The Human Illusion of Time

7. Mechanical Escapement Clocks

The origin of the all-mechanical escapement clock is unknown; the first such devices may have been invented and used in monasteries to toll a bell that called the monks to prayers. The first mechanical clocks to which clear references exist were large, weight-driven machines fitted into towers and known today as turret clocks. These early devices struck only the hours and did not have hands or a dial.

The oldest surviving clock in England is that at Salisbury Cathedral, which dates from 1386. A clock erected at Rouen, France, in 1389 is still extant, and one built for Wells Cathedral in England is preserved in the Science Museum in London. The Salisbury clock strikes the hours, and those of Rouen and Wells also have mechanisms for chiming at the quarter hour. These clocks are large, iron-framed structures driven by falling weights attached to a cord wrapped around a drum and regulated by a mechanism known as a verge (or crown wheel) escapement. Their errors probably were as large as a half hour per day. The first domestic clocks were smaller wall-mounted versions of these large public clocks. They appeared late in the 14th century, and few examples have survived; most of them, extremely austere in design, had no cases or means of protection from dust.

- clock. (2008). Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

It was a long way to make a mechanical device suitable for such a purpose. People needed to reject the prevailing point of view that was in power for a few centuries, and all those efforts were fruitless from a physical point of view. Humankind still uses the identical delusion that Galileo created. That delusion includes the idea of the physical reality of time despite the artificial multiple reforms of devices that show the duration of different physical processes. Once again, the measurement device used an interaction between the force of gravity and the physical process caused by that interaction (falling weights drove the clocks; see above). That principle shows some similarity in operating a clepsydra and a clock. In the case of clepsydra, it uses the interaction between the gravitation field of the Earth and the liquid in its reservoir. In the case of early-built mechanical clocks, they used interaction with the same force but used weights instead of liquid.

As shown above, those devices were regulated by crown wheels. Those wheels make physical processes with more or less constant cycles of duration. Hence, creating a device that could indicate more or less regular physical processes was appropriate. Despite the apparent relationship between the “indication” of such clocks and their internal recurrent mechanical process (rotation of crown wheel), humans still believed in “magical Time” that causes the indication of a clock and its ability to determine not only the duration of the internal mechanical process but a direct measure of Time itself. It was an immense delusion.

However, it was quite acceptable for the general population of the 14th century because, according to divine doctrine, God separated light from darkness. Day and night were created that way. So, the duration of the day and night referred to God's divine power. As a result, any attempt to say anything against the divine nature of day or night was prohibited by the Catholic Church, which was in full power at that time.

About 1450, clockmakers working probably in southern Germany or northern Italy began to make small clocks driven by a spring. These were the first portable timepieces, representing an important landmark in horology. The time-telling dials of these clocks usually had an hour hand only (minute hands did not generally appear until the 1650s) and were exposed to the air; there was normally no form of cover such as a glass until the 17th century, though the mechanism was enclosed, and the cases were made of brass.

About 1581 Galileo noticed the characteristic timekeeping property of the pendulum. The Dutch astronomer and physicist Christiaan Huygens was responsible for the practical application of the pendulum as a time controller in clocks from 1656 onward. Huygens's invention brought about a great increase in the importance and extent of clock making. Clocks, weight-driven and with short pendulums, were encased in wood and made to hang on the wall, but these new eight-day wall clocks had very heavy weights, and many fell off weak plaster walls and were destroyed. The next step was to extend the case to the floor, and the grandfather clock was born. In 1670 the long, or seconds, pendulum was introduced by English clock makers with the anchor escapement.

- clock. (2008). Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Wait a minute! What is a time controller (see citation mentioned above)? What is it? How is it possible to make anything that controls Time itself?! That is another difficulty or disagreement. Any mechanical controller implemented in a mechanical device can only control mechanical processes inside that device and nothing more! Hence, the so-called time controller is nothing more than a controlling device that creates a mechanical process with more or less constant duration. This example shows that humans have always mistaken any recurrent physical process with a constant duration for Time itself. If they have a real-time controller, they can stop that controller and hold every moving object in its place, like the Sun at some point in the Sky, a water stream in a river, birds flying in the Sky, etc.

That is impossible. Hence, the so-called time controller is nothing more than a mechanical clock controller that controls the mechanical operation of a mechanical clock.

The duration of any physical process is comparable to the duration of any other physical process.

As a result, we have plenty of them to make any possible physical device that calculates and indicates the duration of its internal recurrent physical process. In the case of the easiest mechanical clock, its internal mechanism does that calculation mechanically. In other words, it recalculates the number of revolutions of a crown wheel to the number of revolutions of the hour hand or does any other activity, like making sounds, etc.

As shown above, the pendulum is another mechanical device producing a constant physical process. The device helps to create another type of clock. Hence, that is the endless process of developing devices that can generate and count their internal recurrent physical processes with constant duration (or near constant duration). That is the cause and reason for a great diversity of modern clocks, from the easiest pendulum clocks to electronic and atomic clocks. However, each clock consists of a counting mechanism that keeps counting the duration of the internal physical process. Hence, the so-called “timekeeping property” means only the duration property of a constant recurrent physical process.

The duration of any physical process is comparable to the duration of any other physical process. It is not driven by anything "magical" or "hidden from human observation."

- Allan Zade