Buzz
A clock's existence seems simple enough. It ticks until the battery runs out, waits for a new one, and then continues ticking. But like cats, these timepieces have a mysterious side. They influence one another, distort time, and are favored by the more eccentric elements of art. Thanks to this, some can now frighten children with a giant cuckoo bird or a grasshopper, a symbol of doom. Fun times.
10. The Unsettling Corpus Clock
Located in Cambridge, the Corpus Clock is a famous sight. Donated in 2008 by designer John Taylor to Corpus Christi College, this public monument attracts clock enthusiasts. While the clock is coated in gold, it still manages to disturb some visitors. The shine can't mask the monstrous nature or the eerie message it sends.
At first glance, it seems harmless. The swirling face is said to symbolize the Big Bang, marking the birth of time itself. Instead of traditional numbers and hands, rings of LED lights display the passing seconds, minutes, and hours. When the hour arrives, a chain rattles and a hammer strikes a coffin, reminding viewers of their mortality. On top of the clock sits a large grasshopper, known as the Chronophage, or 'time-eater.' It snaps its jaws with each passing minute, sending the message that time should not be taken lightly.
9. The Giant Cuckoo Bird
Cuckoo clocks are divisive. You either adore them or toss them at a garage sale. The hallmark of these clocks is the tiny bird that pops out at set times, with emphasis on 'tiny.' These clocks are designed to be lightweight and small, making the moving parts smoother and easy to hang. But one clockmaker had other ideas. He envisioned a giant box with a cuckoo worthy of residing inside.
To craft his version, he took inspiration from a small, century-old timepiece. Once the replica was finished, it stood 60 times larger than the original. The oversized bird that popped out of it weighed 149 kilograms (330 pounds) and measured 4 meters (14 feet) in length. Anyone daring enough to see the world’s largest cuckoo can visit the clock in Triberg, Germany.
8. A Clock That Wakes You With Coffee
No one enjoys being woken by the shrill sound of an alarm clock. But for coffee lovers and those who prefer a gentler start to their day, there’s hope. In 2016, a French student, inspired by his country’s love for food, invented a clock that rouses people with the delightful aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
Named Sensorwake, this clock awakens the senses with scents like freshly baked croissants, roasted coffee, chocolate, and peppermint. Nature lovers can even enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass, leaves, and flowers. For example, if the scent of a mowed lawn is what gets you going in the morning (strangely enough), a grass-scented capsule can be inserted into the clock. Each capsule lasts about a month.
Multiple studies have compared sound to smell in wake-up experiments, and scents often fell short. However, the inventor of Sensorwake stands by his creation – and he's correct. The Frenchman included a standard alarm that goes off three minutes after the scent is released. If the floral scent doesn’t rouse you, the usual blaring alarm will do the trick.
7. A Clock Moving Through History
The 19th century offered different forms of entertainment. Without the luxury of radios or the internet, the public had to settle for more tangible novelties. One favorite was the Great Historical Clock. Crowds would gather to marvel at its theatrical carvings depicting moments in American history. These included a rotating image of Niagara Falls, Pocahontas pleading for John Smith’s life, and Paul Revere on horseback. The ‘cuckoo’ of the clock was none other than George Washington. However, popularity faded, and after traveling across several countries, the Great Historical Clock was forgotten and disappeared.
In the 1980s, the Smithsonian Institute discovered the clock in storage and had it restored in 2017. New scenes were revealed, but the carvings – both old and new – were just part of the clock’s story. The team uncovered a music box inside and the shaft that powered the moving parts. They also found that the clock was designed to be disassembled. This made sense, considering its size – 3.9 meters (13 feet) tall and 1.8 meters (6 feet) wide – and the many travels it made. Breaking it down into smaller pieces would have made it easier to transport from show to show.
6. The Disappearing Six Minutes of Europe
In 2018, a strange phenomenon occurred when clocks across several European countries fell out of sync. At first, no one noticed, but after a few months, it became impossible to ignore – some clocks were running six minutes behind. It wasn't some mysterious event, but rather a political issue that caused this glitch in time.
Clocks that rely on the grid need a consistent supply of electricity to keep the time. In Europe, a 50 Hz frequency is required for accuracy. But for several months, the grid was operating at 49.996 Hz. This anomaly was traced back to a power plant in Kosovo, which was experiencing maintenance delays. Kosovo blamed Serbia for the situation, while Serbia pointed the finger back at Kosovo. Officially, Serbia was left responsible, though the situation was far more politically sensitive than that.
Due to the weakened grid, any clocks connected to the mains power supply began to run late. This included everything from microwaves and ovens to alarm clocks and heaters. However, clocks that were internet-synced or battery-powered remained on time. Eventually, the plant was repaired, and 25 countries returned to their correct time.
5. The Final Lunar Clock
Twice a week, for the past five decades, Mensur Zlatar climbs the Sahat-Kula tower. There, using an ancient relic – the last public lunar clock – he calls Sarajevo's Muslim community to prayer time. Zlatar's task is to manually reset the clock, and if he forgets, the tower will fall silent within a few days.
But Zlatar never forgets. Calling him dedicated is an understatement. During the 1990s, Sarajevo endured a brutal siege lasting 1,425 days – the longest and most severe siege in modern warfare. Civilians were picked off by snipers, yet Zlatar continued to visit the tower and somehow avoided becoming a target.
The clock tower was built in the 16th century when public clocks were highly valued, and timekeepers held esteemed positions. Today, however, the role of timekeeper is more like that of a caretaker. The clock's importance has faded as fewer people can read lunar time, preferring their own digital watches. Still, the clock and its keepers continue to serve the community.
4. The Oldest Working Clock
In 1386, the bishop of Salisbury Cathedral purchased a clock that was once the pride of the community. Today, it looks more like an industrial machine with massive iron cogs. It operates with a weight-and-pulley system that runs halfway up the cathedral’s walls. Remarkably, this 600-year-old Salisbury clock continues to tick, making it the oldest mechanical clock still in operation.
Each day, the ropes of the pulley system are wrapped around barrels, drawing multiple weights upward toward the ceiling. Over time, these weights slowly descend back down. The descent is regulated by an intricate mechanism within the clock, where a horizontal beam swings from a thread, pressing a rod against a wheel’s teeth every four seconds. While this design may seem simple today, in the medieval era, it was considered highly advanced, and it’s likely that the clock’s accuracy was checked using a sundial or water clock.
3. The Greatest Clocks Alter Time
Physicists argue that time is not a constant, meaning it behaves differently depending on where you are. This theory suggests that clocks contribute to this variability by distorting the flow of time. Only extraordinary instruments like atomic clocks can capture this phenomenon accurately, unfortunately leaving the humble egg timer out of the equation.
The concept of clocks warping time stems from two key principles of physics—Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and general relativity. Both principles claim that the more precisely we measure something, the less we can track its momentum. Time is no exception to this rule.
At the heart of this paradox is energy. To understand the momentum of time, scientists must measure the energy of a clock. However, atomic clocks, which divide time into incredibly small fractions, are so precise that scientists find it difficult to measure their energy. This ironically reduces the precision with which time near these clocks can be measured, showcasing time-warping in action.
2. Clocks That Stay Accurate for Billions of Years
Most timepieces that lose seconds can be fixed with a simple battery replacement. But there are a few devices that continue to lose time no matter the effort. One organization that isn’t thrilled by this issue is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Or perhaps they were just looking for a fun challenge. Regardless, in 2015, a NIST team decided to use strontium atomic clocks to design a timepiece that would never fall behind.
These clocks don’t function mechanically; instead, they operate with lasers that monitor the vibrations of strontium atoms. While this atomic vibration method is more accurate than most, it wasn’t flawless. After making adjustments to correct the clock’s errors, the NIST team succeeded in creating a timepiece so precise that it would take 15 billion years before it lost a single second.
The ability to remain accurate over such an astronomically long period isn’t the clock’s only talent. When placed near the Earth’s surface, the device is also able to detect gravity. This feature could allow a network of these clocks to eventually map out the planet in the most detailed 3D representation possible.
1. The Pendulum’s Puzzle
In 1665, while bedridden, Christiaan Huygens, the inventor of the pendulum clock, made a curious observation. As he watched his clocks, he noticed an unusual pattern. No matter how they were initially set, within half an hour, the pendulums of the clocks began swinging in opposite directions. Despite his expertise as a renowned Dutch physicist, Huygens couldn’t figure out what caused this strange phenomenon.
Huygens did realize that the two clocks were mounted on the same beam, a detail that misled scientists for centuries. They theorized that some mysterious force along the beam was responsible for synchronizing the clocks, but the mechanism behind it remained a mystery.
In 2015, a research team from Portugal decided to test this mystery. They mounted two pendulum clocks on a wall, removing the supporting beam entirely. To their surprise, the clocks still synchronized. The cause was discovered to be sound waves—each pendulum emitted sound pulses that traveled through the wall, not the beam. The clocks created a wave that interacted with the other clock’s wave, producing mutual friction. However, this effect was fleeting, as everything in nature tends to follow the path of least resistance, causing the pendulums to swing in opposite directions.
