History of the watch

The history of the watch is thousands of years old.

The very first hours on earth are sunny. They were ingeniously simple: a pole stuck into the ground. Around him is a time scale. The shadow from the pole, moving along it, showed what time it is now. Later such watches were made of wood or stone and installed on the walls of public buildings. Then came a portable sundial, which was made from precious wood, ivory or bronze. There were even watches, which can be conditionally called pocket;they were found during excavations of an ancient Roman city. These solar watches, made of silvered copper, had the shape of a ham, on which lines are drawn. The spire, the clock's arrow, served as a ponytail. The clock was small. They could easily be placed in your pocket. But the inhabitants of the ancient city did not come up with pockets yet. So they wore such watches on a cord, chain or attached to canes from an expensive tree.

The sundial had one significant drawback: they could "walk" only in the street, and even then on the sunlit side. This, of course, was extremely inconvenient. Apparently, therefore, invented a water clock. On droplets, water flowed from one vessel to another, and by how much water flowed out, it was determined how much time had passed. For many hundreds of years, such clocks - they were called klepsydra - served people. In China, for example, they were used 4,5 thousand years ago. By the way, the first alarm clock on the ground, too, was water - and an alarm clock, and a school bell at the same time. His inventor consider the Greek philosopher Plato, who lived 400 years before our era. This device, invented by Plato to convene his students for classes, consisted of two vessels. In the upper water was poured, from which it gradually flowed into the lower, displacing the air from there. The air along the tube rushed to the flute, and it began to sound. And the alarm was adjusted depending on the time of year. Clapsydra were very common in the ancient world.

Sundial. Hourglass.

A thousand years ago in Baghdad Khalif Kharun ar-Rashid, the hero of many fairy tales "Thousand and One Nights", ruled. True, in fairy tales, he is depicted as a kind and fair sovereign, but in fact was treacherous, cruel and vindictive. The Caliph maintained trade and diplomatic relations with the rulers of many countries, including the Frankish king Charles the Great. To him in 807, Harun al-Rashid made a gift worthy of the caliph, a water clock made of gilded bronze. The arrow could show the time from 1 hour to 12. When it came to the figure, there was a ringing, which produced balls falling on the bronze sheet.

Simultaneously appeared figures of knights, which passed before the audience and were removed.

In addition to water clocks, hours of sand and fire were also known( most often alarm clocks).In the East, the latter were sticks or cords made from a slowly burning composition.

They were put on special stands and over that piece of sticks where the fire had to come at a certain time, metal balls hung low on the string. The flame was drawn to the thread, it burned out, and the balls fell to the copper cup with a ringing. In Europe, for this purpose, a candle with the divisions applied on it was used. In the required division, a pin with a peg attached to it was stuck. When the candle burned to this division, the weight dropped on a metal tray or just on the floor.

There is hardly anyone who will name the first inventor of mechanical watches. Such watches are first mentioned in ancient Byzantine books( the end of the VI century).Some historians attribute the invention of a purely mechanical clock to Pacificus of Verona( early IX century), others to the monk Herbert, who later became pope. He made a tower clock for the city of Magdeburg in 996.In Russia, the first tower clock was installed in 1404 in the Moscow Kremlin by the monk Lazar Serbin. They were cobwebs of cogwheels, ropes, shafts and levers, and a heavy weight riveted the watch to its place. Such structures were created for years. Not only the master, but also the watchmakers tried to keep secret the secrets of the arrangement of mechanisms.

The first personal mechanical watch was driven by a horse, and the groom followed their serviceability. Only with the invention of an elastic spring the watch has become comfortable and trouble-free. The first spring for pocket watches was a pig's bristle. It was applied by Nuremberg watchmaker and inventor Peter Henlein at the beginning of the XV century.

And in the late 16th century a new discovery was made. The young scientist Galileo Galilei, observing the motion of various lamps in the Pisa Cathedral during the service, found that neither the weight nor the shape of the lamp, but only the length of the chains on which they are suspended determines the periods of their oscillations from the wind bursting into the windows. He owns the idea of ​​creating a clock with a pendulum.

Dutchman Christian Huygens knew nothing about the discovery of Galileo and repeated it in 20 years. But he invented and a new regulator of the uniformity of the stroke, which greatly increased the accuracy of the clock.

Many inventors tried to perfect the watch, and at the end of the XIX century they became a thing of the ordinary and necessary.

In the 30 years of the XX century, quartz watches were created, which had deviations of diurnal variation of about 0.0001 seconds. In the 1970s, an atomic clock appeared with an error of 10 "13 seconds

Today, many different watches have been created, the most common being wristwatches

Modern watches

Their dial is becoming more like an instrument panel of an airplane or, at least, In addition to the time of day, watches often show the month, day and day of the week. With a waterproof watch, scuba divers know the depth of the dive, and when the air reserves in the cylinders run out. Once, another indication is displayed on the dial - the pulse rateA. There are radio-controlled watches with solar power, they allow the deviation of time in 1 second from the astronomical for 150 thousand years, automatically switch with taking into account seasonal and waist time. Watching clock with built-in TV, thermometer, measuring air or water temperature, clock- dictionary for 1700 words.

It is more complicated, modern alarms are more perfect, and French mechanics, for example, designed such that at a given time they begin not only to ring, but also. .. to dance: two wide legs, on whichbecome a mechanism rhythmically hit the table;can dance and tap dance, and twist. There is an alarm clock for snoring in a dream. It looks like a normal soap dish, only it contains not soap, but a microphone, amplifier and vibrator. The device is placed under the mattress, and as soon as a person snores more than five times, the alarm starts to shake so that the sleeper must turn over on his side - and the snoring stops. There is an alarm clock and for the letharges. At the appointed time, he pushes the air into the mattressed chamber, which inflates and. .. resets the lover to sleep from the bed. In short, the inventive idea does not slumber. ..

Advertising hours beginning of the XX century.

Advertising of watches.20-ies of the XX century.

Do you know?

Once AV Suvorov at a feast with Prince Potemkin met a Russian mechanic and inventor of many instruments, including amazing watches. He bowed low to him, saying: "Your mercy!" Then he came closer, bowed even lower with the words: "Your honor!" And finally, coming very close, bowed to the belt and added: "Your wisdom is my respect!".What is the name of this inventor?

Kulibin.