The article does a terrible job explaining it.
The LEDs are apparently permanently lit, with overlapping slits ensuring that only the correct ones are visible.
Corpus Clock
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Re: Corpus Clock
#22Here's a video showing a grasshopper escapement in motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TBWJC0HYRE
This looks a lot cooler in motion than a lever escapement, thanks for the link!
Re: Corpus Clock
#23The grasshopper escapement was invented by John Harrison, who built the first clocks that could keep time at sea. These were used to calculate Longitude. There's a nice short biography called Longitude that covers his story.
To elaborate a bit, the significance of that was that without accurate clocks navigators could only reliably figure out their latitude at sea. Imagine if you are trying to navigate to some far away island that is southwest of your starting position. If you tried to sail the direct route, when you reached the correct latitude you would have no idea if you are east of the island or west of the island. Instead, you'd ha…
The author of Longitude gave some good examples of the human cost of the Longitude problem: a ship running aground and sinking, or sailors dying from scurvy because they traveled too far in the wrong direction. So an economic and military problem, and also one felt directly by anybody at sea.
Re: Corpus Clock
#24It looks more ugly in real life than it looks in pictures
Re: Corpus Clock
#25I live half a mile from this, it is nothing short of creepy.
They displayed it in the Grand Arcade when it was first introduced and people would actively walk the long way round to avoid it.
Re: Corpus Clock
#26It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all.
On the one hand why would this clock be tolerated if it was fraudulent — that is to say, not entirely mechanical?
On the other hand, if the work is as much artistic as it is technical, then the creator must be applauded. Why not troll the unbelievers by making the most striking component of your ‘mechanical’ clock — the part that tells the time — be utterly and obviously not at all mechanical.
There is a hint in the design that the concentric faces are some sort of circular vernier scale, but the way it is presented makes it seem like the creator very much wanted to give the impression that this is driven by blue electric lights. The aperiodic behaviour of the pendulum and grasshopper escapement seem a lot more interesting, but that mechanism is hidden from view.
This is the level of hubris one must expect from someone with large amounts of money... “clock-you money”? Not that we’re picking teams but I’m more of a Long Now fan, myself.
Re: Corpus Clock
#27My immediate thought was a morbid clock that used a live insect to measure they time. Once the creature dies you know that a certain amount of time has passed.
Is there a way to somewhat reliably derive time based on life cycle of bugs? Any particular species that have weird quirks which could be exploited like this?
Re: Corpus Clock
#28It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all. On the one hand why would this clock be tolerated if it was fraudulent — that is to say, not entirely mechanical? On the other hand, if the work is as much artistic as it is technical, then the creator must be applauded. Why not troll the unbelievers by making the most striking compo…
> It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all.
What? The face design is lit, many clocks are lit, but that's not intrinsic to the design. The clock could be perfectly functional with a different face design and doesn't affect the mechanics.
Re: Corpus Clock
#29It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all. On the one hand why would this clock be tolerated if it was fraudulent — that is to say, not entirely mechanical? On the other hand, if the work is as much artistic as it is technical, then the creator must be applauded. Why not troll the unbelievers by making the most striking compo…
> It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all. What? The face design is lit, many clocks are lit, but that's not intrinsic to the design. The clock could be perfectly functional with a different face design and doesn't affect the mechanics.
The visible parts of the illuminated elements are, I believe, completely static. Without the backlight shining through the internal mechanism you cannot tell the time.
Moreover, the backlighting is so in-your-face that it requires the lay observer to do quite a bit of mental hopping around to align with the idea that this is a mechanical clock.
It hardly goes out of its way to convince you it truly is mechanical.
Re: Corpus Clock
#30It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all. On the one hand why would this clock be tolerated if it was fraudulent — that is to say, not entirely mechanical? On the other hand, if the work is as much artistic as it is technical, then the creator must be applauded. Why not troll the unbelievers by making the most striking compo…
> It is needlessly provocative for the creator to claim it is a mechanical marvel and yet require blue LEDs for the clock to work at all. What? The face design is lit, many clocks are lit, but that's not intrinsic to the design. The clock could be perfectly functional with a different face design and doesn't affect the mechanics.
A large clock like this is an aesthetic work as much or more than a functional one, and a good design would make sure those aspects were consonant with each other.