Researched
Mechanical Clock
Weight-driven clocks with an escapement (about 1300) tick time into equal hours: the first complex precision machine.
Open in the interactive tree →Monastery and town clocks with a verge-and-foliot escapement appeared in Italy and England around 1300, striking hours independent of the Sun. Huygens' pendulum clock (1656) improved accuracy from minutes to seconds per day. Gear-cutting for clocks trained generations of precision mechanics, and exact timekeeping became central to science, navigation and organised work.
Prerequisites
- Sundial & Water Clock~1500 BCWater clocks and their gears and floats led to the mechanical clock
- Calendar3rd millennium BC
- Mills as the First Machines~1000
Unlocks
- Marine Chronometer1761
- Standard Time & Time Zones1883-1884