April 23, 2008

It only tells the hour, but that's amazing enough. Artist Christiaan Postma uses more than 150 clockworks to create a clockface that spells out each hour. I love the animation. (Shamelessly stolen from Boing Boing)
posted by Alnedra 15 years ago
  • Well, I never read BoingBoing so would have missed this splendid bit of cleverness otherwise. Thanks Neddy.
  • Oh my gosh, that is gorgeous.
  • Sublime. Must be a bugger to wind every night though.
  • I want one. It's one of the most fascinating clocks I've ever seen.
  • Looking at the animation closely, I suspect that one could actually tell more specific units of time (probably down to quarters of an hour) by noting the progression of the letters forming between one hour and the next. (e.g. Twelve is almost unreadable, One is barely formed, must be about 12.45 or thereabouts)
  • Very nice. I wonder whether it was actually necessary to use 150 separate clockworks, though. Presumably we're using the hour hand in each case - obviously all hour hands rotate at the same speed - so one could have driven the lot?
  • I want one too. Letters slowly forming out of chaos - very nice. Could make a screen saver like this. Pleggy: you'd need a lot of chains to link all those axles, or a lot of idler wheels between final drive cogs to make them go the right way. Well (when I think twice) they don't have to go the same way - so long as they line up at the right moment. Of course there was also the military version of this clock - it was much much wider - it had to spell out "TWENTY THREE HUNDRED HOURS".
  • Oh, that's just beautiful. Wantwantwant.
  • excellent!