TechnologyEurope
The mechanical clock
Time stops following the sun and starts following gears
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Lewis Mumford argued the clock, not the steam engine, is the decisive machine of the modern world: it turned time into a measurable, divisible, purchasable quantity. Hourly wages, railway timetables and factory shifts all presuppose it. The fixed hours of monastic prayer were probably the original spur to the invention.
For children
Before the clock, the length of an hour varied with the season — a summer hour was longer than a winter one. The mechanical clock made every hour equal. Town clock towers gave a shared time, and the working day could be measured.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org