shape and mean-ing of the water clock in antiquity. In: Wellbrock, K. (ed.): Schriften der Deutschen Wasserhistorischen Gesellschaft, Band 27-1, Siegburg, 2017, 301-340. (you can find it on academia.edu)

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Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham Essay

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The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham

Ibn khaldun and the rise and fall of empires, introduction to the islamic traditional chemistry, four medieval hospitals in syria, the instrument of istanbul observatory, works cited.

( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 5)

The first simplest water clock was invented in Egypt about 1500BC. This simplest form of clock was known as the outflow clepsydra; it is shown above from different viewpoints.

The water clock had the shape of a cone that narrowed towards its base. The base had a hole that discharged water that was used to measure time lapse.

The later design of the water clock was the inflow clepsydra. The upper vessel of this water clock had a hole and a constant supply of water with an overflow cylinder.

The cylindrical container received overflow water from the hole in a steady manner that ensured its use in the measuring the time passage. Ctesibius developed the first water clock, an Egyptian Engineer, whose water clock had a cylindrical vessel with a float.

A vertical toothed rod was soldered on the lower vessel, such that, with any rise in water level, the teeth of the vertical rod sent audible signals as it meshes with other gears (Hassan 170). Ibn al-Haytham used a tank with a small opening at its bottom; it helped in showing the time.

Markedly, an inflow clepsydra occurs when the tank sinks into another container with adequate volume of water. The invention of the clepsydra might have occurred in the early parts of the 5 th century CE in India; however, the Han dynasty in China adopted the sinking-bowl water clepsydra after Ctesibios era.

This idea of cylindrical vessel with a float was adopted by a number of Muslim Engineers, who replaced the rod with cord attached to the float at the top.

This cord passed through a system of pulleys that activated the visible mechanisms. The design for the control of vessel relied on a famous principle developed by the great scientist, Archimedes.

On the lower outlet of a reservoir, stood a vertical float chamber, with a conical valve on the outlet pipe with a vertically bent down tap. The bottom of the float chamber had a narrow outlet pipe, with the valve plugged on a small float.

In this water clock, whenever, the tap opened, the float chamber received water, thus shortly closing the valve. On the other hand, when water left the float chamber, opening of the valve initiates, and the cycle continues (Hassan 176).

This ensured a steady level of water in the float chamber, resulting into constant speed of the large float as it entered the reservoir (Hassan 177). The float chamber’s outlet discharged into the flow regulator, thus enhancing reading of temporal hours.

This Archimedes clock was however, found to be inaccurate, leading to its modification in Syria, during the Umayyad Times where Ibn al-Haytham, the great scientist constructed a modified mechanical water clock.

Ibn Alhaytham developed the mechanical water clock based on Al-Jazari’s installation design of water clock that used the automata to indicate time lapse. The automata were activated hourly using mechanical birds that released pellets onto the Cymbals using their beaks.

The water clock also used doors that rotated to reveal humanoid robots an as well as varied colours, zodiac circles that contained symbols of moon and the sun in relation to the time of the day as it rotated in a steady manner.

The mechanical water clock also had semi-circular glass discs that were illuminated hourly (Hassan 180).

The first picture shows the entry to the traditional empires. Ibn Khaldun was a renowned Muslim thinker in economics and social theories. His most substantial activity was the Kitab al- ‘Ibar’s section of Muqaddimah that analysed the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The works of Ibn Khaldun were done at a time when the political elite were very wary and strict with people who expressed independent thoughts.

His works was, therefore, noteworthy because it was original in both its organisation and content. His works led to the development of theories of social cooperation and collective solidarity under his infamous Arabic term ‘asabiyyah’ (Alhaytham par. 5).

Ibn Khaldun was privy to the fact that it is difficult to establish a progressive social order if the members of the society are simply egoistic sensible representatives.

He therefore, decided to devote his literary work to come up with a theory that focused on the enhancement of ‘asabiya’ or social cooperation, and factors that are responsible for the fall of social cooperation in our society (Alhaytham par. 8).

Ibn Khaldun philosophy on the rise and fall of empires and states is applicable to the real world situation, especially on the business front. The rise and fall of business organisations or firms, for example the fall and rise of Microsoft Corporation as postulated y Paul Krugman.

It is imperative to note that corporations, just like states, are cooperative enterprises. You realise that business owners like the corporate managers, just as selfish interests normally drive the political elites (Alhaytham par. 3).

Ibn Khaldun’s book thus focused on the sedentary mode of culture as opposed to the primitive culture where one only desired to satisfy his or her own immediate needs at the expense of the rest of the society.

He postulates that the decline of regimes is because the surplus produces in most societies ends up in the luxuries of the few elites. He puts it clear that the luxuries informed the degeneration and decline of major regimes in the world.

Ibn Khaldun’s works on the rise and fall of states focuses on the establishment phase, which relies on the solidarity of the supporters (family or religion). This solidarity enhances the state’s preservation where the ruler tends to serve the interests of his or her people (Alhaytham par. 9).

The second phase of the cycle is the monopolisation of power stage, where the ruler views him or herself as an immovable master. At this point, the ruler breaks ties with people who helped him or her ascend to power. He or she makes new friends who are bureaucrats like him/her.

The third phase is the leisure and luxury stage, where the ruler now seeks to satisfy his private needs at the expense of the wider society.

The fourth stage is the characterised by feeling of long lasting rule. This forth stage is the one that determines the survival of the state, as the society is already discontented with the rule, hence disintegration of the state.

The ruler has purchased support of the military and the bureaucrats disintegrate, thus resulting into the collapse of the state (Alhaytham par. 8).

(Gardenour par. 1)

The picture above shows the cover of early chemists – Geber. The old Islamic chemistry also known as ‘alchemy’ was influenced by traditional philosophy that relied on the chemical inquiry of natural surroundings by the medieval Islamic intellectuals based on Muhammad’s personal capabilities.

This traditional chemistry developed after the fall of the Roman Empire, thus the traditional Islamic chemistry was based on the works of past alchemical scholars from Greek and Egypt during the Abbasid period (Gardenour par. 1).

The Islamic chemistry caused various scientific findings and cultural advancements in the world. The traditional Islamic chemistry led to the advancement in the fields of philosophy, arts, literature, and science. The alchemy relied heavily on mystical powers.

It is therefore, imperative to note that the Islamic alchemists constructed their theories based on magical nature as opposed to relating them to matter and elements, however, these works served both matter and elements (Rahim par. 9).

The alchemist work involved a lot of laboratory work involving use of dangerous chemical at times. “Master Elixir” or the Philosophers Stone was an early Islamic traditional chemistry (alchemy) that was believed to purify one’s soul and body.

It was believed to possess mystical powers to decompose all matter, just the same manner, universal acid does. The metal was later believed to harbour mystical power to convert basic metals into gold or other precious metals. This Philosopher’s stone took the form of liquid, powder, or gel (Thompson 25).

The Islamist alchemists’ studied alchemy from the inquiries of Greek alchemists during the rule of Abbasid Empire; the study was aimed at developing philosophy, mathematics, as well as medicine.

This is reason as to why the Egyptians accorded gold superiority in terms of soul with respect to other metals’ souls, which could improve the soul of other base metals if mixed in slight quantities (Rahim par. 20).

A renowned Islamist alchemist, Jabir b. Hayyan, who is also known as ‘Geber the Wise,’ was the first to carry out a controlled alchemical experiment in a laboratory. He later on wrote a number of books about alchemy.

His works got the attention of the Western world; they got the idea of the Elixir of Life through his works. His works were based in his belief on transformation of metals from one state to another, as well as transmutation (Gardenour par. 4).

The Islamic traditional chemistry made substantial inputs to improvement of techniques in chemistry, as well as unplanned innovations. It is imperative to note that Jabir, discovered nitric acid, sulphuric acid and aqua regia.

Based on his works, the German scientist, Henning Brandt, believed that his urine was the Philosopher’s stone. He went on to discover the metal after steaming the urine. It is important to note that the phosphorus today makes the ingredients of rocket fuel and toothpaste (Thompson 26).

Scientists moved swiftly to prevent experimental and scientific chemistry from becoming a Muslim science; laboratory practical helps in changing one matter from a given state to another state and another product as well.

Experimentation remained the task of Muslims only; the Greeks, on the other hand, stood up for metaphysical analysis and theories on chemical procedures. Al-Razi became to be known as the father of modern chemistry through his numerous experimentation to support the Greek’s theoretical information.

( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 7)

The picture above shows the entry to Arghun Al-Kamili hospital in Damascus. Notably, Damascus and Aleppo are the homes of the four hospitals. The early Islamic era saw the creation of health institutions to serve the ill people. In Aleppo, there is the Nuri hospital that was named after Nur al-Din Zangi (1117-1173).

This city comes after Damascus in terms of size; it lies in northern part of Syria. Aleppo remains the capital of Islamic culture; it marked this in 2006. The vast number of archaeological sites in Aleppo attracted several tourists who had great interest in archaeology and history.

The city also acted as a major trade route, which connected the Roman Empire and Egypt. After witnessing how Aleppo was a major business hub at the time, Nur al-Din Zangi applied his philanthropist nature to support the poor by building the magnificent hospital.

He used to spend much of his finances in supporting the poor in the society. He went ahead to construct the hospital between 1148 and 1155; the hospital was located next to another magnificent project that Nur al-Din Zangi has sponsored – intramural water project.

Nur al-Din Zangi was so determined to ensure the hospital meets its objective of serving the poor; the building was reconstructed numerous times after damages by earthquakes. A structure of complex stone curving is visible above the door of Nuri hospital, as well as Arabic calligraphies on different stones.

Such Arabic calligraphies are common in all the health facilities. These features are visible and intact to the present day. The hospital of Arghun Al-Kamili is the second medieval health facility in the city of Aleppo. Mamluk governor, Arghun Al-Kamili, supported the construction of the institution in 1354.

The facility was mainly made of stones; the entrance to the hospital an up-to-date wrought iron fence – Qinnesreen. Decorations of intricate stones filled the institution, together with Arabic and English writings indicating its name and date.

Arghun Al-Kamili hospital had a wooden door with copper metals, which displayed geometrical Arabic designs. At the top of the door, there are four lines of writings in Arabic. After leaving the metallic door, there is the hospital dispensary and a small room; the additional rooms were for consultation services.

Damascus, on the other hand, hosts the Nuri and Qaymari hospitals. Numerous scholars have frequently not mentioned the latter institution due to its non-strategic location.

The health facility is situated in the interior of vegetable market full of hogwash and garbage emanating from the indigenous merchants; this might be the reason for its negligence.

Qaymari hospital was constructed in 1248; it has a modern marble on the right part to indicate that it was constructed in the 12 th century.

The interior part of the Qaymari hospital has a quadrangular water reservoir bounded by iwans. Iwans are four arched halls. So special was the health facility that it set aside one of its sections for the sick females. River Nahr Yazid was the main water supplier to the Qaymari hospital.

Nuri al-Din Zangi went further to establish another hospital in his name in Damascus, the largest city in Syria ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 7).

The construction of Nuri hospital in Damascus began in 1154 and stopped in 1242. Seljuk style is evident at the entrance of the health facility. Copper and geometrical designs are evident on different points of the structure.

Figures of painted flower motifs, peacocks, and calligraphy are visible from the inside of the facility. A central fountain is located at the courtyard; the courtyard is bounded by numerous rooms. One of the rooms was a library.

Taqî al-Dîn al-Râsid, with the funding of Sultan Murad III, founded an Istanbul Observatory 400 ages back. Istanbul Observatory is located on the European side of Bosporous, and is one of the largest observatories established before 16 th century.

The Istanbul Observatory is comparable to other observatory like Nâsir al-Dîn Tûsî’s Maragha observatory, Ulug Bey’s Samarqand observatory and Tycho Brahe’s Uroniborg observatory ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 12).

The three key significance of an observatory is influenced by the value of the astronomers associated with the observatory, the gracefulness of the observatory and the type of work done in the observatory. Most observatories have devices that are categorised into movable and static instruments.

Nevertheless, according to Taqî al-Dîn, the observable instruments found in Istanbul Observatory are fixed instruments. Tycho Brahe surpassed both Ptolemy and Taqî al-Dîn in the instrumentation field.

From the field of construction and observation with the aid of different instruments or devices, it is imperative to note that Tycho Brahe was one of the great Muslims who developed astronomical instruments hospitals ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 14).

Fixed instruments found in Istanbul Observatory

An armillary sphere.

The Armillary Sphere is an astronomical instrument used to measure the position of celestial objects. It has three sets of rings. The extreme ring is referred to as the Liuheyi that has the Fixed Equatorial, Horizon, and Meridian Circle fused together firmly on a subsidiary structure.

The intermediate one is the Sanchenyi and has four components ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 17). The Siyouyi is the interior set that revolves inside the Sanchenyi about the glacial alignment.

Armillary sphere of Tycho Brahe

A mural quadrant (Libna)

Astronomers used a fresco quadrant, which astronauts use to observe the ascension of the stars and the sun; it measured angles of between 0-90 degrees.

Mural quadrant of Tycho Brahe ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 14)

An azimuthal semicircle

The azimuthal is a device used to measure the stars’ azimuths and elevations. They had a copper ring that signified the horizon and a semi-circle that was at right angles to the horizon ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 10).

Azimuthal semicircle

Parallactic Rule

This instrument was used to measure the moon’s parallax. It has three pieces of wood where the first piece is at right angles to the horizon, the second piece is connected at one end of the first piece while the third one is nailed near the base using a chord ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 8).

Parallactic instrument of Tycho Brahe

( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par 15)

The wooden quadrant

Astronomers do not only measure distance of the sun to zenith, but also ascertain the stars’ elevations using this gadget. It is made up of wooden rulers and forms a quarter of a full circle.

Dioptra is an apparatus used to measure deceptive breadths of eclipses and heavenly bodies, such as comets and meteorites.

The instrument with cords

This instrument measures equinoxes of fall and spring.

This device or gadget helps in measuring the gap between stars.

Sextant of Tycho Brahe ( Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation par. 18)

Alhaytham, Ibn. Scientists and Discovery Series . N.p., n.d. Web.

Discover the golden Age of Muslim Civilisation. N.p., 5 Oct. 2005. Web.

Gardenour, Brenda S. The Development And Diffusion Of Alchemy From Antiquity To The Renaissance . N.p., 18 Nov. 2003. Web.

Hassan, Aref. Technology and Applied Sciences . Paris: Unesco Publ, 2001. Print.

Rahim, Habibeh. Alchemy: Islamic Alchemy . N.p., 4 Dec. 2005. Web.

Thompson, Charles John Samuel. Alchemy and alchemists . Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2002. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2019, June 25). Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham. https://ivypanda.com/essays/muslim-civilisation/

"Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham." IvyPanda , 25 June 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/muslim-civilisation/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham'. 25 June.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham." June 25, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/muslim-civilisation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham." June 25, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/muslim-civilisation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Muslim Civilisation: The Mechanical Water Clock of Ibn Al-Haytham." June 25, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/muslim-civilisation/.

Water Clock

Activity length, activity type, make & take.

All timing devices, from the water clock to the digital watch, operate because of the fundamental principle that a regular pattern or cycle operates at a constant rate.

The water clock, or clepsydra, is one of the oldest tools created to tell time, known to have been in use in 16th century BC Egypt. Some claim that it may have been used in China as early as 4000BC.

Calibrate a timekeeping mechanism.

Per pair of students: 4 clear plastic containers (2 per student) a nail scotch tape stopwatch permanent markers water

Key Questions

• What happens when you remove the tape?
• Is the clock telling how much time has passed?
• Does the water flow out of the upper container at the same rate when it's nearly empty that it did when it was full? Why?
• Poke a hole in the bottom of one container.
• Cover the hole with tape.
• Place the container with the hole inside the other container.
• Slowly fill up the top container with water.
• Get your helper ready with the stopwatch.
• Let it flow! Remove the tape and start the stopwatch. Mark the water level in the bottom container every 30 seconds with the permanent marker.
• Now it is ready to use. Remove all the water from the bottom container. Put tape over the hole and fill the top container with water again.
• How does a pendulum clock work? How is it similar/different than a water clock?
• Could you create the water clock without a stopwatch or clock?
• How would the ancient Egyptians calibrate their water clocks without these tools?

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Ancient Timekeeping

The passage of time has always been a preoccupation of human beings, whether it be a question of satisfying basic needs such as when to eat and sleep, the importance of seasons for migratory and agricultural purposes or a more sophisticated measuring of time into defined periods of weeks, days and hours .

Using Celestial Bodies

The earliest method of measuring time was through observation of the celestial bodies - the sun, moon, stars and the five planets known in antiquity. The rising and setting of the sun, the solstices, phases of the moon, and the position of particular stars and constellations have been used in all ancient civilizations to demarcate particular activities. For example, Egyptian and Minoan buildings were often constructed in orientation to the rising sun or aligned to observe particular stars. Some of our earliest texts such as those by Homer and Hesiod around the 8th century BCE describe the use of stars to specifically determine the best periods to sail and farm, advice which remains valid today.

Star calendars were created in the Near East , and Greek calendars were likely based on the phases of the moon. The Greek Parapegmata from the 5th century BCE, attributed to Meton and Euctmon, was used to map a star calendar and a calendar of festivals linked to astronomical observations survives in an Egyptian papyrus from Hibeh dated to around 300 BCE. The celebrated Antikythera Mechanism , dated to the mid-1st century BCE and found in an Aegean shipwreck, is a sophisticated device which, through a complicated arrangement of wheels and gears, demonstrated and measured the movement of celestial bodies, including eclipses.

The sun continued to be the primary source of time measurement throughout the Classical Period. Indeed, sunrise and sunset determined the sessions of both the ancient Assembly of Athens and the Roman Senate , and in the latter, decrees decided after sunset were not deemed valid. Early sundials merely indicated months but later efforts attempted to break the day into regular units and indicate the twelve hours of the day and night first invented by the Egyptians and Babylonians. The origins of the half-hour measurement are unclear but it is mentioned in a 4th-century BCE Greek comedy by Menander and so must have been commonly used. The earliest surviving sundial dates from Delos in the 3rd century BCE.

From Hellenistic times the measurement of time became ever more precise and sundials became more accurate as a result of a greater understanding of angles and the effect of changing locations, in particular latitude. Sundials came in one of four types: hemispherical, cylindrical, conical, and planar (horizontal and vertical) and were usually made in stone with a concave surface marked out. A gnomon cast a shadow on the surface of the dial or more rarely, the sun shone through a hole and so created a spot on the dial. In the Roman Empire , portable sundials became popular, some with changeable discs to compensate for changes in location. Public sundials were present in all major towns and their popularity is evidenced not only in archaeological finds - 25 from Delos and 35 from Pompeii alone - but also in references in Greek drama and Roman literature . There is even a famous joke on the subject attributed to Emperor Trajan , who, when noticing the size of someone's nose, quipped: "If you put your nose facing the sun and open your mouth wide, you'll show all the passerby the time of day" ( Anthologia Palatina 11.418). By Late Antiquity (c. 400 to 600 CE) highly sophisticated portable sundials were produced which could be adjusted to as many as 16 different locations.

Water Devices

Time measuring devices were also invented which used water. Perhaps evolving from earlier oil lamps, which were known to burn for a set period of time with a defined quantity of oil, the early so-called water-clocks released a specified quantity of water from one container to another, taking a particular time to do so. Perhaps the earliest came from Egypt around 1600 BCE, although they may have borrowed the idea from the Babylonians. The Greeks used such a device (a klepsydra ) in Athenian law courts and it determined how long a single speech could last: approximately six minutes.

The Greek and Roman army also used water-clocks to measure shift-work, for example, night watches. More sophisticated water-clocks were developed which poured water into the device thereby raising a floating drum and consequently turning a cog whose regulated movement could be measured. The first such clocks are attributed to Ctesibius around 280 BCE and Archimedes is largely credited with developing the device to achieve greater accuracy. Large public water-clocks were also common and often measured a whole day, for example in the 4th century BCE agora of Athens there was such a clock which contained 1000 litres of water. The 2nd-century BCE Tower of the Winds in Athens, built by Andronicus, also contained a large water-clock and no less than nine sundials on its outer walls.

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Bibliography

• Cline, E.H. The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford University Press, USA, 2012.
• Kotsanas, K. The inventions of the ancient Greeks. Kostas Kotsanas, 2012.
• Oleson, J.P. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World [Paperback].. Oxford University Press, USA, 2012.
• Vitruvius. On Architecture. Penguin, London, 2009

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Cartwright, M. (2012, August 30). Ancient Timekeeping . World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Timekeeping/

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Water Clocks

Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn't depend on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of Amenhotep I , buried around 1500 B.C. Later named clepsydras (“water thief”) by the Greeks, who began using them about 325 B.C., these were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. Other clepsydras were cylindrical or bowl-shaped containers designed to slowly fill with water coming in at a constant rate. Markings on the inside surfaces measured the passage of “hours” as the water level reached them. These clocks were used to determine hours at night, but may have been used in daylight as well. Another version consisted of a metal bowl with a hole in the bottom; when placed in a container of water the bowl would fill and sink in a certain time. These were still in use in North Africa this century.

More elaborate and impressive mechanized water clocks were developed between 100 B.C. and 500 A.D. by Greek and Roman horologists and astronomers . The added complexity was aimed at making the flow more constant by regulating the pressure, and at providing fancier displays of the passage of time. Some water clocks rang bells and gongs, others opened doors and windows to show little figures of people, or moved pointers, dials, and astrological models of the universe.

A Greek astronomer, Andronikos, supervised the construction of the Tower of the Winds in Athens in the 1st century B.C. This octagonal structure featured a 24-hour clepsydra and indicators for the eight winds from which the tower got its name, and it displayed the seasons of the year and astrological dates and periods. The Romans also developed mechanized clepsydras, though their complexity accomplished little improvement over simpler methods for determining the passage of time.

In the Far East, mechanized astronomical/astrological clock-making developed from 200 to 1300 A.D. Third-century Chinese clepsydras drove various mechanisms that illustrated astronomical phenomena. One of the most elaborate clock towers was built by Su Sung and his associates in 1088 A.D. Su Sung's mechanism incorporated a water-driven escapement invented about 725 A.D. The Su Sung clock tower, over 30 feet tall, possessed a bronze power-driven armillary sphere for observations, an automatically rotating celestial globe, and five front panels with doors that permitted the viewing of changing mannikins which rang bells or gongs, and held tablets indicating the hour or other special times of the day.

Since the rate of flow of water is very difficult to control accurately, a clock based on that flow can never achieve excellent accuracy.

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Brief History Of The Water Clock

     Water clocks along with sundials are the oldest time measuring instruments known to man. The clock uses a simple technique where time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out of the object where then the amount is measured.

     The inventor of the water clock is unknown but they have appeared all over the world in different regions with the time of appearance spanning over various times. They have said to been seen in Babylon and Egypt around the 16 th  century BC. Ancient Egyptian water clocks were found in the tomb of Amenhotep I  around the time of 1500 BC. The clocks have also said to been spotted in India and china as early as 4000 BC but some author’s do not agree with that.

     The oldest clocks to have ever been recovered were during the reign of Amenhotep III around 1417-1379 BC and they were used in the   at Karnak. However the oldest water clock documentation were the tomb inscription of the 16 th  century BC and Amenemhet the Egyptian court official identify him as the inventor. The model of these water clocks was simple; they were the outflow type, were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. It consisted of twelve separate columns with gradual markings on the inside marking the hour marks. These clocks were mostly used during the nighttime by the priests to perform the rituals at the right time and were also used during the daylight but not as much.

This is a preview of the whole essay

     The Babylonians however also used the outflow method but their water clocks were cylindrical in shape.  Use of the water clocks was a step forward from the astronomical calculations that were made in order to keep time during the 2000 BC-1600 BC. No water clocks from this period of time survived but the real proof to show their existence lies in writings on clay tablets. The two tablets are Enuma-Anu-Enlil (1600–1200 BC) and Mulapin (7th century BC). In the tablets the water clocks are used to reference to payment of the night and day watches. The design of these clocks was different they did not have hands like the modern watches now and they also did not have notches like the Egyptians did instead they measured time by the weight of the water flowing from it. The volume was measured in capacity units called qa.

      During the 100 BC and 500 AD the water clock received great modifications from the Roman and Roman horologists and astronomers. The modifications concentrated on making the flow of water more constant by regulating the pressure and providing more fancier/creative ways to display the time. These visuals modifications included different sounds ringing, opening doors with little figurines, moving hands and etc.

    All these different cultures from around the world all achieved the same task using different methods because of their cultural differences. All these water clocks achieve a common goal but how to came to achieve that common goal is completely original to each of the different societies. Water clocks dominated time measurement for a long period of time. They were replaced old methods with a more efficient and a advanced way. They were a great and an ingenious invention.  

Category. (n.d.). The History of Sun Clocks and Water Clocks - Obelisks. Inventors . Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa071401a.htm

Water Clocks — FactMonster.com. (n.d.). Fact Monster: Online Almanac, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, and Homework Help — FactMonster.com . Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0855491.html

Water clock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock

Water-clocks. (n.d.). MacTutor History of Mathematics . Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Water_clocks.html

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• Subject History
• Type of work Lab project

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Feedback control in ancient water and mechanical clocks

1992, IEEE Transactions on Education

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Víctor Pérez Álvarez

The invention and spread of the mechanical clock is a complex and multifaceted historical phenomenon. Some of these facets, such as its social impact, have been widely studied, but their scientific dimensions have often been dismissed. The mechanical clock was probably born as a scientific instrument for driving a model of the universe, and not only natural philosophers but also kings, nobles and other members of the social elites showed an interest in clocks as scientific instruments. Public clocks later spread a new way of telling time based on equal hours, laying the foundations for changes in time consciousness that would accelerate scientific thinking.

Antiquarian Horology No. 3, vol. 44

Dietrich Matthes

This article analyses Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings relating to spring-driven clocks including the associated texts based on recent transcriptions. This allows gaining insights into the fore-front of spring-driven clock-making technology in the late fifteenth century. It is being discussed how the challenges of the then still rather new technology were tackled and how the visionary artist developed ideas that were implemented during the following decades and centuries. To this end, interpretations of several of his mechanisms that were not discussed in the context of horology so far are given. Leonardo’s description of spring-making is confirmed by sixteenth- century clocks; differences to eighteenth-century practices are discussed.

This article describes a treatise on clockmaking compiled by an unknown clockmaker in about 1380. It is the earliest known practical clockmaking manual in Europe, and accordingly is of great importance for the history and development of horology. A transcript of the original Old French manuscript is reproduced, a literal translation of the complete text in English is here presented for the first time, and the difficult and often obscure text is explained in a detailed commentary, together with the illustrated reconstructions proposed for some of the various mechanisms. From this old treatise we may infer that the second half of the fourteenth century was a period of intense activity and experimentation in clockmaking in France, that several alternative designs of clock mechanisms had already been developed and were known among clockmakers, and that a relatively large number of artisans were engaged in the new craft of clockmaking.

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The mechanical clock came to the Iberian Peninsula in the first half of the fourteenth century, probably through the kingdom of Aragon because of its commercial and political connections with Italy. The presence of clocks in the medieval Aragonese royal court has been documented, but very little is known of their existence in the Castilian royal court because of the lack of sources. This article examines the history of the mechanical clock and the royal court of Castile from the late fourteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century, drawing on published and unpublished sources collected in various Spanish archives. The most fruitful document dates back to 1504 and contains detailed descriptions of three outstanding domestic clocks, which are given here in an English translation.

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We give an overview of the role of the mechanical clock in the development of scientific astronomy up to the end of the sixteenth century. Specific attention is paid to indication accuracy of clocks for this purpose. We present the earliest currently known watch with a minute hand and with reading accuracy up to 10 seconds as well as the earliest and often overlooked archival note on a timepiece with a seconds hand. Furthermore we calculate and discuss the impact of indication accuracy on observation accuracy. We focus mostly on indication accuracy first, movement accuracy of the clocks is discussed at the end.

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The paper presents and explains the evolution of details design of the clock escapement mechanisms through the ages. As particularly significant, the following mechanisms are emphasized: the crown wheel (verge & foliot), anchor recoil, deadbeat and detached escapements, and their variations – gravity and chronometer escapements, as well as the English and Swiss lever watch escapements. All important geometrical, kinematical and dynamical properties and the influence of these properties on the clock accuracy are explained.

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Society and Politics

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On the 2th October 2017, the Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three researchers who were able to elucidate how the internal, biological clock of living organisms adapts itself so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions. Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) was the first physicist to observe and analyze the phenomenon of synchronization. More precisely, the Dutch physicist and astronomer observed on the 1st March of 1665 that two pendulum clocks which were standing in front of him started to move in phase. He couldn’t believe his eyes and tried to find a mechanical explanation for this spectacular observation “which no one ever would have thought of.“. Initially, he interpreted ‘l’accord merveilleux’ as a kind of ‘sympathy’ but already one month later he discovered the real mechanical cause of this odd phenomenon. In this volume, Dr. Kurt Wiesenfeld explains how his research group has examined synchronization by means of reconstructions of Huygens’ pendulum clocks. In another paper, Dr. Filip Buyse argues that Spinoza was in contact with Christiaan Huygens during the period of his spectacular invention. Hence, the Dutch physicist and astronomer might have influenced and inspired Spinoza (1632 -1677) in his views on the agreement between bodies in the universe. This would resolve Spinoza’s otherwise paradoxical phrases in his answer to Robert Boyle’s question, in his Letter 32 (1665) to the secretary of the Royale Society. Furthermore, Dr. Maxime Rovere argues in his paper that Spinoza might also have been influenced by the physics of oscillating pendulums in his theory of emotions. Christiaan Huygens designed his pendulum clock in 1656 and it was built by his instrument maker Salomon Coster (ca.1622-1659). He patented his sophisticated machine in 1657. However, Huygens was not the first to conceive a pendulum regulated clock. As he reveals in his Horologium (1658), his invention was based on Galileo’s invention of the principle of isochronism. (A principle which is discussed by Dr. Mohammed Abattouy in this special issue.) There is historical evidence that Galileo had already started to do research on the movement of a pendulum in 1603. At that moment he was professor in Padua. In this issue, Fabrizio Bigotti and David Taylor reconstruct and discuss a seventeenthth century medical instrument designed based on the pendulum. This pulsilogium was probably invented by one of Galileo’s colleagues, Santorio Santorio (1561-1636). .....

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Ancient Greece: The Water Clock (Clepsydra) Of Ktesibios

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The Meaning of Time in The Hour Glass

Writings from a women’s prison in the 1930s grapple with philosophical questions on time and life. “The mere lapse of years is not life.”

The Connecticut State Farm for Women was a triumph of progressive reform when it opened its doors to twelve prisoners in 1918. Built on an old farm in Niantic, a coastal village in Connecticut, this early correctional facility made exclusively for women consisted of a few scattered cottages, a vegetable garden, and a dairy farm. “Duties are many and varied,” a woman named Ethel Cooper wrote in 1935, describing a typical day on the farm, “from planting tulip bulbs and roses in our garden to teaching a calf to drink.”

But three surviving issues of the Farm’s internal newsletter—called, evocatively, The Hour Glass —reveal familiar truths about how incarceration, in any guise, distorts a prisoner’s sense of time in ways that run counter to its intended purpose.

The first issue of The Hour Glass was published in November 1935. It’s prefaced with the descriptions of several time-keeping devices, among them a water clock called a clepsydra. Similar to an hourglass, a clepsydra measures time through the transfer of water from one vessel to another. The devices were used in Roman courts, through which they entered common parlance. “To lose water” meant to waste one’s time; meanwhile, the Greeks called the clepsydra, literally, “water-thief.”

One scholar, writing about the clepsydra and other early time-keeping devices, emphasized the quandary of measuring time, a concept without physical substance. One cannot simply “take a little ‘chunk of time’” and put it against a measuring stick, they write. Instead, as illustrated by the clepsydra, “we are forced to have recourse to the measurement of something else .”

The writers of The Hour Glass seem acutely aware of this contradiction in measuring time. In their introduction , they observe that while “the same sands” run through an hourglass, the hours they represent pass “forever.” The writers are referring to the year’s end, and, as they “tear off the last pages of the 1935 calendar,” their outlook is unusual. They don’t express hope for the new year, but rather focus on lamenting time lost, “as we look back over the twelve months and feel how little has been accomplished.”

One could argue that this is a form of apology, repentance for having slipped “down into the easy, dangerous ways which lead to disaster.”

Indeed, we expect remorse from those we imprison. The social scientist and criminologist J. C. Oleson once proposed an intentionally absurd thought experiment: what if instead of incarcerating people, we put them in a “punitive coma” for the duration of their sentence? Prisoners would simply wake to find themselves older, their time, or rather their punishment, having been painlessly extracted. Oleson’s Swiftian proposal reveals what we really want from punishment: not the time itself, but the prisoner’s awareness of its loss.

Still, one could argue that the outlook of the writers in The Hour Glass is not entirely borne from remorse, but also frustration over their inability, lacking that crucial “ something else ,” to measure time.

The Farm was constructed during the early-twentieth-century women’s reformatory movement in Connecticut. A coalition of suffragists and public health activists—alongside the conservative women’s group, Daughters of the American Revolution—argued that women who commit crimes should not be housed in prisons with men, even if the populations were held separately. According to scholar Joanne Belknap, the coalition’s arguments, however benign in appearance, were rooted in sexism . Unlike men, women were incarcerated for offenses like adultery, prostitution and “public lewdness.” Reformers were not interested in challenging the validity of these crimes. Instead, they sought to create prisons that would teach women how to appropriately enact their gender.

The Farm was designed, Belknap writes, to be “homey,” the atmosphere built to encourage those incarcerated to be “good wives and maids.” (The Farm was indicative of many women’s reformatories of the time; Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in upstate New York was once known as the Westfield State Farm. Visitors can still see remnants of the old architecture outside of what is now a maximum-security prison.) To this end, women not only ran a working farm, but a laundry and a hospital nursery, first erected because a number of those incarcerated were pregnant or new mothers. Women also learned to cook and sew, and those who could not speak English took classes in something called “ Americanization .”

On the surface, the lives of the people who were incarcerated at the Farm may seem full and varied, even edifying by the sexist, racist standards of the day, but the writers of The Hourglass seem hesitant to describe it this way. Readers may learn that in 1935, thirty women hand-washed laundry (“lingerie, sweaters, rag rugs, woolen blankets”) for more than 300 people, including officers and locals, or that the Farm canned some 14,000 quarts of fruit and vegetables the same year—but what did their days look like? And how did they feel about them? The writers seem ambivalent about this information, even though many of the headlines suggest that they were encouraged to describe what they did, made, and learned. “Some [girls] have never been taught to sew so are taught there,” Dorothy Bonney reports of the Elementary Sewing Class. Or take poor Alice Coleman. As part of a larger article called “This Work-A-Day World,” Coleman, grasping for a shred of enthusiasm for a required daily activity, writes, “Well folks, here comes the big news all about the cooking school.”

The writers of The Hour Glass were more interested in writing about moments that deviated from their rigorously controlled routine. Their detailed documentation of holidays, for instance, offers some tantalizing insight into their experiences. In a rigid entry titled, “My First Thanksgiving Away From Home,” an author called “A New Girl” gives thanks that the meal was not as bad as she thought it was going to be. Meanwhile, an entry about a Memorial Day celebration notes that the “girls who had babies buried in the Niantic cemetery took flowers and decorated the graves.”

The writers record the wisdom of invited speakers (“Don’t serve time, make time serve you!” advises the notably not-incarcerated guest speaker at the prison, Austin H. MacCormick) and breathlessly recount each Store Day, bringing farmer’s market blogger energy to a 1930s prison commissary. “[A]fter much waiting and hoping, we were to have Store Day,” Thelma Sparrow and Ethel Cooper tell us. Of course, it would be “bedlam” to have everyone shopping at once, they write. A schedule is made but does little to quell the excitement caused by the “main attraction”: needlework, embroidery, and thread. When the day is done, the girls are wistful. “[E]veryone went home with a feeling of elation and the hopes that another Store Day would not be very far away.”

This pseudo-enthusiasm is eerily unchanged five years later, when Catherine C. writes: “At last, the long awaited, much talked of Store Day arrived… The morning was spent in deep thought and pencil biting. The afternoon found us… ‘long of list’ and ‘short of money.’” Woe to the poor new girl, who waltzed into Store Day thinking all the goods were free—her embarrassment outlives her, recorded in the pages of The Hour Glass .

But these recollections, both funny and bleak, are punctuated with cryptic quotations about time, like this one from the nineteenth-century theologian and philosopher, James Martineau, who wrote, “The mere lapse of years is not life.”

Difference and change, St. Augustine argues, are the makings of a life. We measure time in memory, he writes, or more specifically, the “impress produced… by things as they pass… not… the things themselves.” Law professor Linda Ross Meyer uses this quote in the first chapter of her book, Sentencing in Time , to explain how prisoners are “externalized” from time. In other words, the women on the Farm likely saw themselves as existing outside of time as it’s experienced by those who are free, thus their outsized interest in those moments of fleeting contact with it. In a brief essay called, “ Preparedness ,” Ethel E. urges her fellow prisoners “inside” to mentally ready themselves for freedom, using the words “future” and “outside” interchangeably.

The Hour Glass illustrates, subtly, chillingly, that even the most well-intentioned reforms cannot reconcile the central contradiction of incarceration. Those on the outside view “doing time” as active, a quantity of something generated and given to repay a social “debt.” This penal logic, derived from the rule of jus talionis , or “an eye for an eye,” views “offense and retribution,” the Marxist scholar Evgeny Pashukanis explains , as an “exchange.” But this neat jurisprudence ignores the fact that time is not a quantifiable thing that can be generated, much less given. As Meyer observes, “doing time” for those in prison is simply a period to be endured until one is allowed to rejoin time again.

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“Meaningful human life experience,” Meyer writes, requires narrative and storytelling, active “planning toward a future, and reinterpreting a past.” In other words, how can one reflect and grow if one cannot actively engage in time? The reformers who built the Farm had hoped to create meaningful life experiences for their prisoners, but these rehabilitative efforts, even when they brought some pleasure or pride, were experienced as their own form of control—and over the years, control has emerged as its central aspect.

The remaining issues of The Hour Glass appear to readers nearly 100 years later as relics. The first issue includes simple hand drawings and typeset fading into yellowed paper. The third issue, from 1940, looks more professional. It also notes that the newsletter’s readership had grown to include prisoners in other facilities in other states, suggesting that the women of the Farm saw their true community among other incarcerated people, not, as was intended, among the people of Niantic. The Farm’s population, in those scant five years, grew as well, fueling (or perhaps, fueled by) rapid expansion paid for with an outpouring of federal funds. In 1940, MacCormick, the aforementioned guest speaker, praised the Farm, as it was still then called, as a “model” reformatory, noting with appreciation that the old wooden cottages had been replaced with “modern fire-proof buildings.” At some point, the farm itself was closed. The facility was renamed the Niantic Correctional Institution, and in 1994, became the Janet S. York Correctional Institution. The state’s only women’s prison, York is built to house as many as 1,500 women.

The feelings expressed by the writers of The Hourglass might resonate with the prisoners at York. Left to watch the clock, an unnamed editor wrote , “the best we can do is try to measure our growth by the feeling of strength we have to face the new year.”

Editor’s Note: This article was edited to add missing punctuation.

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Water Clock Easy STEM Activity

I love these simple STEM builds that tie into books. They make fantastic classroom projects, plus they teach valuable lessons. This Water Clock STEM activity is a powerhouse of learning in one simple project. Kids will learn about history, math, engineering, timekeeping and more. Check out this water clock project for your next lesson.

How to Build a Water Clock

What you will discover in this article!

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The History of Water Clocks

Water clocks are one of the oldest time measuring systems. It is so old, the origins and original creators of the water clock are not known. Evidence of water clocks has been found in Ancient Egypt, with specimens discovered in Egypt that date from the 14th century BC., however some historians believe water clocks have been used in China as far back as 4000 BC.

Up until pendulum clocks became common in the 17th century, water clocks were used around the world and in almost every culture. With many innovations and developments making them more accurate over time.

AKA Clepsydra

The water clock was traditionally known as a clepsydra . This ancient device was used to measure time by the gradual flow of water. The interesting part of clepsydras is that they have been used by so many cultures around the world.

One form, used in North America by the North American Indians and some African peoples, consisted of a small boat or floating vessel that lost water through a hole until it sank.

In another form of water clock, a vessel was filled with water that was allowed to escape through a hole, and the time was read from graduated lines on the interior measuring the level of the remaining water. This was a more precise measurement rather than the all or nothing of the sinking model.

The ancient Greeks built many of these devices, as did the Romans. The Romans invented a clepsydra consisting of a cylinder into which water dripped from a reservoir. A float provided readings against a scale or markings on the cylinder wall. Both of these cultures made clocks that used gears and depended on water pressure. They also added mechanisms such as bells to sound at assigned “times” and other mechanical features that made the clocks much more complex than earlier creations.

Clepsydras were used for many purposes, just as we keep time today for many reasons. We know in history they were used for things like timing the speeches of orators, or to set a time limit in court. We also know that astronomers, like Galileo, used a mercury clepsydra to time his experiments in the 16th century.

How Water Clocks Work

As the most basic level there are two types of water clocks: one measures time using inflow, the other measures outflow.

Put simply, inflow water clocks involve collecting water at a constant rate into a vessel with markings to track the passage of time. Outflow clocks measure time by how much water has flowed out of a vessel.

Pretty simple right? But also completely genius!

The best part is that you can create your own water clocks, and this activity is completely scaleable. Make it super simple for younger kids, or increase the complexity to challenge your middle school kids. Either way, all of them will have fun learning with this hands on STEM activity.

The Warlord’s Alarm (Book Study)

The inspiration for this activity came from a book called the Warlord’s Alarm. I love it when we have a good book to tie into a STEM Activity. It gives both the book and the activity greater meaning, which results in a richer learning experience.

I also love that this book is set in Ancient China, which gives us a glimpse into another culture. There have been amazing creations throughout history from cultures around the world. It is always exciting when we can celebrate those achievements and learn from them.

How to Build a Simple Water Clock

To do this activity you will need:

Styrofoam or Plastic Cup Small Bell Small Plastic Lid – a pop bottle cap or milk jug cap works great String or yarn Toothpick or similar for poking a hole Bead (optional) Glass Jar Popsicle Stick Scissors

Many of these supplies could be easily substituted for something that can provide a similar function. This activity is very easy to adapt based on what you have on hand.

Use a toothpick or something similar to poke a small hole through middle of plastic lid and bottom of styrofoam cup.

Cut the string to length. To do this measure the distance from the top of the cup to just above the bottom of the cup. Then add a bit more length to ensure you have enough for tying on the cap and the bell.

Run string through the hole you made in the plastic lid. To secure it, tie bead to one side of string (this keeps the yarn from slipping through) or create a large knot. The goal is to simply prevent the string from pulling through the hole.

Tie a small bell to other end of string. Now measure! You want to make sure the string is short enough to pull the bell off of the popsicle stick when cup is empty. Adjust your knots as required to ensure the string is the proper length.

Now place the cup in top of the jar. Place popsicle stick over top of cup and balance the bell on the end of the string on the popsicle stick, while the lid hangs down into the cup. Hold it in place while you fill the cup with water.

The cap will float while the bell remains balanced on the popsicle stick.

Immediately after adding the water you will notice the water starts dripping out of the bottom of the cup and into the jar and the water level will start going down. When the water drains outs, the bell will be pulled into the cup. The sound of the bell is your alarm.

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Water Clock Project Classroom Lessons

There is so much learning in this one little activity! Plus I love how we can scale it up from this very simple design to more complex projects that will appeal to middle graders. Here are a few tips and ideas to inspire your water clock projects.

First up we are engineering an outflow water clock. In this very simple design we simply know when time is up by when the bell falls and rings.

But we can make this a much richer learning experience!

Ask students to track how much time it took for the water to flow out of the clock. For this I like to use a stop watch.

Each water clock will have a total time that is a little different based on how big you make the hole and how much water you add. You could do an experiment just exploring the speed based on the size of the whole.

Or, explore a little viscosity science by testing different liquids like oil, syrup, etc. and see how much time they take to flow through the clock.

Incorporate some math by having them calculate the flow rate by taking the total amount of water and dividing it by the amount of time it takes for the bell to ring and the water to all flow out of the cup.

Now if we replace the styrofoam cup with a clear plastic cup, ask them to do the math and work out intervals of time on the side of the cup. Have them mark 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, etc.

INFLOW VS OUTFLOW WATER CLOCKS

Or you can create an inflow water clock and mark the bottom cup to track the filling of that clock and the passage of time.

Using this one simple engineering design project, we can do so much more STEM.

Once your kids are familiar with the concept of how water clocks work and the difference between intake and outtake clocks, challenge them to come up with their own unique designs. Or maybe you can challenge your class to create a giant water clock!

So much learning in one very simple STEM project!

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MORE STEM ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

Essay on Clock: A Timekeeper in the Symphony of Life

The clock, a seemingly mundane instrument, plays a pivotal role in orchestrating the rhythm of our lives. From the ancient sundials to the modern digital marvels, clocks have been our faithful companions, marking the passage of time and shaping human activities. This essay delves into the significance of the clock, exploring its historical evolution, diverse types, and the profound impact it has on our daily routines.

Quick Overview:

• The concept of measuring time has deep historical roots, with early civilizations relying on sundials, water clocks, and candle clocks. The mechanical clock, driven by gears and weights, emerged during the Middle Ages. Over centuries, clocks evolved into intricate timekeeping devices, culminating in the precision of modern atomic clocks.
• Clocks come in various forms, each catering to specific needs and preferences. Grandfather clocks stand as elegant heirlooms, wall clocks adorn our living spaces, and wristwatches accompany us on our daily journeys. The diversity of clocks reflects the fusion of functionality and aesthetics in timekeeping.
• The advent of technology has revolutionized timekeeping. Digital clocks, atomic clocks, and smartwatches exemplify the strides made in precision and convenience. Atomic clocks, utilizing the vibrations of atoms, have redefined accuracy, setting the standard for global timekeeping.
• Clocks are integral to our daily routines, guiding us through the structured cadence of the day. From waking up to deadlines, appointments, and leisure, every facet of our lives is intricately woven into the fabric of time. The clock serves as a reliable guide, ensuring order and efficiency.
• Beyond its practical utility, the clock carries profound symbolism. It represents the finite nature of time, urging us to value each moment. The ticking hands of a clock echo the heartbeat of existence, reminding us of the relentless march of time and the need to make the most of every fleeting second.

Conclusion: In conclusion, the clock is more than a mechanical or digital device; it is a silent maestro orchestrating the symphony of our lives. As we glance at its face, we witness the unfolding of moments, the progression of hours, and the cyclical nature of days. From the ancient sundials that marked the passage of sunlight to the precision of atomic clocks syncing with the vibrations of atoms, the evolution of clocks reflects humanity’s quest for measuring time with increasing accuracy.

The clock is an inseparable part of our routines, a steadfast companion in the journey of life. Its ticking hands remind us of the transient nature of time, prompting reflection on the choices we make and the moments we cherish. Whether mounted on a wall, adorning a wrist, or standing tall as a grandfather clock, the humble timepiece continues to be a cornerstone in our daily existence.

In embracing the significance of the clock, we acknowledge its role not just as a timekeeper but as a symbolic bridge between our past, present, and future. As technology propels us forward, the clock remains a timeless symbol, echoing the heartbeat of our shared human experience and beckoning us to navigate the intricate dance of time with awareness and purpose.

Rahul Kumar is a passionate educator, writer, and subject matter expert in the field of education and professional development. As an author on CoursesXpert, Rahul Kumar’s articles cover a wide range of topics, from various courses, educational and career guidance.

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Essay on Clock

Students are often asked to write an essay on Clock in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Clock

Introduction.

Clocks are devices used to measure, keep, and indicate time. They have been vital in societies around the world, helping us schedule our day.

Types of Clocks

There are various types of clocks including analog, digital, and atomic clocks. Each has unique features and uses.

Importance of Clocks

Clocks are crucial in our daily life. They help us manage our time efficiently, ensuring we meet our responsibilities.

In conclusion, clocks are an essential part of human life. They guide our daily activities, helping us maintain order and punctuality.

250 Words Essay on Clock

The concept of timekeeping.

Timekeeping is a fundamental aspect of human life, and the clock has served as the principal tool for this purpose. The clock is not merely a device to track hours, minutes, and seconds; it symbolizes the progression of human civilization, marking the transition from sundials to sophisticated atomic clocks.

Historical Evolution

Clocks have evolved significantly since their inception. Ancient civilizations used primitive methods such as sundials and water clocks. The invention of mechanical clocks in the 14th century revolutionized timekeeping, enabling more precise measurements. With the industrial revolution, the advent of electricity led to the development of electric clocks, which were even more accurate.

The Clock and Modern Society

Today, clocks are integral to our daily lives and societal structures. They regulate our routines, from work schedules to leisure activities, and are instrumental in scientific research, navigation, and even sports. The clock’s influence extends beyond practicality, shaping our perception of time and life itself.

Technological Advancements

The 20th century saw the emergence of atomic clocks, the most accurate timekeeping devices to date. These clocks utilize the vibrations of atoms to measure time, enabling precision to the nanosecond. This precision is critical in technologies such as GPS and high-speed data networks.

In conclusion, the clock is a testament to human ingenuity and our quest to understand and measure time. It is a symbol of our progress, a tool that structures our lives, and a device that continues to evolve with our technological advancements. The clock, in its many forms, remains an enduring and essential part of human civilization.

500 Words Essay on Clock

The evolution of timekeeping.

The concept of timekeeping dates back to ancient civilizations, where sundials and water clocks were used. These devices were based on the movement of the sun or the flow of water. However, their accuracy was greatly affected by environmental factors, leading to the development of mechanical clocks in the 14th century. These were powered by weights and springs, making timekeeping more precise and reliable.

In the 17th century, the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens marked a significant leap forward in timekeeping accuracy. By the 20th century, the advent of quartz and atomic clocks brought about a new era of precision, with atomic clocks being accurate to within a few billionths of a second per day.

The Significance of Clocks

Additionally, clocks have been pivotal in scientific advancement. The precise timekeeping of atomic clocks, for example, is crucial for GPS technology, enabling accurate global positioning. In the realm of physics, the concept of time dilation in Einstein’s theory of relativity would not have been conceivable without the precision of modern timekeeping.

The Clock in the Digital Age

In today’s digital age, the traditional clock has been transformed into a multifunctional device. Smartphones and computers not only display time but also serve as personal organizers, reminding us of appointments, deadlines, and other time-sensitive tasks. The internet has also enabled the synchronization of clocks worldwide, facilitating global communication and coordination.

In conclusion, the clock, as a tool for timekeeping, has evolved significantly over the centuries. From ancient sundials to modern atomic and digital clocks, each advancement has brought about greater precision and integration into our lives. As we move further into the digital age, it is intriguing to consider how the clock will continue to evolve and shape our perception of time in the future. The clock, therefore, serves as a testament to human ingenuity and our relentless pursuit of precision and efficiency.

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• Christiaan Huygens

Water Clock Bibliography 1 Pages 360 Words

             Little did Ctesibius know, but he was perfecting a water system that would eventually be used many years later. Although not the exact version, but the overall concept derived from Ctesibius perfections of the Egyptian idea. His one project that we recognize today is the clock. However it was not the typical clock that we think of, but a water clock, clepsydra. This water clock was made of stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. Hours were marked on the sides of either the bowl that received the water or the container from which it flowed. Other water clocks were bowl-shaped containers that slowly filled with water at a constant rate. These were measured in hours according to the level of a float on the water. Another type, a forerunner of the modern clock, contained a wheel connected to a float. As the level of the float changed, the wheel turned to indicate the hour on a dial. The device was used in ancient Athens to regulate the length of orations as well as speeches made in court.              Further advancements/changes that derived from the water clock began with the mechanical clocks of the Middle Ages, these were run by falling weights. Although these clocks were more convenient than the water clock, the accuracy did not change. The accuracy of Ctesibius's water clock was eventually surpassed in 1657 by the pendulum clock of Dutch astronomer, mathematician, and physicist Christiaan Huygens, but the spirit of Ctesibius's clock still survives in the cuckoo clock. It would be difficult to say how we could change or improve the clock since many people have already done so. All the time companies come out with new gadgets to clocks, such as many have cd players on them these days.              Without Ctesibius continuing what the Egyptians had started, the clock would not be what we know it today. Who would have guessed that it could be plugged into electricit              ...

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