Watches are A brief history of watches and their varieties

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Watch is an invariable attribute of modern life. It is simply impossible to imagine our world without them. Think about what would happen if all the clocks broke down at once or stopped running? Complete chaos. However, how did it all start? When did they appear, what types of them exist? We will talk about this. This topic is very extensive, and we will consider only the most basic.

Ancient times

The meaning of the word "clock", according to the dictionary, is the following: a device for measuring time within a day. Agree, a very good definition, because if days can be counted by sunsets and sunrises, then how to recognize periods more accurately? This is what haunted our ancestors in antiquity, and they came up with various devices for determining and measuring time. The very first were water clocks. This device was a vessel from which liquid gradually flowed out. The first mention of them is found, starting from 157 BC. e. in Ancient Rome. Later, they were slightly modified, and a float with marks was added to them.

Hourglasses are also widely used - their device is familiar to everyone, and they are used to this day, but only as an interior item, entourage and funnytrinkets.

Sundials were also widely used. This device was a circle divided into divisions with a rod in the center, the solar shadow of which indicated the time. They were invented around 1306-1290. BC e. There are many varieties of them, but they all operate according to the principle described above - a change in the shadow due to the rotation of the Earth relative to the Sun.

A little later, in 725 AD, the first mechanical watch was made in China.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, sand, water and other exotic devices for determining the time replaced pendulum and weight clocks. These were large and bulky devices that not everyone could afford to keep at home, but in every major city they were installed on town halls and towers. For example, the first clock of this kind was located in the princely court of the Moscow Kremlin at the beginning of the 15th century.

Recent Times

In the mid-1800s, mechanical pocket watches gained immense popularity. These were the first devices of this kind that you could carry around and always know the exact time, and for a long time they were a status item. Then they were replaced by wrist - quartz and electronic. Atomic ones are considered the most reliable and accurate, in which time is determined by the half-life of radioactive elements. They are used in space satellites, military and scientific industries.