Q 01/05

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

A) Wheel

B) Bell

C) Shadow

D) Hour

Answer · why

B) Bell

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.

Q 02/05

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

A) The candle clock

B) The incense clock

C) The water clock

D) The hourglass

Answer · why

C) The water clock

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

Q 03/05

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

A) The pendulum

B) The balance wheel

C) The mainspring

D) The verge escapement

Answer · why

D) The verge escapement

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

Q 04/05

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

A) York Minster

B) Salisbury

C) Canterbury

D) Wells

Answer · why

B) Salisbury

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

Q 05/05

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

A) Guo Shoujing

B) Zhang Heng

C) Su Song

D) Shen Kuo

Answer · why

C) Su Song

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