The primitive man judges the time by the change of the color of the sky and the luminosity of the sun. Ancient Egypt found that the length of the shadow changes over time. The Babylonians invented the sundial in the morning 6,000 years ago. They also found that the time required for the flow of water was fixed, thus inventing the water clock. Ancient Chinese also had tools to time the water - copper pot dripping, they will also use the incense time. Place the incense horizontally and put a rope with steel balls on it.
Before 1300 AD, humans mainly used astronomical phenomena and continuous movement of flowing materials to time. For example, the sundial is the azimuth timing of the sunshade; the leaking pot and the hourglass are flow meters that utilize water flow and sand flow.
From 140 to 100 BC, the ancient Greeks built a timer for the Olympic Games, which consisted of 30 to 70 gear systems. Known as the Antikythera Instrument, this instrument consists of 29 copper gears and a plurality of dials that bite each other and is the size of a lunch box. It was discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Antikythera Island in Greece in 1901, hence its name, and is now preserved at the National Archaeological Museum of Greece.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Heng made a leaky water switch to the celestial instrument, and used the leaking pot to drip the water to push the scorpion to rotate evenly, just one revolution a day. In the third year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1088), Su Shi and Han Gonglian created the water transport instrument platform, which has used the escapement.
In 1283, the first mechanical clock driven by a weight in the history of the monastery in England.
Medieval clocks are called ‘wacche’ in English and later evolved into ‘watch’.
The monks of northern Italy in the 13th century began to establish a clock tower (or bell tower) whose purpose was to remind people of the time of prayer.
In the 16th century, there was a clock on the table in Germany. Those clocks have only one needle, and the clock face is divided into four parts, making the time accurate to the nearest 15 minutes.
In the 17th century, pendulums and clockwork gradually appeared. The accuracy of its operation has been greatly improved. Giovanni de Dandi is known as the father of European watches. It took him 16 years to create a full-featured clock called the Cosmic Sky, which can show the trajectory of some planets in the sky. It can also reflect religious holidays and daily time. It is 1364. The year began to be used. The clock made by Dandy is not the first clock in Europe. It is said that the first clock in Europe was made in Milan in 1335.
In 1657, Huygens discovered that the frequency of the pendulum can calculate the time and create the first pendulum clock.
In 1670, the British William Clement invented the anchor escapement.
In 1695, British Tompin invented the escapement of the wheel. Later, Graham of the same country invented the static escapement.
From 1728 to 1759, the nautical clock came out.
In 1765, the free anchor escapement was born.
In 1797, American Eli Terry obtained a patent for a clock. He is regarded as the ancestor of the American watch industry.
In 1840, the British watchmaker Bain invented the electric clock.
In 1946, American physicist Dr. Libby figured out the principle of the atomic clock. Two years later, the world's first atomic clock was created, and the atomic clock is still the most advanced clock. Its operation is accomplished by the natural vibration of helium and ammonia atoms. It can operate accurately within 300 years with very little error.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the watch industry gradually implemented industrial production.
In the 20th century, it began to enter the period of quartzization.
In the 21st century, the radio-controlled timepiece technology developed according to the principle of atomic clocks has been gradually matured.
