At the beginning of XIX century , which coincided with the rapid development of technological progress , the problem of storage time facing postal services, attempting to ensure the movement of postal vehicles on schedule. As a result , they have got Ammunition hours. And with the advent of railways hours received at its disposal and conductors . Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps the most significant step forward in the history of time measurement was the introduction of mechanical watches with wheels that the XII century began installed on the towers of churches . As the drive mechanism used in these goods , reinforced by a metal chain . When lowering the load chain and reel rotating cylinder in conjunction with the wheel and arrow. In the XIV century mechanical clock tower is used everywhere , and in 1657 the Dutchman Christian Huygens built the first pendulum clock. Read the rest of this entry »

Date of first appearance of an hourglass is unknown . But they, like the lamp- oil , appeared no earlier than clear glass . It is believed that in Western Europe about the hourglass found only in the late Middle Ages , one of the oldest mention of them is a message from 1339 , discovered in Paris. It contains instructions for the preparation of fine sand from the sifted powdered black marble , boiled in water and dried in the sun . Read the rest of this entry »

Sundials are simple and reliable indicator of the time, but suffered some serious shortcomings : their work depended on the weather and was restricted to the time between sunrise and sunset . There is no doubt that because of this , scientists began to explore other ways to measure time, not related to the observation of celestial bodies. It is also clear that the new instruments for measuring time should have been fundamentally different from the sundial. Read the rest of this entry »

If you ask the question, what is the regulator, the watchmaker, apparently, think of the thermometer on the bridge balance, the collector of hours – about the old floor clock, and a man with an idea of Swiss watches, slapping his forehead, recalling the unusual watches with single-clockwise. We will try to clarify this issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Age compact and portable mechanical timepieces opened the invention in the same Huygens in 1675 rotary balancer as well as the use of weights instead of springs. Connecting a torsion pendulum, the balance spring and escapement shutter has opened the way not only to marine navigation, but also the creation of massive small hours, still significantly increased the accuracy of astronomical observations, and even revealed the irregularity of the Earth’s rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

What you need

- Two thick sheets of cardboard A4 (standard sheet of typing paper);
- Compasses;
- Scissors
- Transportation;
- Sharpened pencils;
- Ruler with millimeter divisions;
- Elbow (for construction of right angles). Read the rest of this entry »