September 22, 2008: Corpus Clock

[xoxoxoBruce]

From the Telegraph.

Prof Stephen Hawking is to unveil a remarkable £1 million clock with no hands that pays tribute to the world's greatest clockmaker.

The Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.
Dr Taylor, an inventor and horologist who studied at the College in the 1950s has put £1 million of his own money and five years into the project.

"One of my heroes is John Harrison," he says. Of Harrison's many innovations, he came up with the 'grasshopper escapement', explained Dr Taylor, referring to the device used by Harrison to turn rotational motion into a pendulum motion for timekeeping.

"No one knows how a grasshopper escapement works, so I decided to turn the clock inside out and, instead of making the escape wheel 35 mm across and hidden in the case, it is 1.5 m across and visible with the grasshopper escapement around the outside," said Dr Taylor.

He calls the new version of the escapement a 'Chronophage' (time-eater) - "a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally "eating away time". It is the largest Grasshopper escapement of any clock in the world.

It's really amazing to watch this work. I imagine, mounted on the outside of the Library building, it'll look quite spectacular, especially at night.
Why did it cost £1 million? Well the stainless face was formed in a secret Dutch underwater explosives laboratory, then gold plated. And two hundred people, including engineers, sculptors, scientists, jewelers, and calligraphers, were involved. A hella big project.



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