Time is one of the fundamental concepts that a person is still trying to comprehend and understand. The ideas about time changed with the development of science and technology, and along with the change in ideas, the instruments for measuring them also changed, that is, chronometers or, in simple terms, watches. In this article, we will talk about who, when and where invented the first watches of various types, talk about the evolution and history of the invention of watches, and also tell interesting facts about watches.
The invention of the sundial
Budget option sundial
The change of seasons, the change of day and night prompted the first people to think about changing the surrounding reality, moreover, a regular, periodic change. Society was developing, so it became necessary to synchronize their actions in space and time, and for this a time meter was needed. Most likely, the first sundial had primarily a religious meaning and was used for rituals. Now it is difficult to establish exactly when the human mind saw the relationship between the length of the shadow from various objects and where the Sun is now.
The general principle of a sundial is that there is some elongated pointer that casts a shadow. This pointer acts as a clock hand. A dial is placed around the pointer, where various divisions are applied (divisions, generally speaking, can be any), which correspond to certain units of time adopted in a particular culture. The Earth moves around the Sun, so the shadow changes its position, and also lengthens and shortens, which allows you to determine the time, albeit very inaccurately.
The earliest known sundial is the shadow clock used in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian astronomy, which dates back to 1500 BC. Although later scientists announced some kind of limestone clock, whose age reached 3300 BC.
The oldest sundial from the Valley of the Kings of Egypt (c. 1500 BC)
Also, various sundials were later found in ancient Egyptian temples, tombs and memorials. Later, the usual vertically installed obelisks showed a drawback, since their shadow went beyond the borders of the plate with divisions. To replace them, they came up with a sundial that casts a shadow on an inclined surface or steps.
Drawing of a sundial from Kantara, where the shadow falls on an inclined plane
There are finds of sundials in other countries. For example, there is a sundial from China, which is distinguished by its device.
Equatorial sundial. China. forbidden city
Interesting fact. The division of the dial into 12 parts is inherited from the hexadecimal number system of ancient Sumer. If you look at your palm from the inside, then notice that each finger (do not count the thumb) consists of three phalanges. We multiply 3 by 4 and we get the same 12. Later, the Babylonians developed this number system, and from them it most likely passed to ancient Egypt, as a tradition. And now, after thousands of years, we see the same 12 parts on the dial.
The sundial was further developed in Ancient Greece, where the ancient Greek philosophers Anaximander and Anaximenes took up their improvement. It is from ancient Greece that the second name for the sundial "gnomon" originates. Then, after the Middle Ages, scientists took up the improvement of the gnomon, who even singled out the creation and adjustment of such a sundial in a separate section and called it gnomonics. As a result, sundials were used right up to the end of the 18th century, since their creation was affordable and did not require any technological troubles. Even now you can find similar sundials in cities, which have lost their practical meaning and have become ordinary sights.
TO the main disadvantages of such watches It should be attributed that they can only be used in sunny weather. Also, they are not accurate enough.
Modern sundial
Modern sundials usually play the role of interesting monuments and sights. Here are some of them.
At present, the sundial is only a funny historical artifact and has no wide practical application. But some craftsmen and inventors continue to improve them. For example, a French engineer invented the digital sundial. Their peculiarity is that they depict time in digital format with the help of shadows.
True, the step of such watches is 20 minutes and the digital version of the time will be available only from 10 am to 4 pm.
Invention of the water clock
It is impossible to say exactly when the water clock (the first name of the clepsydra) was invented, since it, along with the sundial, is one of the most ancient inventions of man. It can be reliably said that the ancient Babylonians and ancient Egyptians were familiar with the water clock. Approximately the date of invention of the clock is considered to be 1600 - 1400 BC, but some researchers claim that the first clock was known in China in 4000 BC.
Water clocks were known in Persia, Egypt, Babylon, India, China, Greece, Rome, and in the Middle Ages they reached the Islamic world and Korea.
The Greeks and Romans loved water clocks, so they did a lot to improve them. They developed a new water clock design, thereby increasing the accuracy of time measurement. Later improvements took place in Byzantium, Syria, and Mesopotamia, where ever more accurate versions of the water clock were supplemented by complex segmental and planetary gears, water wheels, and even programmability. Interestingly, the Chinese developed their own advanced water clock which included an escapement mechanism and a water wheel. The ideas of the Chinese passed to Korea and Japan.
Ancient Greek water clock "clepsydra". They looked like a vessel with a hole at the bottom through which water flowed. Time with the help of these clocks was determined by the amount of water flowing out. Numbering corresponds to 12 hours.
It is also interesting to look at the medieval clock "Elephant" by the inventor Al-Jazari, who was a Muslim engineer and inventor of various types of clocks. He built a clock interesting in its design and symbolism. When he finished his work, he described it like this:
"The elephant represents Indian and African cultures, the two dragons represent ancient Chinese culture, the phoenix represents Persian culture, the water work reflects represents ancient Greek culture, and the turban represents Islamic culture"
Scheme of the clock "Elephant"
Reconstruction of the clock "Elephant"
Interesting fact. You may have seen a clepsydra watch on the Ford Boyard TV show. These clocks hung outside every test room.
Clock from the program "Ford Boyard"
Early water clocks were calibrated using a sundial. Although the water clock never reached today's level of accuracy, it remained the most accurate and commonly used clockwork for its time for thousands of years, until it was replaced in Europe by the more accurate pendulum clock.
The main disadvantage of a water clock is the liquid itself, which can condense, evaporate or freeze. Therefore, they were quickly supplanted by the hourglass.
Modern water clock
Only a few modern water clocks exist today. In 1979, the French scientist Bernard Gitton began to create his time-flow clock, which is a modern approach to the design of ancient mechanisms. Gitton's design is based on gravity. Several siphons are fed on the same principle as the Pythagorean cup (a special vessel invented by Pythagoras, which pours out excess water from the vessel).
For example, after the water level is reached in the tubes with minutes or hours displayed, the overflow pipe starts to act as a siphon and thus empties the indicator tube. The actual time keeping is performed by a calibrated pendulum, which is powered by a stream of water coming from the watch's reservoir. Other modern water clock designs exist, including the Royal Gorge Water Clock in Colorado, the Woodgrove Mall in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and the Hornsby Water Clock in Sydney, Australia.
Invention of the hourglass
An hourglass is a device used to measure time. It consists of two glass vessels connected vertically by a narrow neck, which allows you to control the trickle of a certain substance (historically the first was sand) from the top of the flask to the bottom. Factors affecting the measured time interval include the amount of sand, sand size, vessel size, and neck width. The hourglass can be reused indefinitely, turning over the vessels once the top one is empty.
The origin of the hourglass is not entirely clear. According to the American Institute of New York, hourglass invented in Alexandria around 150 B.C.
In Europe, before the 8th century, the hourglass was known only in Ancient Greece, and in the 8th century, a Frankish monk named Luitprand creates the first French hourglass. But it wasn't until the 14th century that the hourglass became commonplace, the earliest evidence being the 1338 fresco "Allegory of Good Government" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
The image of the clock on the fresco "Allegory of Good Government"
The use of the marine hourglass has been documented since the 14th century. Marine hourglasses were very popular aboard ships as they were the most reliable way to measure time while at sea. Unlike a water clock, the movement of a ship while sailing did not affect the hourglass. The fact that the hourglass also used granular materials instead of liquids gave more accurate measurements, as the water clock was prone to condensation inside it during temperature changes. Sailors found that the hourglass was able to help them determine longitude, the distance east or west of a particular point, with reasonable accuracy.
The hourglass has also found popularity on land. As the use of mechanical clocks to mark the time of events such as church services has become more common, creating the need to keep track of time, the demand for time keeping devices has increased. Hourglasses were essentially inexpensive, as they did not require rare technology and their contents were not hard to find, and as the production of these instruments became more common, their use became more practical.
Hourglass in the church
Hourglasses were commonly used in churches, homes, and workplaces to measure sermons, food preparation, and time spent taking breaks from work. As they were used for more mundane tasks, the hourglass model began to shrink. The smaller models were more practical and very popular as they increased the level of punctuality.
After 1500, the hourglass began to lose its popularity. This was due to the development of mechanical watches, which became more accurate, smaller and cheaper and made it easier to measure time.
The hourglass, however, has not completely disappeared. Although they have become relatively less useful as watch technology has advanced, the hourglass has remained desirable in its design. The oldest surviving hourglass is in the British Museum in London.
Modern hourglass
Like the sundial, the hourglass is often made as an object of interest:
The world's largest hourglass. Moscow.
This hourglass stands to commemorate Hungary's accession to the European Union. They are able to count the time for a whole year.
But there are also miniature options used as souvenirs and key rings. For example, children's hourglass toys are quite popular, which allow you to measure the time that you need to spend brushing your teeth. They can be purchased on aliexpress at a fairly low price.
But in fact, the hourglass is still used in practice! You ask where? The answer is in clinics and hospitals. This watch is convenient to use to see patients. It is also convenient to use them as a timer when preparing food in the kitchen. Such watches are sold for about a dollar on the same aliexpress
Well, and a very interesting version of the hourglass, where magnetized shavings are used instead of sand. When sprinkling in the lower part of the watch, a bunch of a specific shape is formed, which you can look at for relaxation (an effect similar to the torsion of a spinner). Buy such a watch, and people from Russia write that the delivery works fine and the watch is packed well.
The first hours were… stellar. According to observations of the movement of the Moon and the Sun in Mesopotamia and Egypt, about 4,000 years ago, the methods of the sexagesimal time reference system arose.
A little later, the same system independently arose in Mesoamerica - the cultural region of North and South America, stretching from the center of modern Mexico to Belize. Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica.
All these ancient clocks, in which the "hands" were the rays of the Sun or shadows, are now called solar. Some scientists refer to the sundial stone structures-circles like Stonehenge, found in different parts of the world.
But megalithic civilizations (ancient ones, those that made structures from large stones without using a binding solution) did not leave behind written evidence of time accounting, therefore scientists have to build and prove very complex hypotheses of understanding time as a matter and the actual origin of watches.
The inventors of the sundial are called the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, or Mesopotamians. However, they were the first to count the time: they divided the year into 12 months, day and night - into 12 hours, an hour - into 60 minutes, a minute - into 60 seconds - after all, in Mesopotamia, the kingdom of Babylonia. 
This was done by the Babylonian priests using a sundial. At first, their instrument was the simplest watch with a flat dial and a central shaft that cast a shadow. But during the year the sun set and rose differently, and the clock began to "lie".
The priest Beroz improved the ancient sundial. He made the clock face in the form of a bowl, exactly repeating the visible shape of the sky. At the end of the needle-rod, Beroz fixed a ball, whose shadow measured the hours. The path of the sun in the sky was accurately reflected in the bowl, and on its edges the priest made markings so cunningly that at any time of the year his clock showed the correct time. They had only one drawback: the watch was useless in cloudy weather and at night.
Beroz's watch served for many centuries. They were used by Cicero, they were found on the ruins of Pompeii.
The origin of the hourglass has not yet been clarified. They were preceded by water clocks - clepsydras and fire clocks. Sandboxes, according to the American Institute (New York), could have been invented in Alexandria in 150 BC. e. 
Then their trace in history disappears and appears already in the early Middle Ages. The first mention of an hourglass at this time is associated with a monk who served in the Cathedral of Chartres (France) using an hourglass.
Frequent references to the hourglass begin around the 14th century. Most of them are about the use of clocks on ships, where it is simply impossible to use either fire as time meters. The movement of the vessel does not affect the movement of sand between the two vessels, nor does the change in temperature, because the hourglass - for sailors: bottles - showed more accurate time in any conditions.
There were many models of hourglasses - huge and tiny, which served for various household needs: from performing a church service to measuring the time needed for baking.
The use of hourglasses began to decline after 1500, when mechanical clocks began to be actively used.
Information on this issue is contradictory. But most scientists are inclined to believe that the first mechanical clock was created in 725 AD. e. Chinese masters Liang Lingzan and Yi Xing, who lived during the reign of the Tang Dynasty. 
They used a liquid anchor (trigger) mechanism in the watch. Their invention was perfected by masters Zhang Xixun and Su Song of the Song Empire (late 10th - early 11th century).
However, later in China, the technology fell into decay, but was mastered by the Arabs. Apparently, it was from them that the liquid (mercury) anchor mechanism became known to Europeans, who from the 12th century began to install tower clocks with a water / mercury escapement.
The weights on the chains become the next clock mechanism: the wheel gear is driven by the chain, and the spindle travel and the folio balancer in the form of a rocker with moving weights are regulated. The mechanism was highly inaccurate.
In the 15th century, spring-loaded devices appeared, which made it possible to make the watch small and use it not only on towers, but also in houses, carry it in your pocket and even on your hand.
There is no exact information about the invention. Some sources call the year 1504 and a resident of Nuremberg, Peter Henlein. Others attribute the introduction of the wristwatch to the name of Blaise Pascal, who simply tied a pocket watch to his wrist with a thin rope. 
Their appearance is also attributed to 1571, when the Earl of Leicester presented Queen Elizabeth I with a bracelet with a watch. Since then, wristwatches have become a women's accessory, and English men have a saying that it's better to wear a skirt than a watch on your hand.
There is another date - 1790. It is believed that it was then that the Swiss company "Jacquet Droz and Lesho" released the first wrist watch.
It seems that everything connected with the clock is somehow mysteriously hidden either by time or by history. This is also true for electronic watches, for the invention of which there are several contenders at once. 
The “Bulgarian version” seems to be the most probable. In 1944, the Bulgarian Petyr Dimitrov Petrov left to study in Germany, and in 1951 - in Toronto. A talented engineer becomes a member of NASA programs, and in 1969, using his knowledge of space technology, he creates the filling for the first Pulsar electronic watch.
The watch is produced by the Hamilton Watch Company, and the most authoritative watch expert G. Fried calls their appearance “the most significant leap forward since the hairspring was invented in 1675”.
Physicists have made a shocking discovery - in nature, time does not exist and never existed! In nature, only processes take place, they can be periodic or non-periodic. The concept of "time" was invented by people for their own convenience. Time is a measure of the distance between two events.
Who invented the first watch?
Man has invented many ways to measure time. First, time was measured in sunrises and sunsets. An increase or decrease in the shadow falling from various objects - stones, trees, helped a person at least somehow navigate in time. The time was also determined by the stars (at night, different stars are visible at different times).
The ancient Egyptians divided the night into twelve periods. Each gap began with the rising of one of twelve specific stars. The Egyptians divided the day into the same number of intervals. This is the basis of our division of the day into 24 hours.
Later, the Egyptians created shadow clocks (we call them sun clocks). They are a simple wooden stick with marks. The shadow clock became the first human invention designed to measure time. Of course, a sundial could not tell the time on a cloudy day and at night. One of the oldest written documents dating back to 732 BC. about the sundial is the Bible (twentieth chapter of the Book of Kings). It mentions the obelisk clock of King Ahaz. A sundial of the 13th and 15th centuries discovered during excavations. BC. testify that in reality the sundial appeared much earlier than the writings say.
The ancient Egyptians also created a water clock. They measured the length of time during which the liquid flows from one vessel to another.
The hourglass appeared in the 8th century. They are two soldered flasks. Sand poured into one of the flasks is poured through the narrow neck of the other flask over a certain period of time, for example, an hour. After that, the clock is turned over. Hourglasses are cheap, reliable, so they still have not disappeared from.
Mechanical watches appeared in Europe in the 1300s, they worked with the help of springs. They had no hands, and the passage of the hour was indicated by a bell.
Modern electronic and quartz watches use vibrations of quartz crystals.
The standard is atomic scales. They measure the transition time of an atom from a negative to a positive energy state and vice versa.
The appearance of the sundial is associated with the moment when a person realized the relationship between the length and position of the sun's shadow from certain objects and the position of the Sun in the sky. The gnomon was the oldest instrument for determining time. The change in the length of his shadow indicated the time. The creation of the so-called shadow (we call them sun) hours is attributed to the Egyptians, who invented them in the second millennium BC. They were a simple wooden board with marks. The shadow clock, divided into twelve daily intervals, became the first invention of man, designed to determine the time. Thus, the "Sundial" is a device for determining time by changing the length of the shadow from the gnomon and its movement along the dial. A small rod (gnomon) was fixed on a flat stone (kadran), demarcated by lines, - the dial, the shadow from the gnomon served as the hour hand. But since such clocks “worked” only during the day, clepsydra came to replace them at night - as the Greeks called the water clock.
There are sundial horizontal, vertical (if the plane of the dial is vertical and directed from west to east), morning or evening (the plane is vertical, from north to south), equatorial. Conical, spherical, cylindrical sundials were also built.
The simplest sundial.
The gnomon was the oldest instrument for determining time. The change in the length of its shadow indicated the time of day. Such a simple sundial is mentioned in the Bible:
2 Kings chapter 20
9. And Isaiah said, Here is a sign from the Lord to you, that the Lord will fulfill the word that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or turn back ten steps?
10 And Hezekiah said, It is easy for a shadow to move forward ten steps; no, let the shadow go back ten steps.
11. And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, and brought the shadow back on the steps, where it descended the steps of Ahazov, ten steps.
Isaiah chapter 38
8. Behold, I will return ten steps back the sun's shadow, which passed along the steps of Achazov. And the sun returned ten steps along the steps by which it descended.
The Bible verse mentions a sundial built in Jerusalem under King Ahaz in the 8th century BC.
One of the first sundials found in the grave of Naut (Ireland) dates back to 5000 BC.
The first known description of a sundial in ancient Egypt is an inscription in the tomb of Seti I dated to 1306-1290. BC e. It speaks of a sundial that measured time along the length of the shadow and was a rectangular plate with divisions. At one end of it is attached a low bar with a long horizontal bar, which casts a shadow. The end of the plate with the bar was directed to the east, and the hour of the day was set according to the marks on the rectangular plate, which in ancient Egypt was defined as 1/12 of the time interval from sunrise to sunset. In the afternoon, the end of the plate was heading west.
Reconstruction according to the description of the Egyptian sundial from the tomb of Seti I in the afternoon position. In the morning they were deployed in the other direction.
Tools made according to this principle have also been found. One of them dates back to the reign of Thutmose III and dates from 1479-1425. BC e., the second - from Sais, he is 500 years younger. At the end they have only a bar, without a horizontal bar, and there is also a plumb-line groove to give the device a horizontal position.
Sundial from the reign of Thutmose III. These clocks were also required to be turned in the afternoon.
The other two types of ancient Egyptian clocks that measured time by the length of a shadow were clocks in which the shadow fell on an inclined plane or steps. They were deprived of the lack of hours with a flat surface: in the morning and evening hours, the shadow went beyond the plate. These types of clocks were combined in a limestone model in the Cairo Egyptian Museum, which is somewhat later than the Sais clock. On one side of the model there are two inclined planes with steps, one of them was oriented to the east, while the other pointed to the west. Until noon, the shadow fell on the first plane, gradually descending the steps from top to bottom, and in the afternoon - on the second plane, gradually rising from bottom to top, at noon there was no shadow. On the other side of the model - two inclined planes without steps, this type of watch acted similarly to watches with steps.
A concrete implementation of the inclined plane type of sundial was the portable clock from Kantara, made around 320 BC. e. with one inclined plane, on which divisions were applied, and a plumb line. The plane was oriented towards the Sun.
Clock drawing with an inclined plane. This is what the watch from Kantara looked like.
In 2013, scientists at the University of Basel reported the discovery of a 3,300-year-old sundial, presumably vertical, painted on a limestone ostraca. They were found in the Valley of the Kings near the workers' dwelling between tombs KV29 and KV61.
Hours - skafis.
According to the story of Vitruvius, the Babylonian astronomer Berossus, who settled in the VI century. BC e. on the island of Kos, introduced the Greeks to the Babylonian sundial, which had the shape of a spherical bowl - the so-called scaphis. This sundial was perfected by Anaximander and Anaximenes. In the middle of the 18th century, during excavations in Italy, they found exactly such an instrument as described by Vitruvius. The ancient Greeks and Romans, like the Egyptians, divided the time interval from sunrise to sunset into 12 hours, and therefore their hour (as a measure of time) was of various lengths depending on the season. The surface of the recess in the sundial and the "hour" lines on them were selected so that the end of the shadow of the rod indicated the hour. The angle at which the upper part of the stone is cut depends on the latitude of the place for which the watch was made. Subsequent geometers and astronomers (Eudoxus, Apollonius, Aristarchus) came up with various forms of sundials. Descriptions of such instruments have been preserved, bearing the strangest names according to their appearance. Sometimes the gnomon casting a shadow was located parallel to the axis of the earth.
From Greece the sundial reached Rome. In 293 BC. e. Papirius Cursor ordered the construction of a sundial in the Quirinal temple, and in 263 BC. e. another consul, Valery Messala, brought a sundial from Sicily. Arranged for a more southerly latitude, they showed the hour incorrectly. For the latitude of Rome, the first hours are arranged around 170 BC. e. Marcius Philip.
Skafis - sundial of the ancients. Clock lines are applied on the spheroidal recess. The shadow was cast by a horizontal or vertical rod, or a ball in the center of the instrument. The angle at which the upper part of the stone is cut depends on the latitude of the place for which the watch was made. Therefore, such clocks were built in the place where they were supposed to be used.
Horizontal sundial.
The horizontal sundial consists of a cadran and a gnomon. The frame is set parallel to the horizon plane. Most often, the gnomon is a triangle perpendicular to the frame plane, and one of its sides is inclined to it at an angle equal to the geographical latitude of the clock installation site. The line of intersection of the gnomon and the frame is directed parallel to the midday line - the line along which the shadow of the vertical rod is directed at a given place at true noon.
Antique horizontal sundial.
Vertical sundial.
Vertical sundial is usually placed on the walls of buildings and various structures. Therefore, their frame is vertical - perpendicular to the plane of the horizon, but can be rotated in different directions. The location of the hour divisions on the frame depends on the side in which the frame is turned. They will be symmetrical with respect to the noon division only with a frame facing strictly south (geographically, not magnetic!) - in the northern hemisphere, or north - in the southern hemisphere, in other words - with a frame perpendicular to the noon line. For such a directed frame, the gnomon must lie in the plane of the celestial meridian, in other words, be perpendicular to both the plane of the frame and the plane of the horizon, and one of its sides must be parallel to the earth's axis.
Vertical sundial.
Vertical Sundial on the facade of the Church of Merafim Sarovsky in Pomoskovie. Inaerman limestone, copper, 100x50cm.
Vertical Sundial, 1623. Reconstruction in 1991.
IN Moscow Planetarium vertical sundial showing time and date.
This is a rare design of a sundial in which the gnomon pointing to the North Star is connected with a diopter at its lower end. A light hole in the form of the Sun with a crown throws a bunny onto a vertical shield-dial, on the surface of which a system of dates and hours is applied. The plane of the clock is oriented in the west-east direction.
From top to bottom on the stand there is a fan of straight lines measuring hours and minutes, and horizontally - a bunch of hyperbolas, along which the shadow from the Sun slides in different months at different heights. The sunbeam simultaneously indicates the time of day and the season.
It is clearly seen that on the day of the summer solstice, when the Sun moves as high as possible from the celestial equator and reaches the Tropic of Cancer, the bunny walks along the lower edge of the coordinate grid. On the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes, the solar circle will pass along the middle horizontal line, along the equator. And in winter, the bunny will walk on top.
equatorial hours.
The equatorial sundial also consists of a frame (a plane with hour divisions) and a gnomon. Hour divisions on the frame are applied at regular intervals, as on the dial of an ordinary watch, and the gnomon is usually a metal rod mounted on the frame perpendicular to its surface. Then the framer is oriented in the horizontal plane so that the straight line connecting the base of the gnomon and the hour division corresponding to noon is directed parallel to the noon line towards the south - for the Northern Hemisphere, or towards the north - for the Southern Hemisphere, and tilts relative to the horizon plane, respectively , towards the north or towards the south at an angle α=90°-φ, where φ is the geographical latitude of the place where the sundial is installed. The frame will be parallel to the celestial equator (hence the name of this type of sundial), and since the celestial sphere rotates uniformly during the day, the shadow from the gnomon for any hour of the day will describe equal angles (therefore, the hour divisions are carried out in the same way as on the dial regular hours).
Diagram of the equatorial sundial. They are also called oblique.
Equal angular intervals (t=15°) between adjacent hour divisions, as on the dial of ordinary clocks, and the perpendicularity of the gnomon to the framer are the main advantages of equatorial sundials over horizontal and vertical ones. The main disadvantage of equatorial sundials is that, unlike horizontal ones, they will work only from the day of the vernal equinox to the day of the autumn equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere, the spring equinox is in March, the autumn equinox is in September, in the Southern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox is in September , autumn - in March). In the rest of the year they will not work, since the Sun will be on the other side of the plane of the celestial equator, and the entire upper surface of the frame will be in shadow. Of course, this drawback can be eliminated by making a frame in the form of a plate, applying hour divisions to both the upper and lower surfaces, and continuing the gnomon under the plate, but even then, on days close to the day of the spring or autumn equinox, the sundial will not work - The sun will shine on the plate not from above and not from below, but from the side.
In the Middle Ages, Arab astronomers (Sabit ibn Korra, Ibn ash-Shatir, Abu-l-Hasan ibn Yunis) left extensive treatises on gnomonics, or the art of building a sundial. The basis was the rules of trigonometry. In addition to the "hour" lines, the direction to Mecca, the so-called qibla, was also applied to the surface of the Arabic clock. Especially important was the moment of the day when the end of the shadow of a vertically placed gnomon fell on the qibla line.
With the introduction of equal hours of the day and night (not dependent on the season), the task of gnomonics has been greatly simplified: instead of noticing the place of the end of the shadow on complex curves, it became enough to notice the direction of the shadow. If the pin is located in the direction of the earth's axis, then its shadow lies in the plane of the hour circle of the sun, and the angle between this plane and the plane of the meridian is the hour angle of the Sun or true time. It remains only to find the intersection of successive planes with the surface of the “dial” of the clock. Most often it was a plane perpendicular to the pin, that is, parallel to the celestial equator (equatorial, or equinox hours); on it, the direction of the shadow changes by 15 ° for every hour. For all other positions of the plane of the dial, the angles formed on it by the direction of the shadow with the noon line do not grow uniformly.
Gnomonics was engaged in drawing up rules for finding the various positions of the shadow on these surfaces. Sundial, as already mentioned, does not give the average, but the true solar time. One of the special tasks of gnomonics was to plot a curve on the dial of a sundial that would indicate the "mean" noon at various times of the year. In medieval Europe, gnomonics were practiced by: Apian, Albrecht Dürer, Kircher. Lived at the beginning of the 16th century. Münster has been recognized as the "father of gnomonics".
In China during the Zhou era an equatorial sundial was used in the form of a stone disk, installed parallel to the celestial equator and penetrating it in the center of a rod, installed parallel to the earth's axis. In the Qing era, China made a portable sundial with a compass: either equatorial - again with a rod in the center of a disk installed parallel to the celestial equator, or horizontal - with a thread in the role of a gnomon above a horizontal dial.
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In ancient Russian chronicles, the hour of some event was often indicated, which suggested that at that time certain instruments or objects were already used in Rus' to measure time, at least during the day. Chernigov artist Georgy Petrash drew attention to patterns in the illumination of the niches of the northwestern tower of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Chernigov by the Sun, and to a strange pattern (“meanders”) above them. Based on a more detailed study of them, he suggested that the tower is a sundial in which the hour of the day is determined by the lighting of the corresponding niche, and the meanders serve to determine the five-minute interval. Similar features were noted in other temples of Chernigov, and it was concluded that the sundial was used in Ancient Rus' as early as the 11th century.
During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, on August 23, 1739, a Senate decree was issued, according to which wooden obelisk milestones were installed on the road from St. Petersburg to Peterhof, in 1744 a decree was issued on the road from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo. Instead of milestones-obelisks, "marble pyramids" were subsequently placed with decorations based on the works of Antonio Rinaldi. Some of them had a sundial, and the traveler could read the distance and time from them. "Marble pyramids" with sundials have been preserved in the following places: in St. Petersburg at the corner of the Fontanka River embankment and Moskovsky Prospekt (marking one mile from the Post Office building) and in Pushkin near the Orlovsky Gates, located on the southern border of the Catherine Park. On the "marble pyramid" at the Oryol Gate, the installation date is indicated - 1775.
Once upon a time, a calendar was enough for people to keep track of time. But crafts appeared, and consequently, there was a need for an invention that would measure the duration of time intervals less than one day. This invention was the watch. Today we will tell about their evolution.
When there were no clocks...
The history of watches has much deeper roots than is commonly believed today. Experts say that the first people who began to keep track of time were primitive people who somehow could determine when hunting or fishing would be most successful. Perhaps they were watching flowers. It is believed that their daily opening indicates a certain time of day. So, the dandelion opens around 4:00, and the moon flower - only after dark. But the main instruments by which a person could determine the time before the appearance of the clock were the sun, stars, water, fire and sand. Such "clocks" are usually called the simplest.
One of the first who began to use the simplest clocks were the ancient Egyptians.
In 3500 BC in Egypt, a semblance of a sundial appeared - obelisks - slender, four-sided structures tapering upwards. The shadow they cast allowed the Egyptians to divide the day into two 12-hour parts, so people could know exactly when it was noon. A little later, markings appeared on the obelisks, which made it possible to determine not only the time before and after noon, but also other intervals of the day.
Technology gradually developed, and in 1500 BC. more convenient sundials were invented. They divided the day into 10 parts, as well as into two "twilight" periods of time. The inconvenience of such an invention was that it had to be rearranged daily at noon from east to west.
The first sundial changed more and more every year, and already in the 1st century. BC. The famous Roman architect and mechanic Marcus Vitruvius Pollio described 13 different types of sundials that were used throughout Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, Rome and India. By the way, today in Piazza del Popolo, located in Rome, everyone can admire the Egyptian obelisk, which has survived to this day, having a height of 36 m.
In addition to the sundial, there were also water, sand and fire clocks. The water clock was a cylindrical vessel from which water flowed drop by drop. It was believed that the less water remained, the more time had passed. Such clocks were used in Egypt, Babylon and Rome. In Asian countries, Roman and Arabic numerals were applied to the container, which meant day and night, respectively. To find out the time, this hemispherical vessel was placed in the pool, water got into it through a small hole. An increase in the liquid level raised the float, due to which the time indicator began to move.
Everyone is also familiar with the hourglass, with the help of which time was determined even before our era. In the Middle Ages, their development was improved, they became more accurate due to the use of high-quality sand in them - a fine powder of black marble, as well as sand from lead and zinc dust.
Once upon a time, time was also determined with the help of fire. Fire clocks were of three types: candle, wick and lamp. In China, a special variety was used, it consisted of a base made of combustible material (in the form of a spiral or stick) and metal balls attached to it. When some part of the base burned, the balls fell, thus beating the time.
It should be noted that candle clocks were popular in Europe, they made it possible to determine the time by the amount of burnt wax. By the way, this variety was especially common in monasteries and churches.
It is necessary to mention such a method of determining the time as orientation by the stars. In ancient Egypt, there were star charts, according to which stargazers, using a transit instrument, navigated at night.
The advent of mechanical watches
With the development of production and social relations, the need for a more accurate measurement of time periods has steadily increased. The best minds worked on the creation of mechanical watches, in the Middle Ages the world saw their first sample.
The first mechanical escapement clock was made in China in 725 AD. masters Yi Xing and Liang Lingzan. Later, the secret of the device of their invention came to the Arabs, and then to everyone else.
It is worth noting that mechanical watches have absorbed much from the simplest ones. The dial, gear train and battle have been preserved. It was only necessary to replace the driving force - a jet of water - with a heavy weight, which is much easier to handle, as well as add a descender and a speed controller.
On this basis, a tower clock was created, which was installed in 1354 in the French city of Strasbourg. They had only one hand - the hour hand, with the help of which people could determine the parts of the day, the holidays of the church calendar, for example, Easter and the days that depended on it. At noon, the figures of the three Magi bowed before the figure of the Virgin Mary, and the gilded rooster crowed and beat its wings. This clock was equipped with a special mechanism that set in motion small cymbals - stringed percussion musical instruments - which beat the time. To date, only a rooster has remained from the Strasbourg clock.
The era of quartz watches is coming
As you remember, the first mechanical watch had only one hand - the hour hand. Minute appeared much later, in 1680, and in the XVIII century. they began to install a second, at first it was lateral, and then central. By this time, the clock not only acquired the look familiar to us, but also improved internally. Ruby and sapphire stones were used as new supports for the balancer and gears. This reduced friction, improved accuracy and increased power reserve. Interesting complications also appeared: a perpetual calendar, automatic winding and a power reserve indicator.
Further improvement of instruments for measuring time proceeded like an avalanche.
The development of electronics and radio engineering has contributed to the emergence of quartz watches, which have a mechanism consisting of an electronic unit and the so-called. stepper motor. This motor, receiving a signal from the electronic unit, moves the arrows. Instead of a dial, quartz watches can use a digital display.
Also, quartz watches have many interesting additions, such as a stopwatch, moon phase indicator, calendar, alarm clock and much more. Unlike classic mechanical quartz models, they show time more accurately. Their error is ±15 seconds / month, so it is enough to correct their readings twice a year.
Time in electronic clock
Today, most people use electronic watches that have truly eclipsed all others. Wherever we see them: on the dashboard of a car, and in a mobile phone, and in a microwave oven, and on a TV ... Such watches attract users with their compactness and functionality. By type of display, they are liquid crystal and LED, they can be powered both from a 220V network and from batteries.
Well, the history of watches goes back many centuries. If you make a rating of the "greatest inventions of mankind", then the watch will certainly take second place in it after the wheel. After all, today you really can’t do without them.
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