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A water clock or clepsydra (from Ancient Greek κλεψύδρα (klepsúdra) 'pipette, water clock'; from κλέπτω (kléptō) 'to steal' and ὕδωρ (hydor) 'water'; lit. ' water thief ' ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount ...
The water clock was created by Bernard Gitton, a French physical chemist and artist who combines those two studies by creating water clocks, water calculators, fountains, and other items of art and science. Bernard began making items of artistic science in 1979, at the age of 43, when he left the world of research science to create scientific art.
Islamic water clocks, which used complex gear trains and included arrays of automata, were unrivalled in their sophistication until the mid-14th century. [40] [41] Liquid-driven mechanisms (using heavy floats and a constant-head system) were developed that enabled water clocks to work at a slower rate. [41]
Water clocks are one of the oldest time-measuring instruments. [2] In ancient China , as well as throughout East Asia, water clocks were very important in the study of astronomy and astrology . The oldest written reference dates the use of the water clock in China to the 6th century BC.
A reproduction of the elephant clock in the Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai. A reproduction in Kasımiye Medrese, Mardin, Turkey. The timing mechanism is based on a water-filled basin hidden inside the elephant. In the bucket is a deep bowl floating in the water, but with a small hole in the centre. The bowl takes half an hour to fill through this hole.
The same timeline seems to apply in Europe, where mechanical escapements were used in clocks by that time. Up to the 15th century, clockwork was driven by water, weights, or other roundabout, relatively primitive means, but in 1430 a clock was presented to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, that was driven by a spring. This became a standard ...
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Ctesibius' water clock, as visualized by the 17th-century French architect Claude Perrault. Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius (Ancient Greek: Κτησίβιος; fl. 285–222 BCE) was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. [1] Very little is known of Ctesibius' life, but his inventions were well known in his ...