Ancient Origins
These ancient tall, stone pillars used the sun’s shadow to show the hour of the day.
What are Obelisks
Define "400 years ago" as this historical period.
What is the Medieval (or Middle Ages) period?
This Dutch scientist is credited with making the first accurate mechanical clock in 1656.
Who was Christian Huygens?
Without an accurate clock at sea, sailors could not tell how far they had traveled in these two directions.
What are East and West?
Before the Industrial Revolution, people generally used this to decide when to start or stop working.
What is the sun?
Unlike sundials, this device could track time during the night by dripping liquid at a constant rate.
What is Water Clock
These massive mechanical devices used weights to power their gears rather than water or sun.
What are Medieval Tower Clocks?
Huygens used this famous Italian scientist’s theory to build his clock.
Who was Galileo?
John Harrison built this specific device in 1735 to solve the problem of navigation.
What is the Marine Chronometer?
During the Industrial Revolution, clocks began to regulate these three specific parts of a person's workday.
What are shifts, breaks, and work hours?
These were often used on cloudy days and provided "estimated time periods" rather than exact minutes.
What are Candle Clocks?
Early Medieval Tower Clocks were missing this common feature found on almost all modern clocks.
What are numbers?
The Pendulum Revolution allowed clocks to go from an error of 15 minutes down to only this many seconds.
What is 15 seconds?
The Marine Chronometer was special because it stayed accurate despite these two difficult conditions at sea.
What are temperature changes and ship rocking?
This historical era moved society from "working by the sun" to "working by the clock."
What is the Industrial Revolution?
This is the specific reason water clocks were considered an improvement over sundials.
track time at night
Because they were "big and inconvenient," these clocks often used this sound to tell people the time.
What is a bell?
Because clocks became so much more accurate in 1656, this feature was finally introduced to the clock face.
What is the minute hand?
This is the year John Harrison finished building his famous chronometer.
What is 1735?
Workers used these machines to "check in" to their shifts.
What are punch clocks (or time clocks)?
Some candle clocks used these small metal objects to act as a "timer" or alarm as the wax melted.
What are nails
The 1600s was approximately this many years ago.
What is 400 years?
This is the year Christian Huygens created the first accurate mechanical clock.
What is 1656?
This was the ultimate "real world" result of John Harrison’s invention.
It made navigation at sea safe.
True or False: Clocks made work hours less regulated than they were in ancient times.
False (they regulated shifts, breaks, and hours more strictly).