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The weight-driven mechanical clock controlled by the action of a verge and foliot was a synthesis of earlier ideas from European and Islamic science. Mechanical clocks were a major breakthrough, one notably designed and built by Henry de Vick in c. 1360 , which established basic clock design for the next 300 years.
The mechanism which runs a mechanical clock is called the movement. The movements of all mechanical pendulum clocks have these five parts: [27] A power source; either a weight on a cord or chain that turns a pulley or sprocket, or a mainspring. A gear train (wheel train) that steps up the speed of the power so that the pendulum can use it.
For the first two hundred years or so of the mechanical clock's existence, the verge, with foliot or balance wheel, was the only escapement used in mechanical clocks. In the sixteenth century alternative escapements started to appear, but the verge remained the most used escapement for 350 years until mid-17th century advances in mechanics ...
The earliest known example of a clockwork set-up is the Antikythera mechanism.This device functioned as a geared analogue computer after its creation during the first-century BCE timeframe, being somewhat astrolabe-like, and had been designed for calculating astronomical positions and particularly listing eclipses.
The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement, was invented in medieval Europe during the 13th century and was the crucial innovation that led to the development of the mechanical clock. The design of the escapement has a large effect on a timepiece's accuracy, and improvements in escapement design drove improvements in time measurement ...
The invention of the mechanical clock in the 13th century initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the motion of the gnomon's shadow on a sundial or the flow of liquid in a water clock, to periodic oscillatory processes, such as the swing of a pendulum or the vibration of a quartz crystal, [3] [79] which had ...
Historically, the definition of a scientific instrument has varied, based on usage, laws, and historical time period. [1] [2] [3] Before the mid-nineteenth century such tools were referred to as "natural philosophical" or "philosophical" apparatus and instruments, and older tools from antiquity to the Middle Ages (such as the astrolabe and pendulum clock) defy a more modern definition of "a ...
1927 - Joseph Horton and Warren Marrison describe the first quartz clock at Bell Telephone Laboratories. [8] 1946 - Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell develop nuclear magnetic resonance; 1949 - Harold Lyons develops an atomic clock based on the quantum mechanical vibrations of the ammonia molecule; 1983 - Radio-controlled clocks become common place ...