Given that we’ve just sprung our clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time, I thought it would be amusing to look at some funny clocks.
First, however, I want to “watch our water ways” by pointing out that water clocks are among the newest as well as the oldest time pieces on the planet.
Here is a digital clock, said to be powered only by water, a
primitive type of fuel cell. I’ll have more to say about the
technology at the end of this blog, but first some of the funny
clocks you can purchase online. Images are at the bottom of the
page.
The Whatever clock, available for purchase at
Buy.com, is for people who don’t know whether they are coming
or going and don’t really care when they get there.
Here’s a clock for those who have made a commitment not to drink before 5 p.m. You can pick this one up at Waste Some Cash, an online store.
And here’s a “melting time” clock for those folks who go through
life with their head in the clouds. Inspired by Salvador Dalí’s
surrealistic paintings, it also invokes Albert Einstein’s notions
of time being bent and might even melt away under certain
conditions. Available at Office
Playground.
Finally, among the funny time pieces is a clock for people whose idea of a schedule is that it is more important to get somewhere than to worry about the exact time. Called Time-ish, the clock is availalbe at Amazon. Com.
Back to the water clock, I was a little confused when the company Think Geek advertised this clock mechanism as a type of fuel cell: “The internal converter simply extracts electrons from water (or other liquid) molecules and provides a steady stream of electrical current acting as a fuel cell to generate power to the clock.”
As USC student Elliot Lee pointed out, water is not the source of power. This clock is powered by a battery, basically by dissolving a chunk of zinc. Water is a critical element in the electron transfer, and the zinc may last for a very long time, since so little current is needed to run the clock. Someone else may help me understand the distinction between a battery and a fuel cell.
In Ancient Egypt, there really was a water clock during the reign of King Amenhotep III (1415-1380 BC). The picture at the bottom shows a plaster cast of a clock found at Karnak Temple, Upper Egypt, in 1904. Made from alabaster, the vessel was filled with water. As water leaked out a hole in the bottom, the level of the water remaining marked the time. Thanks to the Science Museum in London for the photo and information.
