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The Sand clocks

Sand clocks or the “sandglass”, or “hourglass” were simple devices almost as
old as the surviving Egyptian shadow clock and the sundials designed to measure short time intervals during the day or night. This was achieved by flipping the glass container to allow the flow of a fixed amount of fine sand through a small central hole in a consistent length of time.



Generally called hourglasses because an hour was their standard setting. Any other period could be measured by altering the amount of sand, or the size of the grain.
The vessel was placed vertically on a horizontal plane. Made in different sizes they would record 1 to 120 minutes of time.

The Olympiad

Another method in measuring the passage of time in antiquity was the Olympiad. Held in Greece, first time in 776 B.C, as a religious festival it was repeated every four years. Based on astronomical knowledge, of the time, the period of four years was chosen to represent a complete cycle.

This system was, subsequently, used by various historians including the Sicilian Timaeus to record the events of the different cities appearing in literature around 300B.C.

The astrolabe.

These instruments have been measuring time and mapping the universe since 1000 B.C. Textbooks credit the invention to the Hellenistic period around that time.

Archaeological evidence indicates that it was imported into Greece from the Middle East, probably from Mesopotamia, and later taken over by Hipparchus of Rhodes in 200 B.C. and continued by Ptolemy of Alexandria about 150 A.D.



A pointer on this instrument, (above), could be adjusted to show the time of day and the latitude. It was therefore a valuable tool to early navigators, regularly used by seafarers of Western Europe until the 1700’s when it was replaced by the quadrant. Some astrolabes were constructed small enough to be portable, and as such might be described as the first “watches.”

Ways of telling the time in the dark.

In addition to the Clepsydra other simple means had to be devised for indoor use.
One system was the graduated oil or wick lamp. Originally used in the UK during the 9th Century A.D. A length of wick dipped in oil inside a glass vessel. The vessel was graduated, and the time was measured by the amount of oil burnt.

Similarly, the wick-clock consisted of a long piece of wick marked off in inches, set alight and allowed to smoulder. The thickness of the wick would be determined by trial and error so that one-inch represented one hour.

Another early method was the use of long candles also appropriately marked to measure units of time, usually the hours. The long ones would last about four hours.

Mechanical clocks and watches

While the methods of telling the time, already described were still in use, the first mechanical clocks appeared, early in the second millennium A.D. The origins are rather obscure. Historical records associate them with monasteries that were, at that time, important seats of learning in Italy.

Probably used to summon the monks to prayer or their daily routine tasks. From those early beginnings they spread throughout Europe during the 13th and 14th centuries

The problem in investigating the early history of mechanical clocks is the fact that all instruments used at that time including water clocks; sundials, sand-clocks etc were all referred to as “Horologiums” making it extremely difficult to distinguish mechanical from the rest.

Since the early forms of power driven clocks had not been discovered yet it is logical to assume that these clocks were weight driven.

Present day methods.

Early clocks and watches were toys for the wealthy aristocracy. Accuracy was very poor. Variances could range by as much as half an hour per day.

The invention of the pendulum was the first major step in improving this accuracy to within 30 seconds per week an exceptional performance for that period in history.

With scientific and technical skills advancing all the time, great strides were made to improve this accuracy to the present day atomic clock, accurate to within 1 second in 3000 yrs.

Another milestone in “Ways of telling the time” came in the second half of the 20th century when man became capable of precise dating methods. In earth sciences, this is the power to date accurately the age of rocks, minerals, fossils, and all types of archaeological finds including remains of his own species.

By applying this information to various branches of science man has been able to decipher a 4.6 billion year chronology of himself, the planet he lives on and Celestial bodies surrounding him.

Natural and man-made laws.




Man’s life has been governed by two sets of laws. Firstly, by the laws of nature. Secondly, the self-made laws to keep order in the societies he has created.

Both these conditions are totally dependent on time. Up till recently this dependency was merely a local or national affair. Now, it is a matter of international concern brought about by the “giant leaps” on Information Technology, electronic trading and other fast means of communications.

To show some of the anomalies in many parts of the world, currently present in a system that has served the world for longer than two centuries, I have chosen extreme instances in order to illustrate vividly the problem humans are already facing.

Their endeavours to live together peacefully and in an orderly manner, as a single world community, with their cultural and religious differences, as far as this effort concerns the question of defining and applying a Universal ”way of telling the time” is, at the moment, in peril.

Examples.

1) A Polynesian immigrates to Perth, Australia at the age of 18. His departed businessman uncle in Apia, the capital of Samoa, not having a family of his own left a will, stating that this nephew would receive his entire estate on his 21st birthday.

When his birthday approaches he is already married to a New Zealander and has moved to Christchurch to settle down. Will his birthday be calculated by Perth time GMT+9, Christchurch time GMT+12 or Samoan time, where he was born, GMT-12?

The difference is exactly 24 hours, between his present residence and his birthplace. All kinds of things can happen inside twenty-four hours. If they do, who will decide and on what basis?

2) A businessman travels consistently westward, around the globe, for a continuous period of 10 years. He crosses the date line, on average 5 times a year, loosing 24 hours each time. Is this man younger by 50 days? If something should go wrong in his life who will decide how old he is and on what basis?

3) At the same time someone else, does exactly the opposite for a similar period. Is he older by 50 days?

4) Assume a deal to be struck between two parties using the enabling power of electronic means, e-mail or the Internet. The invitation to sell, the offer to buy and the acceptance are entirely dependant upon a precise definition as to when they were concluded.

Unless there is a dedicated direct link between the parties this transaction will be processed through commercial service providers, using one or several intermediate servers located anywhere in the world or even in space. This order could be processed immediately or it could be part of a batch, ranging in frequency from a millisecond to several hours or even days, or may be never

Depending on what transpires and the nature of the contract, there are occasions, inevitably, when the goods or services sold are not owned by anyone. In contrast there can be circumstances where goods appear to be owned by several parties, all at the same time.

5) Take another commercial issue with a marketing emphasis. A multinational company decides to launch a new product across the world. Synchronisation of press releases could be critical, in protecting intellectual property rights.

The same would apply for the release of a new album on the web or any other form of a service with intellectual rights involved.

It is, therefore, not difficult to understand why there are so many conflicts.

The popular adventure story “Around the World in eighty Days” written in 1873, by Jules Verne has turned out quite prophetic, over the question of the “Date Line”.

In a world of instant communications across the globe, computer trading, e-mail and Internet there are millions of transactions every second and the numbers are increasing “astronomically” by the minute as more and more people join the web.

The time that each party sends a piece of information bears but a remote relationship to when it is actually received, if at all. Where action needs to be automated between thousands of locations around the Globe it is vital that each and every one uses precisely the same time. Therefore the “way of telling the time”, and applying it is becoming of the essence not only in all electronically processed transactions but also to life in general.

It follows, that if this world is to remain a sane and relatively orderly place and since life’s laws, both natural as well as man-made, cannot change, our present “ways of telling the time”, must be revised.

The future.

Do we need to upgrade? Is there an easy “user friendly” way to do this? I am sure there can be many solutions to the problem but here is one possibility:

Divide the solar day into beats instead of hours. Decide on the exact time and place this system is to begin, let us say noon or midnight GMT. of a given date.
Let us say the 01-01-01.

From this point on the whole world will have the same time and the same date, expressed in beats (instead of hours), minutes and seconds, irrespective of time zones, Northern or Southern hemispheres, day or night.

Introduce a third dimension so as to include fast moving vessels in space or the Earth’s atmosphere (The Concord or other airplanes capable of travelling considerably faster than the surface speed of the planet). Equally for points within the Earth’s solid mass or under the oceans.

The same data in Latitude and Longitude could be used plus the new factor that might be called “Depthitude”.


Where do we start?

The basic technology has been available since the late 60’s/early 70’s in the form of 24 satellites, continuously broadcasting coded signals orbiting the Earth at fixed predetermined positions in order to give global coverage,

The system complimented by ground support provides to a receiver an accurate three-dimensional position, speed of travel, time and date, twenty four hours a day, anywhere in the world and under all weather conditions.

Known as the Global Positioning System (GPS) it was originally operated and maintained by the United States Department of Defence as an improved navigational aid, and as an anti-jamming device against deceptive signals.

Because its capabilities are easily contained in small portable inexpensive equipment the system became attractive to a broad spectrum of users.

Subsequent technological advances in communications and Information Technology by all industrialised countries, that came rapidly in the following decades, initiated techniques able to compute positions to within 1cm anywhere on the surface of the globe, altitude or depth below sea level including both polar regions, or any point in the interior of the earth’s mass.

The system works much like the radio does, since Marconi’s invention of wireless telegraph between England and France in 1899, by establishing land stations around the Globe transmitting coded signals to enable navigators to position themselves on the surface of water.

The satellites carry atomic clocks, measuring time to a high degree of accuracy. This is included in the coded signals broadcast by each satellite.

The receiver, a portable instrument, carried by any subject from a person to a space vehicle, deciphers the signal, computing instantly the three-dimensional position, anywhere on the surface of the Globe, above it or below it.

Every location on the Earth’s surface, atmosphere or mass will use three points of reference instead of two. This can also apply to space within the Earth’s orbit around the sun plus the moon’s orbit around the Earth.

The system is now universally acknowledged. It is capable of enhancing safety and reducing energy consumption, and has already become a key component of the controls in the captain’s bridge, sea, air, or space, road vehicle’s instrument panel, biker’s compass, the pocket or wrist watch.


Past endeavours to synchronize the World.

An attempt was made in 1972 to create a Universal Standard called Coordinated Universal Time (CUT), based on the atomic clock, presently lying dormant at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIMP) in Paris.

More recently there has been an initiative in the U.K. aiming to establish an updated version of GMT.

It suggests that GMT should apply universally for commercial transactions accompanied by local time, but does not resolve the existing anomalies with time zones overlapping each other to follow national boundaries in the process creating all kinds of paradoxical situations such as the examples mentioned earlier.

The confusion arises from the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line, dividing up the Globe into two “unequal” halves one for noon and the other for midnight, respectively.

The new date starting at midnight was decided to serve the needs of the period. With progress, anomalies were created not just with time but also with the date. If the Date Line can also be the Prime Meridian the problem could be solved instantly. All the places in the World would have the same time and the same date expressed by an Atomic Clock.

Man has come a long way. From a simple stone-age being to the most dominating creature on this planet. Never has he possessed such power capable of preserving his “Kingdom” forever, or cause its extinction at a touch of a button.

Conclusions can be drawn from all of the above

IT'S ABOUT TIME.

Isn’t it about time the world adopts existing means, waiting to be used, in order to contribute towards a happier, safer and a more “user-friendly” place to live in?

Let me close this chapter by wishing that such a change in our “Ways of telling the time”, comes about soon before there is a major anomaly to push people further apart, causing the inevitable, rather than bring them closer together.

Let the people of this World “make a new millenniums resolution” to agree on this issue then planet Earth can continue uninhibited along its natural course.

Michael Vardanis
All rights reserved March 18th 2011

It was written earlier that the beginnings of the POCKET WATCH have been traced back, by scholars as well as by enthusiast, to PETER Henlein in Nuremberg Germany around the beginning of the sixteeth century.

There have been suggestions, mainly through Renaissance paintings, that a portable time piece may have existed a little earlier, but it is equally possible that such creations on canvas may have been products of futuristic imagination on behalf of the painter(s).

Another milestone in the advancement of mechanical pocket watches has been the introduction of the “STAR” calibre by Patek Philippe to celebrate the dawn of the third Millennium.

It is a set of four pocket watches with every conceivable complication Horological science can devise & offer at the present time. Surely this along with other similar efforts by other well known Swiss Manufacturers must represent the pinnacle of achievement in the branch of the “MECHANICAL WRIST OR POCKET WATCHES”. Only a few were made and sold long before they were completed at the scandalous price of GBP 4.5M per set.

It, therefore, has been chosen to mark the END of this prologue.

I would strongly recommend to all members who haven't yet seen the video published by Patek to do so. Just Google
"Star Calibre" and it will start automatically. Sorry for being unable to incorporate it here for you.

αγαπητε Μιχαλη συγχαρητηρια για τις παρα πολυ ενδιαφερουσες αναφορες σου
σιγουρα το θεμα της γλωσσας ισως δυσκολευει ορισμενα μελη αλλα αξιζει τον κοπο να προσπαθησουν
να σε διαβασουν
οσον αφορα την τελευταια σου παρατηρηση για το βιντεο που αφορα το Star Calibre της Patek Philippe ιδου και το βιντεο
για να το απολαυσουμε ολοι

[youtube][/youtube]

φιλε Μιχάλη είναι πραγματικά πολύ ενδιαφέροντα όσα μας παραθέτεις και ελπίζω να συνεχίσεις ανάλογα....

ευχαριστούμε..........

FOREWORD

How come a Businessman is now a qualified Horologist? Some credentials in the form of historical reference to events that took place over 60 years ago may qualify to give an explanation.

A contribution such as this in a Forum full of young people eager to learn, in the writer’s humble opinion should perform many tasks.

If the subject is wholly or partly technical it should impart accurate information in a format that has not been written before. It should be entertaining without over dramatisation. It should have something new to give, even if it is a small part of an insignificant human story.

The only human story I know inside out is my own and with the readers indulgence I will refer to some of its horological highlights and events surrounding them.
Allowances must be made for a weakening memory and perhaps a dose of imaginary conditions that through the years have become a “reality”.

Beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

Retirement to most people usually means the culmination of a lifetime’s hard work to secure the opportunity for a restful old age free of the daily stresses, simple things like early wake-ups, rushing to work through masses of traffic or more complex such as fighting the way up the professional or social ladder, defending your achievements or raising, educating and marrying off a bunch of kids.

For the writer it was not quite as simple as that. Few if any professionals begin to think of a new career at the age of 67 much less a fully fledged scientific one with all the trimmings of another
full time University course.

Yet the call came loud and clear. “Here is the opportunity to do what you have always wanted but never had the time.” Said the voice, and continued… “Don’t forget what you promised yourself. You must not leave this world without filling in some of those horological gaps that have tortured you for so long, ever since the age of 9 yrs.”
“Now go. What are you waiting for?”

THE FIRST ENCOUNTER

Yes, I was 9 years old at the time when the bug bit me. The year was 1939 and the place was Athens, Greece.

It was a miserable autumn’s day, wet and cold, unusual kind of day for the time of the year in that part of the world. But there it was. No “exploring” or “cops and robbers” games with the gang in the neighbourhood. Everyone was locked up inside trying to keep dry and warm.

School homework finished I could find nothing to do. My brother Alex, 3 years and 4 months younger was too young to play with.

The house, on a single level. developed around a large living room. Excluding mother and fathers room not much territory to cover in order to kill my boredom so I decided to venture into their sleeping quarters.



THE BUG

And there it was. Dad’s pocket watch on the bedside cabinet. What was it doing there? Had he forgotten it?

There was no one else in the house except for my grand mother on my mum’s side cooking dinner over a charcoal stove in the kitchen. Mother was visiting relatives, something she was doing frequently
since Hitler’s ascent to power. In that way she derived confidence and courage, to face what was coming.

Father, on the other hand a Notary Public would stay late at the office, he too concerned with the developments in Central Europe.

I knew that mother was going to be away for at least another 2 to 3 hours and father even later. As I always wanted to get my hands on it I decided to risk it. I knew I could be doing something wrong but the desire was overpowering.

As I picked it up I heard a whisper of a noise coming from the interior. A boy’s imagination went immediately to work.

Keeping it close to my ear I started imagining scenes straight out of Dumas’s pages. The Three Musketeers fighting their way out of a castle fencing with guards, tic tack, tic tack. Then a morbid thought came over me. Perhaps this was not Aramis or Porthos but some poor slave being tortured tied up firmly on a table with a water tank above him, a drop at a time, on his forehead, tic tac, tic tac......

I had to find out. My reliable penknife performed impeccably once again.

Within a couple of minutes the covers were off. I remember experiencing a feeling of awe mixed with disappointment for not seeing microscopic musketeers in their feathered hats crossing swords with some inadequate souls, and satisfaction that no one was being tortured.

It was beginning to get dark and the streetlights had come on. Their reflection combined with the room lamp gave the impression that the balance wheel shot out sparks.

What was this? I wondered.

αγαπητέ γράφε σε ελληνικά όσο μπορείς διότι μεγάλοι άνθρωποι είμαστε κ δεν έχουμε κουράγιο - χρόνο να διαβάζουμε αγγλικά κ είναι κρίμα να περνάνε στο ντούκου τόσο ενδιαφέροντα θέματα