As you’ve probably guessed, I have a gravitational pull toward the outrageous and the unusual. Swing Clocks fit this bill beautifully.
Product Description
When Galileo Galilea first envisioned using the regular motion of the swinging pendulum in a timepiece, he had no idea what implications keeping accurate time would bring us – computers, timesheets, general relativity… Granted, he didn’t create the first pendulum based timepiece.
That honor falls to Christiaan Huygens (the man, not the Saturnian space-probe). See, the pendulum swings at an incredibly predictable rate, as long as the pivot remains still, the force of gravity is constant, and the length of the pendulum is fixed.
Sure, if you want to go all non-Newtonian on us, you can also include distance from a gravity well, but let’s just keep things simple? Anyway, since the motion of the pendulum is highly predictable, we can mark each cycle of the swinging bob as a measure of time, and consequently keep track of our inexorable grind towards the heat-death of the universe. Hooray! Still, it’s usually the pendulum that drives the clock – what if the entire clock was the pendulum? Done and done!
This super-cool Swing Clock mounts on your wall, and sashays back and forth, marking the passage of time. Watch as your friends take hilarious double-takes once they realize the clock is apparently floating and swinging itself. Granted – it’s just a timepiece.
It’s not likely going to help you with a thorough understanding of general relativity, though if you wanted to put one in a spaceship and accelerate it to a fraction below light-speed and return, that might work.
Sigh. I’m just so completely in love with this clock. Anyone can make time fly. A few people can make time stand still. But making it swing? Now that takes a serious set of skills.
See Swing Clocks for more information.
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Cool tip: Record time the high tech way – http://bit.ly/9LlOth
Sorry, I have to do this because my father was a clock repairman and I am a relentless pedant. The pendulum does not drive the clock. It is the mainspring or the weights (depending on the type of mechanical timepiece you are talking about) that drives the clock. The purpose of the pendulum is to regulate the release of energy from the power train system so that the hands move in precise, identical increments.
Rant over.
That said, I do like the swinging clock. It’s just off kilter enough to make you look twice.
Daisy
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