Clocks

in general

by: Anthony Harrington

Clocks in general rule our lives. We live on a giant one-the Earth, our basic timekeeper. by the Earths rotation, it controls daylight and therefore controlling time to work and time to sleep. Another of nature's clocks-the Moon-records the months. A biological clock is in all of us. it control's our lives.

These are all natural clocks, and sometime in the past man harnessed one to improve his timekeeping. He studied the moving shadows caused by the Earth's rotation. The history of mechanical clocks goes back over 700 years. The history of whatch-man's first attempt, perhaps, at what we call precision engineering-extends for four hundred years. Most of all branches of engineering owe something to clock making; for example, the thermostat in a oven, the chain drive of a dredger, and the differential gear in the back axle of a car. They were all fist invented for clockwork

usage. Our fist clocks were sundials made by the Summerians. They divided the day

into 12 parts each part was 2 hours long. Modern clocks have a power source like quartz, and batteries. Between 1300-1500 large clock towers were built so they could be heard and seen from long distances.

Basically clocks have helped us in math by dividing the day into 12 parts consisting of 2 hours each, and showing that each minute has 60 seconds and each hour has 60 minutes. Therefore helping us understand problems dealing with seconds, minutes, hours, and days. In social studies by giving the exact time an event happened. The invention of the clock has made life easier to organize.

Resources:

Dictionary of Clocks and Watches copyright,Eric Burton mcm LxII, mcm LxIII.

http://library.scar.utoronto.ca/classics c42/Gomes/wat.html