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Stephen Hawking Unveils "Time Eater" Clock
gyrogeerloose writes "Stephen Hawking unveiled an unsettling clock in Cambridge on Friday. Designed by John Taylor — a British horologist and inventor whose thermostatic switch is incorporated in millions of electric appliances worldwide — the clock was conceived as a tribute to another British inventor, John Harrison. Harrison invented the grasshopper escapement in the early 18th Century, which resulted in extremely accurate mechanical time keeping and was instrumental in solving the Longitude Problem. Taylor's clock, which in entirely mechanical in operation but has no hands, uses a fearsome-looking 'demon grasshopper' as its escapement. 'I... wanted to depict that time is a destroyer — once a minute is gone you can't get it back' Taylor said. 'That's why my grasshopper is not a Disney character. He is a ferocious beast that over the seconds has his tongue lolling out, his jaws opening, then on the 59th second he gulps down time.' It also (purposely) only tells correct time once every five minutes. An excellent video of the clock in action, with an explanation of its workings by its inventor, is available on YouTube."
That is one minute of my life I'll never get back.
God spoke to me.
So did Einstein. The quote about time spent with a pretty girl compared to sitting on a hot stove was his answer when someone asked him to explain relativity. Not as good as his explanation of the wireless telegraph (imagine a cat stretched between two cities. When you pull the tail at one end, it makes a noise at the other. Wireless telegraph is like that, but with not cat).
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I'd call it craftmanship, engineering and art all rolled up into one.
Sshhh... You'll wake the editors.
It does appear to use blue leds - But there is no circuitry to control their 'flashing'.
This clock is a masterpiece of mechanical engineering.
The time is displayed with the lights by rotating a series of annular overlapping disks which have slots in them. The slots are precisely engineered in a "vernier" fashion, so they don't all line up at once, but only as the clock very subtly moves. There isn't a "seconds" hand, rather there is a "hand" that seems to rotate around the entire clock once per second, and it purely shows the rotation of the fastest outer annulus, with which the grasshopper escarpment engages.
The thing is, if this were purely "art" then it wouldn't work.
You're forgetting that all technologies are "art".
The defining feature that makes such things be labelled as tech rather than art is that tech works.
Tech doesn't just refer to "electronic". In fact if this clock were electronic, it would be one hell of a lot less impressive.
This clock works, (perhaps with a "bug" or two...) therefore it is tech. It doesn't "cop out" and use cheap and easy electronics, therefore it is impressive. It's designer shows he can make mechanical assemblies with such precision that it's dynamic motion can be used to keep time - a skill which is becoming rapidly lost with our current state of cheap electronics from China.
Is is Important Tech? Perhaps not, unless some circumstance conspires to require precise timekeeping in say an environment where electronics dare not go. Maybe some day we might need clocks that work near a lot of high energy ionising radiation, who knows.
Who tagged this "technology"? This is 100% art.
I disagree -- this is definitely Technology as well as Art. There's no reason it has to be only one or the other. Besides, the ancient Greeks felt all technology was art. The word "technology" itself comes from the Greek root "techne" which means art or skill.
Not all technology is computers and transistors. Technology has existed and improved throughout the ages, from the ability to make fire and work with tools to the creation of the wheel. Clocks and geared mechanisms certainly make for interesting technology from large computers such as Babbage's Difference Engine to portable devices such as the Antikythera mechanism.
It would be possible to even have "modern" technology without transistors although perhaps it wouldn't be the same as the high tech steam powered science of the Steampunk Genre.
But it says that it doesn't have hands - it has LEDs all around it... I think that's pretty much the same thing, no?
Sort of. The inventor is still accurate in saying that it doesn't have hands though ;) (& if you get too close to that grasshopper neither will you!)
The bit I find interesting is the mechanism for the LEDs. Because of my way of thinking I had assumed that the LEDs would be controlled programmatically. It is actually a clever entirely mechanical implementation using vernier slits (3:42 in the Youtube video). I find it fascinating. I'll admit to having never heard of them so it has that whole "woah!" appeal for me.
Besides, I'm not into bling but this thing is ostentatiously cool and doesn't IMHO look half bad. I'd love to own one if it wasn't so loud as to annoy the neighbors. Oh and if it wasn't one of a kind and I had that kind of money to hand of course.
Some people don't seem to like it and that's fair enough. All the same I find it altogether novel.
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
Lights spiral out from the center, until it reaches the creature, and then it starts again.
Not true, it's not spiralling at all. Look closely at the video! I live just across the road from this clock, and since yesterday it has continuously drawn crowds. And the LEDs are behind the clock and permanently switched on - the sensation of the moving lights is created purely mechanically from two rotating disks with holes in them (one with 60 slots and the other with 61). The attention to detail in this device is remarkable: e.g. the "chronophage" grasshopper on top of the clock blinks with its eye (sometimes double-blinks), and this is controlled through a separate mechanical clock-work.