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Pendulum Clock with Atomic Precision
u19925 writes "Now you can get atomic clock precision out of your grandma pendulum clocks. Here is how it works: There is a camcorder fitted inside the clock which monitors the pendulum swing. It has an atomic clock signal receiver. It compares the pendulum swings with the atomic signal hearbeat. The camcorder also has an arm. If the pendulum clock drifts, then it uses its arm to push or pull the pendulum to make correction." It's not an April Fool's joke, but it is rather impractical.
Now if we could just invent something that would push or pull Grandma when she's not regular enough...
Is this real science, or the results of this year's Rube Goldberg contest?
You never even thought of it until just now.
C'mon, admit it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
okay, the real question is why do this at all?
Geez Batman, how are we going to figure this one out?
Quick Robin, to the article!
There is a growing shortage of people who are familiar with the workings of the large mechanical clocks on churches and public buildings, as routine maintenance tasks such as winding the clocks become automated. Yet they still need to be put forward an hour in spring and moved back again in the autumn without damaging their fragile mechanisms, some of which are 250 years old.
Sweet! Now the 'tick-tock-tick' my grandma hears every day of her life ominously counting down to her impending death can be atomically accurate! Thanks Slashdot!
Our clocks are perfection... Resistance is futile.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
From the article:
The piston will gradually stop the pendulum over 20 swings or so, avoiding any sudden forces. Then, 11 hours later, when it will be 1 pm British Summer Time, the piston will gently set it ticking again
So if lightning strikes the clock at 8:00 am, it will be stopped at 1:00, and no one will be able get their time machine back to the future...
I know lots of things. Most of them are wrong.
Nor is it impractical. As the article points out, it is intended for very old clocks that can have very delicate mechanisms. By automating tasks like daylight savings, they can make sure changes are made gently over a longer period and that there's less opportunity for ham-fists to break things.
TFA also states that because we're talking about historic clocks, they can't go drilling holes into them and bolting stuff on. Hence the Rube Goldberg nature of these non-invasive mods.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Haha, that was a story we tell at Caltech about how we did that to one of our profs. It was a math prof I think.
...Among science students Caltech is the capital of retaliation. A
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:50:47 PST
From: hcate.OSBU_North@XEROX.COM
Subject: Life 3.9 A collection of clean humor gathered on: 16 Jun 88
I got this from the June issue of "Discover"....
particularly satisfying incident in the early 1970's involved a math
professor who annoyed students by his mechanical, predictable
approach to teaching - his lecture notes were straight from his
book. One student got hold of a device that changed the normal
frequency in an electrical outlet to any desired value. He plugged
the classroom clock into it and, over serveral weeks, upped the
speed -first by 10 percent, then 12.5 percent, then 15 percent.
Each day the frazzled professor raced through the tried-and-true
lecture faster and faster, until finally he was reduced to
fast-forward gibberish.
GPL Deconstructed
It's not an April Fool's joke, but it is rather impractical.
Well, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, what's the point of being a geek if you can't do geeky, pointless things?
Ed Wedig
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