Review of the Literature:

Many ancient civilizations analyzed astronomical bodies, usually the Sun and Moon, to

see times, dates, and seasons (Sorabji, 2006). The
primary calendars were created throughout the last period, by hunter-gatherers who utilized
tools like sticks and bones to trace the phases of the moon or the seasons. Stone
circles, like England's Stonehenge, were in-built varied components of the globe, particularly in
Prehistoric Europe, and are thought to have possessed the ability to time and
predict seasonal and annual events like equinoxes or solstices. As those memorial civilizations
left no recorded history, very little is understood of their calendars or ways to measure
time. Methods of sexagesimal timekeeping are calculated to be around 4000 years
old in geographic areas such as Mesopotamia and Egypt. Mesoamericans also adjusted their
usual large integer numeration systems to develop a 360-day year.

The oldest notable timepiece, the Sundial, is from Egypt; it dates back to around 1500 before
Christ (19th Dynasty), and was discovered within the Valley of the Kings. Sundials have their
origin in shadow clocks that were the primary devices used for measurement of time. Ancient
Egyptian obelisks, made 3500 before Christ, are among the earliest shadow clocks. Egyptian
shadow clocks divided daytime into twelve components with every half divided into more precise
parts. One sort of shadow clock consisted of a protracted stem with 5 variables. It was
positioned eastward at morning, and was turned west at high noon. Obelisks functioned in pretty
much an identical manner; the shadow and the markers around it allowed the Egyptians to
calculate the time. The obelisk conjointly indicated whether or not it was morning or
afternoon, as well as summer and winter solstices. Another shadow clock, developed c. 1500
bc, was similar in form to a bent square. It measured the passage of time by the
shadow forged by its crossbar on a non-linear rule. The T was orientated eastward within
the mornings, and circled at high noon, so it could cast shadows where it was supposed to
(Symons and Khurana, 2016).

Field has listed eight moveable sundials of one sort. Five of which are inscribed in Greek,

the other three on the other hand, in Latin (Wright, 2000). The Greek
examples embody the timepiece as a part of a compound instrument that has been termed the
Byzantine Sundial-Calendar. A ninth example inscribed in Greek, has since come into
knowledge. Yet another is reported by Schaldach. None could
be dated very closely, however all of them fall within the first centuries of our era and will be
ascribed to either the Roman empire or the first Byzantium. The very fact that such a big
amount of sundials of one sort have survived into present, whereas all different ‘scientific’
instruments are significantly rarer,suggests that this sort of timepiece were
probably fairly widely used amongst Roman and Byzantine people. These dials exist in two sub-
types, exhibiting a distinction in construction. The distinction doesn't however have an effect
on the approach within which the dial is aligned and used. In either case, the dial is capable of
continuous adjustment for latitude, and on this account it's been seen that it will correspond to
the dial for all latitudes. These dials, along with all different Ancient Greek or Roman dials,
were supposed to indicate the time of day in harmony with the system of ‘temporal’, ‘seasonal’
or ‘unequal’ hours, whereby the amount from sunrise to sunset for every day is equally divided
into twelve hours. The length of the hour so differs from one day to another, but the first
hour perpetually always begins at sunrise, the seventh begins at time of day, and also
the twelfth always ends at sunset. What is special about this sort of dial, when put next to any or
all known styles of fixed dial from antiquity, is that its style embodies approximation.
The mounted dials, however inexpertly or mistakenly made or founded,
are supported styles which may in principle, be calculated precisely. The performance of such
dials, nicely created and set up, is proscribed solely by the fineness of the lines, the care of the
observer, and also the laws of optics.

Although they were accurate, shadow clocks or sundials relied on the sun, so they were
useless at nighttime and in cloudy weather. The Egyptians thus developed variety of
other functional instruments, as well as water clocks, and a system for chasing star movements.
The oldest description of a water clock is from the tomb inscription of the 16th-century before
Christ Egyptian court official Amenemhet, distinguishing him as its creator. There
were many forms of water clocks, some a lot more elaborate and intricate than others.
One kind consisted of a bowl with tiny holes in its bottom that was floated on water and allowed
to fill at a near-constant rate; markings on the bowl indicated time period, because the surface
of the water reached them. The oldest-known water clock was found within
the grave of pharaoh Amenhotep (1525–1504 BC), which suggests that they were first utilized
in ancient Egypt. Another Egyptian technique of measuring time throughout the night
was through manipulation of plumb-lines referred to as merkhets. In use since 600 before
Christ, two of those instruments were aligned with the North Star to make a north–south
meridian. The time was accurately measured by studying stars as they crossed the
roads created with the merkhets (Symons and Khurana, 2016).

The earliest mention of candle clocks comes from a Chinese literary composition, written in ad
520 by You Jianfu. In step with the literary composition, the graduated candle was a
way of determining time at the hours of darkness. Similar candles were utilized in Japan till the
first tenth century (Dohrn-Van Rossum, 1998). The candle clock most typically mentioned and
written of is attributed to King Alfred the Great. It consisted of six candles made of seventy
two pennyweights of wax, every twelve inches (30 cm) high, and of uniform thickness,
marked each in. (2.54 cm). The candles burned for four hours, so every mark was a
diagrammatical twenty minutes. Once lit, the candles were placed in picket framed glass
boxes, to keep the flame burning. The most refined candle clocks of their time were those of Al-
Jazari in 1206. One in every of his candle clocks enclosed a dial to show the time and, for the
primary time, used a bayonet fitting, a fastening mechanism still utilized in modern world. The
candle, whose rate of burning was already known, bore against the side of the cap, and its
wick went through the hole. Wax collected within the indentation and was
removed sporadically so it didn't interfere with the steady burning. The underside of the
candle unwary in a very shallow dish that had a hoop on its facet connected through pulleys to a
counterweight. Because the candle burned away, the burden pushed it upward at a
continuing speed. The automata were operated from the dish at the underside of the candle.

In addition to water and candle clocks, incense clocks were also used in countries in the Far
East, and were designed in many different forms (Major and Bedini, 1994). Incense clocks
were initially employed in China around the sixth century; in Japan, one still exists within
the Shōsōin. It's conjointly speculated that incense clocks were made in India. Though just
like the candle clock, incense clocks burned equally and with no flame; thus, they were a lot
safer for indoor use. Several forms of incense clock can be found; the foremost
forms embody the incense stick and incense seal. An incense stick clock consisted of an
incense stick that had calibrations; most were elaborate, generally having threads, with
weights hooked up, at even intervals. The weights would drop onto a platter or gong below,
signifying that a specific quantity of your time had progressed. Some incense clocks
were hung in elegant trays; open-bottomed trays were conjointly used, to permit the weights to
be used along with the ornamental receptacle. Sticks of incense with completely different scents
were conjointly used, so that different hours progressing could be marked with different
fragrances. The incense sticks may be straight or spiraled; the spiraled ones were longer, and
were thus supposed for long periods of use, and sometimes adorned from the roofs of homes
and temples. To signal the passage of a selected quantity of your
time, little items of scented woods, resins, or completely different scented incenses were placed
on the incense powder trails. Completely different fine-grained incense clocks used different
formulations of incense, looking on however the clock was arranged out. The length of
the path of incense, was directly associated with the dimensions of the seal and was considered
a determinative of how long the clock would last; which burned for long periods of time, from
twelve hours to even a month. While early incense seals were fabricated from wood or stone,
the Chinese step by step introduced disks fabricated
from metal, presumably starting throughout the Song dynasty. This allowed craftsmen
to produce both large and tiny seals, further as style and adorn them more aesthetically.
Another advantage was the flexibility to vary the methods of the grooves, to permit for
the dynamical length of the times within the year. As smaller seals became more easily
available in the market, the clocks became more popular among the Chinese, and were in use
for a very long time.

Since the hourglass was one in few of the reliable strategies of measurement of time near
water, it's speculated that it was used on board ships as back as the eleventh century, once it
might have complemented the compass as an aid to navigation (Folks, Kiš and Manheim,
1991). However, the earliest clear proof of its use seems within the painting Allegory of fine
Government, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, from 1338. From the fifteenth century onward,
hourglasses were utilized in a good variety of applications in water, in churches, in business,
and in cooking; they were the primary dependable, reusable, moderately correct, and simply
made time-measurement devices. The sandglass additionally took on symbolic meanings, like
that of death, temperance, chance, and Father Time, sometimes painted as a bearded, old man.
The Portuguese navigator used eighteen hourglasses on every ship throughout his travelling of
the world in 1522. Although additionally utilized in China, the hourglass's history there's
unknown, however it doesn't appear to have been utilized in China before the middle sixteenth
century, and therefore the hourglass implies the employment of glassblowing that seems to be a
wholly European and Western art.

The earliest instance of a liquid-driven mechanical device was delineate by the Greek engineer

Philo of Byzantium (fl. third century bc) in his technical written material mechanics wherever he
likens the mechanical device mechanism of a washstand automaton with those as used in water
clocks (Albrecht, 2014). Another early clock to use escapements
was designed throughout the seventh century in Chang'an, by Buddhism monk and scientist, Yi
Xing, and government official Liang Lingzan. An astronomical instrument that served as a
clock, it absolutely was mentioned in a very up to date text as follows. It was created within
the image of the spherical heavens and thereon was shown the satellite mansions in their order,
the equator and also the degrees of the heavenly circumference. Water, flowing into scoops,
turned a wheel mechanically, rotating it one complete revolution in in the future and night.
Besides this, there have been two rings fitted round the vault of heaven outside, having the sun
and moon rib on them, and these were created to maneuver in circling orbit and
they created a picket casing the surface of that diagrammatical the horizon, since the instrument
was 0.5 inched in it. It allowed the precise determinations of the time of dawns and dusks, full
and new moons, tarrying and hurrying. Moreover, there have been two picket jacks standing on
the horizon surface, having one a bell and also a different drum ahead of it, the bell
being stricken mechanically to point the hours, and also the drum being crushed mechanically to
point the quarters of these motions were led to by machinery at intervals the
casing, every reckoning on wheels and shafts, hooks, pins and interlocking rods, stopping
devices and locks checking reciprocally.

The first double-geared clock was fabricated within the eleventh century by an Arab engineer
Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in monotheism Iberia; it had been a clepsydra that utilized a posh gear train
mechanism, together with each segmental and circle gear train, capable of transmitting high
force. The clock was unmatchable in its use of refined advanced gear train, till the mechanical
clocks of the mid-14th century. Al-Muradi's clock extensively utilized the employment of mercury
in its hydraulic linkages that might perform mechanical automata (Albrecht, 2014). Al-Muradi's
work was famed to students operating below Alfonso X of district, thus the mechanism could
have contend a task within the development of the mechanical clocks. Alternative monumental
water clocks created by medieval Muslim engineers extensively utilized advanced gear trains
and arrays of automata. Just like the earlier Greeks and Chinese, Arab engineers at the time
additionally developed a liquid-driven mechanical device mechanism that they utilized in a
number of their water clocks. Significant floats were used as weights associate degreed a
constant-head system was used as an mechanical device mechanism, that was geared within
the hydraulic controls they accustomed build significant floats descend at a slow and steady
rate. A mercury clock, delineated within the Libros Delawarel saber de Astronomia, a Spanish
work from 1277 consisting of translations and paraphrases of Arabic works, is usually quoted as
proof for Muslim information of a mechanical clock. However, the device was truly a
compartmented cylindrical clepsydra, that the Jewish author of the relevant section, Rabbi
Patriarch, created exploitation principles delineated by a thinker named "Iran", known with
Heron of Alexandria (fl. first century AD); on however significant objects could also be upraised.

During the eleventh century within the Song, the Chinese urologist, maker and engineer Su
Song created a water-driven astronomical clock for his tower of Kaifeng town. It incorporated an
escapement mechanism as well as a power-transmitting chain drive that drove the armillary
sphere. (Needham et al., 1986) These devices functioned as activity devices and conjointly as
calendars. A sophisticated water-powered astronomical clock was engineered by Al-Jazari in
1206. This castle clock was a fancy device that was almost eleven feet (3.4 m) high, and had
multiple functions aboard activity. It enclosed a show of the zodiac and therefore the star and
satellite ways, and a pointer within the form of the crescent moon that cosmopolitan across the
highest of an entree, stirred by a hidden cart and inflicting doors to open, every revealing a
mannequin, every hour. It had been attainable to reset the length of day and night so as to
account for the dynamical lengths of day and night throughout the year. This clock conjointly
featured a variety of automata as well as falcons and musicians who automatically started
playing music once stirred by levers operated by a hidden shaft connected to a water wheel. A
mercury clock, represented within the Libros Delawarel saber de Astronomia, a Spanish work
from 1277 consisting of translations and paraphrases of Arabic works, is usually quoted as proof
for Muslim information of a mechanical clock. However, the device was truly a
compartmentalized cylindrical water clock.

Wristwatch was another step forward in this direction. The early models were basically
commonplace pocket-watches fitted to an animal skin strap, however later, makers began
manufacturing purposeful wristwatches (Ajello and Gibson, 2016). Swiss people company,
Dimier Frères & Cie proprietary a wrist watch style with the currently commonplace wire lugs in
1903. In 1904, Alberto Santos-Dumont, associate early trained worker, asked his friend, a
French shaper known as gladiator Jacques Cartier, to style a watch that would be helpful
throughout his flights. Hans Wilsdorf affected to London in 1905 and founded his own business
together with his relative-in-law male monarch Davis, Wilsdorf & Davis, providing quality
timepieces at reasonable costs – the corporate later became Rolex. Wilsdorf was associate
early convert to the wrist watch, and contractile Swiss people firm Aegler to supply a line of
wristwatches. His Rolex wrist watch of 1910 became the primary such watch to receive
certification as a clock in Schweiz and it went on to win a present in 1914 from Kew Observatory
in capital of Virginia, west London.

In 1815, Sir Francis Ronalds (1788-1873) of London printed the forerunner of the electrical
clock, the static clock. It had been battery-powered with dry piles, a high voltage battery with
extraordinarily long life however the disadvantage of its electrical properties variable with the
weather. He trailled varied means of regulating the electricity and these models established to
be reliable across a variety of environmental condition. Alexander Bain, a Scottish clock and
instrument maker, was the primary to create and patent the electrical punch in 1840 (Ajello and
Gibson, 2016). On Jan eleven, 1841, Alexander Bain together with John Barwise, a clock
maker, took out one more necessary patent describing a clock in which a magnetic apparatus
and an electrical current as used to keep the clock going rather than springs or weights. Later
patents distended on his original concepts.

A much more recent discovery, the electric properties of crystalline quartz were discovered by
Jacques and Pierre Curie in 1880 (Vittoz, 2008). The primary quartz generator was designed by
conductor G. Cady in 1921, and in 1927 the primary quartz clock was designed by Warren
Marrison and J. W. Horton at Bell phone Laboratories in North American nation. The
subsequent decades saw the event of quartz clocks as exactitude time activity devices in
laboratory settings—the large and delicate investigation physics, designed with vacuum tubes,
restricted their sensible use elsewhere. In 1932, a quartz clock ready to live little weekly
variations within the rotation rate of the world was developed. The National Bureau of Standards
(now NIST) primarily based the time normal on quartz clocks from late 1929 till the Sixties, once
it modified to atomic clocks. In 1969, Seiko created the world's initial quartz wrist watch, the
Astron. Their inherent accuracy and low price of production has resulted within the ensuing
proliferation of quartz clocks and watches.

The most recent big invention till date in the clock industry is the Atomic clock. Atomic clocks
are the foremost accurate measurement devices in time keeping nowadays. Correct and
accurate to even milli-seconds over several thousands of years, they are being employed to
calibrate different clocks and activity instruments. The idea of employing atomic transitions to
live time was initially steered by Lord Kelvin in 1879, though it had been solely within the
Nineteen Thirties with the event of resonance that there was a sensible methodology for doing
this. A model ammonia amplifier device was built in 1949 at the U.S. National Bureau of
Standards (NBS, now NIST). Though it had been less correct than the existing quartz clocks, it
served to demonstrate the construct. The first correct and accurate timepiece, an atomic
number 55 customary supported a particular transition of the caesium-133 atom, was designed
by Louis Essen in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland. Standardization of the atomic number 55 customary timepiece was
meted out by the employment of the astronomical duration unit of time (Ajello and Gibson, 2016).
Without a doubt, there has been tremendous change in how people have been utilizing different
elements around them to measure and keep track of time, making it easier, faster and more
reliable with every innovation. Needless to say, we have come a long way from sundials and
incense clocks to the use of quartz and atomic clocks. The method and mechanisms have only
become more user-friendly and have surpassed their predecessors in all possible ways. There
is however, like always, more room and more promise in terms of how far the clock industry will
go. Of course, only time will tell.
Reference List:

Sorabji, R. (2006). Time, creation,and the continuum. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Symons, S. and Khurana, H. (2016). A Catalogue of Ancient Egyptian Sundials. Journal for the History of
Astronomy, 47(4), pp.375-385.

Wright, M. (2000). Greek and Roman Portable Sundials An Ancient Essay in Approximation. Archive for
History of Exact Sciences, 55(2), pp.177-187.

Dohrn-Van Rossum, G. (1998). History of the hour. University of Chicago Press.

Major, J. and Bedini, S. (1994). The Trail of Time: Time Measurement with Incense Clocks in East
Asia. The Journal of Asian Studies, 53(4), p.1206.

Folks, J., Kiš, D. and Manheim, R. (1991). Hourglass. World Literature Today, 65(1), p.150.

Albrecht, U. (2014). Clock. Mechanics, 125, p.S10.

Needham, J., Wang, L., Price, D. and Su, S. (1986). Heavenly clockwork. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]:
Cambridge University Press.

Vittoz, E. (2008). The Electronic Watch and Low-Power Circuits. IEEE Solid-State Circuits Newsletter,
13(3), pp.7-23.

Ajello, A. and Gibson, B. (2016). How things are made. [Washington, D.C.]: National Geographic Society.