Hawking unveils ‘strangest clock’ via /.
A £1m clock called the “time eater” has been unveiled at Cambridge University by Professor Stephen Hawking. The author of A Brief History of Time was guest of honour when the unique clock, which has no hands or numbers, was revealed at Corpus Christi College. Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has 60 slits cut into its face which light up to show the time. Its creator John Taylor said he “wanted to make timekeeping interesting”. The Corpus Clock will stand outside the college’s library and will be on view to the public.
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that looks really nice, the idea of blinking LED´s mechanically is brilliant
While I think this is beautiful, I don’t know if I like the all inclusive “strangest” tag attached to it. It doesn’t have mechanical hands, but the lights act like hands still. I like some of the other clocks I’ve seen here on Make; like the binary ones. I wonder if an Arduino board could repeat the LED “movements”?
–JacqueChadall
Gorgeous, wonderful mechanism and fascinating idea, but….£1,000,000?! (~$1,834,300?!). That’s an expensive bit of art. The money spent recreating Babbage’s Engine was better applied.
Replacing hands with windowed spots of light is hardly creative and the “chronophage” unfortunately seems to be a dolled up version of the lolling-eyed cats that wag their tails from cheap wall clocks.
Moreover it *doesn’t* react to circumstances. Any of them. Time goes at one second per second in this clock whether you’re sitting with a pretty girl or on a hot stove.
“Moreover it *doesn’t* react to circumstances. Any of them. Time goes at one second per second in this clock whether you’re sitting with a pretty girl or on a hot stove.”
This is the best comment EVER!
@ “I wonder if an Arduino board could repeat the LED “movements”?”
Wait a minute. You’re going to copy something, which goal it was to replicate an effect that’s easily done in electronics, by using mechanica. But your copy will replicate said effect with electronics?
Either I’m not getting you, or your idea seems weird.
Actually the clock is only correct every five minutes. It will speed up, slow down and even stop momentarily until the chronophage “shakes his foot” to get it going again.
The clock appeared to have stopped yesterday!