The History of The First Clock

The history of timekeeping devices dates back to when ancient civilizations first observed astronomical bodies as they moved across the sky. Devices and methods for keeping time have since then improved through a long series of new inventions and ideas. Sundials and water clocks originated from ancient Egypt, and were later used by the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Chinese; medieval Islamic water clocks were unrivalled in their sophistication until the mid-14th century. Incense clocks, which may have been invented in India, were being used in China by the 6th century. The hourglass, one of the few reliable methods of measuring time at sea, was a European invention and does not seem to have been used in China before the mid-16th century.

In medieval Europe, purely mechanical clocks were developed after the invention of the bell-striking alarm, used to warn a man to toll the monastic bell. The weight-driven mechanical clock, controlled by the action of a verge and foliot, was a synthesis of earlier ideas derived from European and Islamic science, and one of the most important inventions in the history of the timekeeping. The most famous mechanical clock was designed and built by Henry de Vick in c.1360—for the next 300 years, all the improvements in timekeeping were essentially developments based on it. The invention of the mainspring in the early 15th century allowed small clocks to be built for the first time.

From the 17th century, the discovery that clocks could be controlled by harmonic oscillators led to the most productive era in the history of timekeeping. Leonardo da Vinci had produced the earliest known drawings of a pendulum in 1493–1494, and in 1582 Galileo Galilei had investigated the regular swing of the pendulum, discovering that frequency was only dependent on length. The pendulum clock, designed and built by Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens in 1656, was so much more accurate than other kinds of mechanical timekeepers that few clocks have survived with their verge and foliot mechanisms intact. Other innovations in timekeeping during this period include inventions for striking clocks, the repeating clock and the deadbeat escapement. Errors in early pendulum clocks were eclipsed by those caused by temperature variation, a problem tackled during the 18th century by the English clockmakers John Harrison and George Graham; only the invention of invar in 1895 eliminated the need for such innovations.

From the 18th century, a succession of innovations and inventions led to timekeeping devices becoming increasingly accurate. Following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, after which governments offered a prize to anyone who could discover a way to determine longitude, Harrison built a succession of accurate timepieces. The electric clock, invented in 1840, was used to control the most accurate pendulum clocks until the 1940s, when quartz timers became the basis for the precise measurement of time and frequency. The wristwatch, which had been recognised as a valuable military tool during the Boer War, became a symbol of masculinity and bravado after World War I. During the 20th century the non-magnetic wristwatch, battery-driven watches, the quartz wristwatch, and transistors and plastic parts were all invented. The most accurate timekeeping devices in practical use today are atomic clocks, which can be accurate to within a few billionths of a second per year. They are used to calibrate other clocks and timekeeping instruments.

A clock or a timepieceis a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units: the day, the lunar month, year and galactic year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia.

Some predecessors to the modern clock may be considered as “clocks” that are based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with the sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement, which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels.

Traditionally, in horology, the term clock was used for a striking clock, while a clock that did not strike the hours audibly was called a timepiece. This distinction is no longer made. Watches and other timepieces that can be carried on one’s person are usually not referred to as clocks. Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished. The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The mechanism of a timepiece with a series of gears driven by a spring or weights is referred to as clockwork; the term is used by extension for a similar mechanism not used in a timepiece. The electric clock was patented in 1840, and electronic clocks were introduced in the 20th century, becoming widespread with the development of small battery-powered semiconductor devices.

The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates at a particular frequency. This object can be a pendulum, a tuning fork, a quartz crystal, or the vibration of electrons in atoms as they emit microwaves.

Clocks have different ways of displaying the time. The History of The First Clock Analog clocks indicate time with a traditional clock face, with moving hands. Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numbering systems are in use: 24-hour time notation and 12-hour notation. Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays. For the blind and for use over telephones, speaking clocks state the time audibly in words. The History of The First Clock There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by touch. The study of timekeeping is known as horology.