Cambridge’s new clock it really tells time

22.09.08 / AROUND THE WORLD / Author: admin
Tags: Cambridge

Friday, the 19^th of September 2008, at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, England, the professor Stephen Hawking unveiled The Corpus Clock. The author of A Brief History of Time, Professor Stephen Hawking, was the guest of honour at a ceremony that mark the creation of The Corpus Clock, which cost more than 1 million pounds (US $ 1.8 million) to build and erect in Cambridge. The “Corpus clock” is the brainchild of inventor John Taylor, who used his own money to build it, in part to pay homage to the genius of John Harrison, the Englishman who in 1725 invented the ‘grasshopper’ escapement — a mechanical device that help to regulate a clock’s movement. Making a visual pun on the grasshopper image, Taylor has designed a fantasy version of a grasshopper at the top of the clock face, and uses this beast — with its long needle teeth and barbed tail — as an integral part of the clockworks. Its jaws begin to open halfway through a minute, then snap shut at 59 seconds.    The creature’s eyes, usually a dull green, occasionally flash bright yellow. The oversize grasshopper is called a chronophage, or ‘time eater.’