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Stephen Hawking Unveils "Time Eater" Clock
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Sep 20, 2008 04:41 PM
from the brief-history-of-eating dept.
from the brief-history-of-eating dept.
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."
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Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just awesome. It looks like a grasshopper walking along the top. Lights spiral out from the center, until it reaches the creature, and then it starts again.
But it says that it doesn't have hands - it has LEDs all around it, which displays the time. I think that's pretty much the same thing, no?
Re: (Score:2)
Only gripe is that it looks very out of place on that gaudy-looking gold face.
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Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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1m GBP? (Score:2)
For that much they could have at least made it a self-winding automatic. jeebus.
STEVEN?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Excuse me. I think you may have lost your train of thought here. I would suggest you check your meds.
General relativity does not consider - neither a
who is it (Score:4, Informative)
Steven Hawking? or Stephen Hawking??? I've never heard of a Steven Hawking
Re:who is it (Score:5, Funny)
He's Stephen Hawking's non-union equivalent.
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Re:who is it (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:who is it (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2)
It works, I just watched some of the video (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How much did it cost to post the reply? Meh, I'm going to bed.
Just a clock (Score:4, Insightful)
Misleading description...from TFA:
Yeah, so the only think Hawking had to do with this clock is: he was a guest at its unveiling.
And the clock itself really isn't much of a clock. The only mildly interesting thing about it is the "time eating" grasshopper that travels around the outside.
:( Localized video........ (Score:2)
~
Relativity (Score:2)
Re:Relativity (Score:5, Informative)
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LEDs (Score:5, Insightful)
He blew it. He sould at least have used a carbon-arc and hundreds of mirrors and lenses.
Re:LEDs (Score:4, Informative)
He blew it. He sould at least have used a carbon-arc and hundreds of mirrors and lenses.
Would you find solace in the fact that the LEDs are always illuminated, and only let light through when slits in a wheel align?
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Re:LEDs (Score:4, Funny)
No. Best would be hundreds of oil lamps. Gas lamps might be acceptable as long as they used coal gas. Limelight might be acceptable.
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Jim Henson would be jealous (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just disappointed... (Score:4, Funny)
... that the inventor isn't named "Reg"
"Time Eater" (Score:2, Funny)
Salad fingers? (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does the guy the the Youtube video sound exactly like Salad Fingers?
Only a chauvinist would say this clock isn't tech. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Sorry if you want to know about time eaters (Score:5, Funny)
you actually can get the minutes back by reversing time [skybooksusa.com].
There are real time eaters out there, they exist beyond three dimensions and exist in several dimensional space. If you saw how they really look, you'd go insane like I did when I first saw them.
First learn about super strings [superstringtheory.com] and then we can discuss how the universe and multiverse actually work. Hawking got a lot of things wrong, the Hawking paradox was but one of them [newscientist.com] and the information and matter and energy does not simply disappear, it ends up in a different dimension. One you Terrans have not discovered yet. But keep guessing, you'll find it eventually and then learn how to reverse time.
Re:Usual caveats seem to apply (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting ideas, but just to let you know there will be electro-magnetic fields a human being will pass through with such a device that would stop the heart and fry the brain unless it was properly shielded. When anything goes through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, you have to properly shield it. Once you uncover the grand unified theory and prove that, you will discover how to shield against electro-magnetic fields to prevent damage. Another way is to convert the matter into energy, pass it through such a device, and then convert the energy back into matter after passing through, much like those Star Trek transporter technology if you don't mind your molecules being taken apart and put back together.
Black holes are not really black, there is a nano aspect to them in the lower dimensions that does not resemble a singularity as is commonly thought, and in some cases they are nicknamed as time eaters because they eat time and space as well as matter and energy, but regurgitate it back up in a different dimension as the Super Nova or high gravity that caused it to form punched a hole in our universe to a different universe or dimension, and the black hole appears hungry and eats all matter, energy, time, and space, to the observer, and the other end is somewhere else where everything it ate comes out eventually.
Paranoia is a survival trait, but how does a person from the future know they can trust someone in the past to not change things so their future won't exist anymore? Trust is a two-way street.
Still Chronodymanics and Chrononaughts haven't been developed or thought up yet, as this century is still stifled by atheistic and secular scientists who lack the imagination and do not even believe that such science or technology is possible and don't believe in the nano dimensions or other universes or dimensions, so they force their "version" of the Truth(TM) on us that nothing exists outside of our universe and that there are only three dimensions and completely ignore space and time as dimensions, ignore Spinosa and Einstein's theories on God and all the work on it that Hawking based on Einstein and Spinosa's work in "A Brief History of Time which explains the scientific theories that came from Christianity and religion and what God really is and the universe. That makes this modern science with a very myoptic "caveman" view of reality. But we are learning new information every year.
Ironically 4000 to 6000 years ago some of the beings who helped our civilizations gave knowledge of the universe and it was to be a user's manual for the "program" our machine (universe) runs but it got easily confused for religion when it was actually science and all of the parts the people 4000+ years ago couldn't understand rejected it and rewrote it so it made more sense to their "cavemen" mentality, but the philisophies and theories came to form ancient science and moved away from "magic" as alchemy evolved into chemistry, astrology evolved into astronomy, theology evolved into physics, etc and we got modern science thanks to the Aztecs, Babylonians, Jewish people, early Christians (Monks in a Monastery came up with scientific theories before Newton did).
God is a time traveler, he traveled back to the past to become his own son, and then traveled back to the beginning of time and became his father, and then traveled again and became the holy spirit, and has tried to change history for the good of humanity. In the original time line, Hitler won WWII, but God changed that, yet in doing so other bad things had happened, but not as bad as Nazi Germany controlling the entire world. This universe is an accident, really, The Devil worked for God and thought he could do a better job but started a war in Heaven that created this universe, and God has been cleaning things up every since. Since The Devil stole some of God's ideas, but flawed them, Jesus had to be born to try and fix things and set us back on the right path. We are all part of a program and don't know it.
Not everyone will believe me, most will
Parent
Faster than the speed of light (Score:3, Interesting)
Notice how the intersection of the slots "moves" at a rate faster than the actual movement of the material having the slots. Now imagine something containing those slots moving at a speed approaching the speed of light relative to another stationary thing like it. You are located near the end the slot intersections are approaching. But from your perspective, the slot intersections would appear to be going away from you because the nearer intersection events arrive first.
John Harrison: Greatest Unsung Hero Ever (Score:3, Informative)
John Harrison's story chronicled in "Longitude" is the story of the greatest unsung hero of science and engineering since the Renaissance. Working on his own for nearly 50 years and in the face of fanatical opposition of the Board of Longitude Society he singlehandedly invented modern chronongraphy and all the particular horological advancements required up through the invention of electronic time pieces. To that end he solved the longitude problem which directly lead to British Naval supremacy as well as all commercial shipping and the advent of safe ocean passage without loss of life or cargo.
Re: (Score:3)
Uh, maybe they use them since they are so visible? Maybe the idea of a clock face or any other LED panel is to make it visible without having to walk right up to it to read it?
Re: (Score:3)
And for that matter, blue is not the only bright LED available.
Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd call it craftmanship, engineering and art all rolled up into one.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
"This is 100% art. It uses nothing more technologically noteworthy than a bunch of blue LEDs and a grasshopper escapement."
Because a mechanical timepiece isn't "technology?" Or does it only qualify as "technology" if it's less than ten years old?
"and the grasshopper escapement is almost 3 centuries old."
Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
Without external communications capabilities (e.g. WWVB or NTP), I guarantee you that this clock keeps more accurate time than any timepiece you've ever owned.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
It still works, but I think it's fair to say that it no longer qualifies as "News for Nerds".
Your guarantee... (Score:2, Informative)
There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock? European line frequency can vary by seconds per day [utwente.nl].
Exactly what was your "guarantee," because I t
Re:Your guarantee... (Score:5, Informative)
"There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock?"
The base is the grasshopper escapement, the entire point of the clock, what it commemorates, and what the article is all about. The motor is used to wind the clock's spring, which is released from tension at a steady rate by the swinging of the escapement.
And because you didn't RTFA in your effort to be a smart-ass, you've come out looking like a dumb-ass for not understanding the concept of a pendulum clock. This right here is an indicator of why the "technology" tag is appropriate for this: people here (such as yourself) don't know how it works.
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Re:Technology? (Score:4, Informative)
Just because it's been blinged up doesn't make the underlying mechanical mechanism any less impressive. Who says science can't be beautiful?
Yes, the LEDs are blue - but what other colour would you combine with gold? The bank of LEDs just provide a constant light source; the light show at the front (which could be mistaken for electronics) is achieved using vernier slits and lenses - that's genius.
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Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [cnet.com] to portable devices such as the Antikythera mechanism. [guardian.co.uk]
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. [wikipedia.org]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I guess I am ambitious because on my last case, I replaced the green LEDs with ultra-bright blue ones. In my defense, I also replaced the springs under the power and reset switches with some screen door closer parts, so the average 5 year old lacks the strength to push the buttons that are now so attractive since I put in those bright blue LEDs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The human Cubic who rotates a 4 corner stage family rotating metamorphic lifetime.
Earth is composed of opposite hemispheres which rotate in opposite directions - equal to a zero value existence (plus & minus). As entity, the opposite hemispheres cancel out. Earth exist as 4 - 90 degree opposite corner quadrants, but not as a 360 degree circle. Earth is Cubic opposites, nothing as circle.
And, thus, the clock keeps going.
Re:beautiful but (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on /. could you be modded Insightful for citing Time Cube.
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the problem is the name (Score:5, Funny)
how is it keeping time while eating itself? i find it hard to understand
"Time Eater" is a very misleading name. It should really be called a CLOCK GOBBLER.
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Re:the name (Score:4, Funny)
"Time Eater" is a very misleading name. It should really be called a CLOCK GOBBLER.
At 120 Watts, it should be called the "Energy Gobbler" instead.
Apparently the sound it makes when the programmable alarm goes off is:
"Whooooooosh!"
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose it's the same reason
Re:Because /. Nerds Worship Hawking as God (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The clock only tells the correct time once every 5 minutes. The rest of the time it can run fast, slow, pause, etc. You can see this in the video near the beginning where it slows down very drastically, or near the end when it chimes the hour and is just going back and forth a few times before advancing.