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A HISTORY OF
TIMEPIECES
In a way, the
history of timepieces is the history of human progress. For
thousands of years, people who hunted and gathered wild food to
survive needed only crude ways to keep time. Archeologists have
found records of lunar cycles scratched on bones from Ice Age
Europe. The pillars of rock at Stonehenge in England determined
solstices and other seasonal events.
As people began
to farm and build cities, they needed somewhat more detailed records
of time. Early calendars made by people ranging from the Egyptians
to the Mayans of Central America measured months and years. Such
calendars made it possible for merchants to establish trade routes,
cultures to develop shared religious celebrations and governments to
keep records.
Five or six
thousand years ago, Sumeria in what is now Iraq was the first
culture to develop a written language and also the first to develop
a clock. Other ancient civilizations came up with ways to mark the
hours of the day as they became more complex. The Washington
Monument is a monument to the first clocks as well as to the first
U.S. president, for obelisks were the first “shadow clocks”—clocks
that measured time with lengthening shadows. The more familiar
sundial, invented around 1500 B.C. was both more exact and more
portable.
Sundials were
used for almost three thousand years. The only other main type of
clock before the 1300s was a water clock which kept time based on
water dripping through a hole. Water clocks were not very accurate
and sundials were not terribly precise. Between the 1300s and 1500s
in Europe, different forms of mechanical and spring-powered clocks
were invented, but these too had limited accuracy.
The first
pendulum clock was created by Dutchman Christian Huygens in 1656.
Pendulums work because their swing is stable and can be used to
regulate a clock’s time. The challenge is to minimize the mechanical
friction that slows down the pendulum’s swing. Huygens kept refining
his timepiece to the point that it kept time to within 10 seconds a
day—unprecedented accuracy in the history of timekeeping. This
achievement was improved to one-hundredth of a second by the late
1800s.
The advance of
the pendulum clock in this period of history was mirrored by the
increasing modernization of society. The New World was settled and
European explorers
circled the
globe. The rhythms of agricultural life began to be replaced by the
demands of industry during the Industrial Revolution. By the late
nineteenth century, railroads running according to exact timetables
crisscrossed the United States.
The quartz clocks
used around the world today were developed in the 1930s and 1940s.
Unlike pendulum clocks, quartz clocks have no mechanical gears that
disturb the frequency of the pendulum swing and thus the clock’s
accuracy. Quartz crystals are inexpensive as well, and they quickly
became the dominant timekeeping technology. However, there are
limitations to quartz clocks. Quartz clocks rely on the size and
shape of quartz crystals, and because crystals are unique, they do
not keep exactly the same time.
In terms of
accuracy, quartz crystal clocks were surpassed by the atomic clock
almost half a century ago. But the atomic clock technology was not
available to the average person. Now there’s a new era in time.
Atomix atomic clocks and Sync-Time wristwatches receive a radio
signal from the U.S. Atomic Clock to keep precisely the same
time—down to the millionth of a second accuracy of the U.S. Atomic
Clock.
What better way
to celebrate the new millennium than with the timepiece that can
tell you exactly when it starts?
Chaney Instrument
Company is an internationally known maker of quality timepieces and
thermometers since 1943. Based in Lake Geneva, WI with sales and
purchasing offices around the world, they are privately held and
have 300 employees worldwide. For more information about Chaney
Instrument Co. visit them online at
www.atomixtime.com, or call
1-262-248-4449.
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