A big part of "being scientific" is putting numbers on things. How can we measure ("put numbers on") time?
The lovely people at Abong have created a wonderful kit from which you can make a splendid wooden clock.
You will need patience and craftsmanship... but that's all! No fancy tools required. I can't recommend too highly.
Forty second YouTube video of my Abong clock WORKING!!!
(The long, slow, pendulum you can see to the left of the Abong clock is the subject of my Perpetual Pendulum page.
Details of escapement... There's a moment of poor focus. It clears. After that is just a long shot of the escapement, close up. You won't "miss bits" if you quite when you've seen enough.
Mounting the clock at precisely the right angle is important... make provision in the way you mount the clock to make such adjustments.
Short YouTube with a closeup of the action of escapement.Notice that the "over run" when the pendulum is as far left as it will go is the same as the over run when it is as far right as it will go. This is what you want, I think.
How much over-run you get is, I think, a function of how much weight you are using to power the clock. Too much weight: Unnecessary wear and tear. Too little: It will stop from time to time.
Fiddly? A bit. But Making It Work is more fun if it isn't too easy, isn't it??
((Not worth your time... a "scrap" of my editing that I'm not quitre ready to discard: earlier sixty second version of the intro video for the clock: (old YouTube. ))
That's the overview of my wooden clock.
I've also done a page about The Science (and Engineering) fun to be had from it.
Besides that, I've done a so-far-small page about Choices made by the designers of the kit. If YOU were selling the kit, would you change things? What? What would the pros and cons be, say, of making the pendulum longer? Shorter? Etc. What might you change? I bet there are things that could be changed that you won't even think of!
=== Of course, you can't think about clocks without thinking about time. I've written a page about 'Time' in general, too. I hope it sets you thinking, and that you have as much fun with that as I have... over many years. (I still only half understand "time", and my science only goes up to Einstein!)
If you found this of interest, please mention in forums, give it a Facebook "like", or whatever. If you want more of this stuff: help!? There's not much point in me writing these things, if no one hears about them. Does anyone feel they are of any use? If YOU do- please spread the word!
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www.arunet.co.uk/tkboyd/index2.htm: My site at Arunet.
It's both! Flat-Earth-Academy.com is something I started years ago. For a variety of reasons, I can't offer you httpS:// access there. (As you are not asked to input any information, that's moot, but it "worries" search engines.) So I'm moving to my new, all singing, and will do the httpS:// dance site, "WYWTK.com", and Flat-Earth-Academy is gradually acquiring pages there. (Well, HERE, as what you are reading is one of my "wywtk/fea" pages.)
Why "WYWTK"? It comes from "What You Want To Know".
Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. It passes in some important ways, but still needs work to fully meet HTML 5 expectations. (If your browser hides your history, you may have to put the page's URL into the validator by hand. Check what page the validator looked at before becoming alarmed by a "not found" or "wrong doctype".)
AND tested for
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