Clock Mechanisms

because that's exactly what the first commonly used time pieces were. You've probably heard them referred to as sundials. There were no moveable parts in them. They consisted of a flat dial marked with times of the day, and a style, which is a thin piece of metal that cast a shadow onto the dial depending on where the sun was located in the sky. Sundials were remarkably accurate; however, they could only operate when the sun was shining which left out telling time at night completely.

Another early attempt at telling time was the water clock. These ingenious devices are known to have been around as early as 4000 B.C. It's interesting to note that both the Greeks and Romans as well as the Chinese developed water-operated clocks totally independent of the technology of the other. Although water clocks weren't very accurate, they were still close enough that they could be used for astrological purposes of the day.

By the 13th century, mechanisms such as these began to replace the what was then regarded as obsolete, water driven mechanisms. Unfortunately, none of these clocks have survived, and the written references to them did not outline how the mechanisms worked.

By 1320, church documents started making frequent mention of clock technology. These clocks derived their power from falling weights which was then controlled by some sort of oscillating mechanism. This mechanism kept the weights from falling too quickly which controlled how fast the power was released. The method of operation in these earliest mechanical clocks was known as escapement. These simple clocks were mainly designed to announce prayer times.

with sundials continuing to be the most commonly used time pieces. During the mid 13th century, the Italians did design and erect some clock towers, but the mechanisms used in these clocks weren't accurate, and a lot of manual adjustments had to be made in order to maintain the correct time.

Then, in the period between 1500 and 1510, a German named Peter Henlein is credited for having come up with the first spring loaded clock mechanism. Although spring-powered clocks still had a problem, that of the spring winding down, which made them keep time too slowly, they were still the prevalent type of clock mechanisms up into the 19th century. Of course, when these clocks were finally reduced in size for home use, only the affluent could afford to buy them.

Although Galileo is generally credited with having invented the first pendulum clock back in 1582, Christian Huygens actually built the first pendulum time piece in 1656. This technology that changed the inefficient spring-loaded clocks into models powered by the oscillation of the pendulum meant that there was only an error of less than one minute per day which was a massive leap in the development of accuracy. These inventions made way for the mechanical clocks of today.