Stephen Hawking Unveils "Time Eater" Clock 198
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."
beautiful but (Score:1, Interesting)
there has to be some sort of mechanism, a construct if you will, that keeps this clock going. it can not all be eating itself for it would not exist if it would. then how is it keeping time while eating itself? i find it hard to understand
Jim Henson would be jealous (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.