How 250 Years of Progress Gave Us the Most Complicated Clock Ever

[n2doc]

By Jonathon Keats



I think, therefore I am. Those are the words (in French) inked in quill by the world’s first literate robot, assembled in 1774 from some 600 components by Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz. And while Marie Antoinette appreciated its philosophical sense of humor, the humanoid automaton ran afoul of the Catholic Inquisition. Accused of heresy, the machine — fashionably accoutred in silk pantaloons and a velvet jacket — spent several months in a Spanish prison.

How’s a modern mecha to compete with that kind of history? Execs at Jaquet-Droz — now a luxury watch brand owned by Swatch Group — have the answer: Double the number of parts and quadruple the ambition. Rather than retracing the past by writing the same stock phrase as its ancestor, the new automaton harnesses an unprecedented level of mechanical complexity to … write the time on a piece of paper.

It’s harder than it sounds, and it took the better part of a decade to combine Swiss-quality timekeeping with the ability to write 1,440 different numeric phrases “by hand.” But now, when the assemblage is triggered, 1,530 steel and aluminum components, including 50 cams, 9 belts, 120 bearings, and 27 springs, launch into Rube Goldberg-like action.

more

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/pl_backstory_timemachine/

[unpossibles]

1. I'll wait for the wrist version

or perhaps an alarm clock which prints out "!!!!!!" every morning.

[tridim]

2. I'm a huge fan of mechanical timepieces.

This one takes the cake!

[damntexdem]

3. Well, at least it looks like it could cut the cake.

[knitter4democracy]

4. It's beautiful!

At least they made it pretty, too.

[pokerfan]

5. I love clocks

So much so that the first time I visited London the very first thing I did was visit the Flamsteed House in Greenwich to see the Harrison clocks.





http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/longitude

[trotsky]

6. Me too.

The machinery, the styling, the statement of humans understanding and measuring their environment, some combination thereof.

[pokerfan]

7. I just re-'watch'-ed the Nova episode

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/longitude

Although he was mostly unschooled, Harrison kept a detailed journal. Some of his writings have survived, and his own words reveal how quickly he grasped the essence of the longitude problem—its connection to time: "I suppose that the difference of longitude betwixt a ship at sea and the port it sailed from might be as nearly known as its latitude if the ship had along with it a machine or watch that would exactly point out what time it was at the home port. But it is said by all the motion of the ship has rendered all such machines as have been tried so irregular as to be of no service to the seaman in the matter of the longitude."

[krispos42]

8. That animation is fascinating

The two arms that engage the gear must be fantastically well-balanced to move such, yes?