The Corpus Clock & Chronophage

公開日時 2008.09.18

The Corpus Clock & Chronophage is the first clock in the world to employ Dr Taylor’s patented method of displaying time. Features a pioneering appropriation of the Vernier Principle to display seconds, minutes and hours in a brilliant blue light display. Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking unveiled this remarkable clock, known as the Corpus Clock. The machine has been invented by and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building. The Clock was unveiled on 19th September 2008 by Stephen Hawking, cosmologist and author of the global bestseller, A Brief History of Time. Dr Taylor, an inventor and horologist, has put seven years into developing the clock, which has been inspired from a design by a clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude. Of John Harrison's many innovations, he came up with the "grasshopper escapement", explained Dr Taylor, referring to the device used by Harrison to turn rotational motion into a pendulum motion for timekeeping. "No one knows how a grasshopper escapement works, so I decided to turn the clock inside out and, instead of making the escapement 35 mm across, it is 1.5 m across," he said. He calls the new version of the escapement a Chronophage (time-eater) a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally eating away time. For more information please log on to http://www.corpusclock.co.uk For a higher resolution video of this please click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCqGtvTA36k