| | | All clocks must have two basic components:
- A regular, constant or repetitive process or action to mark off equal increments of time. Early examples of such processes included the movement of the sun across the sky, candles marked in increments, oil lamps with marked reservoirs, sand glasses (hourglasses), and in the Orient, knotted cords and small stone or metal mazes filled with incense that would burn at a certain pace. Modern clocks use a balance wheel, pendulum, vibrating crystal, or electromagnetic waves associated with the internal workings of atoms as their regulators.
- A means of keeping track of the increments of time and displaying the result. Our ways of keeping track of the passage of time include the position of clock hands and digital time displays.
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| Not until somewhat recently (that is, in terms of human history) did people find a need for knowing the time of day. It is thought that 5000 to 6000 years ago great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa began to make clocks to augment their calendars. With their attendant bureaucracies, formal religions, and other burgeoning societal activities, these cultures apparently found a need to organize their time more efficiently.
While ancient civilizations developed sun clocks and water clocks, more recently quartz clocks and mechanical clocks have been used for timekeeping. Digital clocks have been the most recent advance in timekeeping. |
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