60 Fun Facts About Clock

The word 'clock' comes from the medieval Latin clocca, meaning what?

Early tower clocks had no dials at all; they simply rang the hours, so the name for the bell became the name for the machine.

Along with sundials, which device is possibly the oldest time-measuring instrument?

Simple outflow bowls existed in Babylon and Egypt around the 16th century BC.

Which invention made the first mechanical clocks possible in Europe around 1300?

An escapement lets the driving force out in regular ticks; the verge and foliot did that job for three centuries.

Which English cathedral houses the 1386 clock thought to be the oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes hours?

It has no face; it was built purely to strike a bell.

Which 11th-century Chinese polymath built a ten-metre astronomical clock tower in Kaifeng in 1088?

His water-driven tower used an escapement mechanism centuries before Europe's mechanical clocks.

The earliest surviving spring-driven clock was made around 1430 for which ruler?

Spring power freed clocks from hanging weights and eventually made watches possible.

Clockmaking flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries in which two German metalworking towns?

Nuremberg's Peter Henlein is often credited with early portable watches.

Who is usually credited with inventing the pendulum clock in 1656?

He also worked out that a pendulum about 99.4 cm long swings once per second.

Roughly how long is a pendulum that takes one second per swing?

That is why so many longcase clocks are the height they are: they were built around a seconds pendulum.

Which English clockmaker created the longcase clock and the anchor escapement around 1670?

The anchor escapement let a pendulum swing in a small arc, which made long, accurate pendulums practical.

The 1675 invention of the spiral balance spring, or hairspring, finally made what possible?

Thomas Tompion was among the first to use it successfully in his watches.

How much did the British government offer in 1714 for a way to determine longitude accurately?

John Harrison spent decades chasing the reward and eventually received large sums under the Longitude Act.

What was John Harrison's original trade before he turned to clockmaking?

His early longcase clocks were made almost entirely of wood.

Harrison's H4 watch was tested on a 1761-62 voyage to Jamaica. How far out was it on arrival?

That equated to an error of roughly one nautical mile, far better than the prize demanded.

Harrison's nearly frictionless, oil-free escapement is named after which creature?

He also invented the gridiron pendulum, which compensated for temperature changes.

Whose 1995 bestseller Longitude brought Harrison's story to a wide audience?

It is described as the first popular bestseller on the subject of horology.

Which Scottish clockmaker patented the electric clock in 1840?

He followed it a year later with the electromagnetic pendulum.

The first quartz clock was built in 1927 at which company?

Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton built it, exploiting the piezoelectric effect the Curies had found in 1880.

Which company produced the world's first quartz wristwatch, the Astron, in 1969?

Within a decade the quartz crisis had gutted the Swiss mechanical watch industry.

Who built the first accurate caesium atomic clock in 1955?

He built it at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK, six years after a prototype ammonia maser at the US Bureau of Standards.

As of 2013, which element's atomic clocks were the most stable in existence?

They are stable to within less than two parts in a quintillion.

Strictly speaking, what does the name 'Big Ben' refer to?

The nickname spread to the whole tower, which was officially just the Clock Tower until 2012.

In 2012 the structure housing Big Ben was renamed what?

The renaming marked Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee.

In what year was the tower housing Big Ben completed?

Construction had begun in 1843 after fire destroyed the old Palace of Westminster.

How much does the bell nicknamed Big Ben weigh?

It cracked soon after installation and was turned an eighth of a turn so the hammer struck elsewhere.

How is Big Ben's clock traditionally kept to time?

Adding one old penny speeds the clock by about two-fifths of a second a day.

How long is each minute hand on Big Ben's clock?

The dials themselves are 22.5 feet across, on a tower 316 feet tall.

Big Ben's quarter-hour chimes are known by what name?

The tune came from Cambridge and is said to be based on a phrase from Handel's Messiah.

Which region of Germany popularised the cuckoo clock and exported it worldwide?

Despite The Third Man's famous line, Switzerland is not the cuckoo clock's birthplace.

Who gave the first known description of a modern cuckoo clock, in 1629?

The Augsburg merchant saw one in Dresden's cabinet of curiosities.

What produces the cuckoo call inside a cuckoo clock?

The bellows squeeze air through two gedackt pipes, one for each note.

Friedrich Eisenlohr's 1850 design, the prototype for the classic cuckoo clock, was modelled on what?

His 'Bahnhäusle' wall clock with an ivy-decorated shield set the pattern still made today.

Which country's Museum of Time claims the world's largest public exhibition of cuckoo clocks?

More than 400 pieces are on display.

The oldest parts of Prague's astronomical clock date to which year?

It was the work of horologist Mikuláš of Kadaň and mathematician Jan Šindel.

What is the hourly animated show on Prague's astronomical clock called?

A skeleton representing Death rings the bell while the other figures shake their heads.

By legend, what did Prague's councillors do to clockmaker Hanuš so he couldn't build another?

He supposedly took revenge by sabotaging the mechanism, which stayed broken for about a century.

The 'grandfather clock' got its name from a song of which year?

Henry Clay Work's 'My Grandfather's Clock' was inspired by a longcase clock at the George Hotel in Piercebridge.

The song behind the name 'grandfather clock' was inspired by a clock at a hotel in which part of England?

The story goes that the George Hotel's clock stopped for good when its second owner died.

What are the shorter cousins of the grandfather clock called?

A full grandfather is typically 6 to 8 feet tall.

Which organisation maintains the Doomsday Clock?

Artist Martyl Langsdorf drew it for the magazine's June 1947 cover.

At what time was the Doomsday Clock first set in 1947?

By January 2026 it had been moved to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest ever.

The Doomsday Clock's furthest-ever setting from midnight, 17 minutes, came in which year?

The Cold War had just ended and the Soviet Union had dissolved.

Levi Hutchins's 1787 American alarm clock had what limitation?

He built it just for himself, to get to work on time in Concord, New Hampshire.

Which French inventor first patented an adjustable mechanical alarm clock, in 1847?

Before that, most alarms were fixed to a single hour like Hutchins's.

How many minutes was the snooze on the first snooze-button alarm clock, 1956's 'Snooz-Alarm'?

The odd nine-minute interval has stuck around on clocks ever since.

Which ancient philosopher reportedly owned a large water clock with an alarm like a water organ?

He is said to have used it to summon his students at dawn.

In what year did US alarm clock production stop for the war effort?

They were among the first consumer goods allowed back into production, in November 1944.

Clock hands turn 'clockwise' because that is the direction of what?

Had clocks been invented south of the equator, they would probably run the other way.

Which German city's astronomical clock is the best-known survivor whose hands run counterclockwise?

An 18th-century clock on Prague's Jewish Town Hall also runs backwards, following Hebrew's right-to-left reading.

Which country reversed the clock on its Legislative Assembly in 2014 to promote indigenous values?

President Evo Morales's government called it the 'clock of the south'.

A large clock installed at Dunstable Priory in 1283 was located in which English county?

It predates the surviving Salisbury clock by a century, but did not survive itself.

What element is common to the timekeeping of every modern clock, according to horologists?

Whether it is a pendulum, a balance wheel, a quartz crystal or a caesium atom, something regular is oscillating.

Which ancient Greek engineer is credited with the first known geared clock, in the 3rd century BC?

His astronomical clock doubled as a cuckoo clock, with singing birds every hour, and is counted as the first carillon clock.

The Astrarium, a 14th-century clock with seven faces and 107 gears, was built in which Italian city?

Doctor and clockmaker Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio built it between 1348 and 1364 to show the Sun, Moon and five known planets.

Which Connecticut clockmaker pioneered mass-producing clocks with interchangeable parts in 1816?

Aaron Lufkin Dennison later applied the same idea to watches, launching what became the Waltham Watch Company in 1861.

In Chinese culture, giving someone a clock is taboo because the phrase sounds like what?

'Sòng zhōng', giving a clock, is a homophone of 'sòngzhōng', paying one's last respects, so it is especially avoided with the elderly.

The Ayrton Light atop the tower housing Big Ben is lit to signal what?

Added in 1873, it originally shone toward Buckingham Palace so Queen Victoria could see when the Commons was at work.

How many strokes did Big Ben toll at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022?

One stroke per year of the monarch's life; the bell has done this at four royal funerals, starting with Edward VII in 1910.

Big Ben's tower leans slightly in which direction because it rests on gravel over London Clay?

The tilt is about 230 mm over 55 metres, an inclination of roughly 1 in 240, including extra movement from Jubilee Line tunnelling.

Which English scientist published the first electric clock, powered by dry pile batteries, in 1815?

Alexander Bain patented the electric clock in 1840 and the electromagnetic pendulum a year later.