On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the CompassPrice, Derek J. de Solla (Derek John de Solla)
History
On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass
Price, Derek J. de Solla (Derek John de Solla)
Clocks and watches; Horology
It is evident that we are coming nearer now to the beginning of the true
mechanical clock, and our last step, also from the Alfonsine corpus of
western Islam, provides us with an important link between the anaphoric
clock, the weight drive, and a most curious perpetual-motion device, the
mercury wheel, used as an escapement or regulator. The Alfonsine book on
clocks contains descriptions of five devices in all, four of them being
due to Isaac b. Sid (two sundials, an automaton water-clock and the
present mercury clock) and one to Samuel ha-Levi Adulafia (a candle
clock)--they were probably composed just before _ca._ 1276-77.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--ISLAMIC PERPETUAL MOTION WHEEL, after
manuscript cited by Schmeller (see footnote 26).]
The mercury clock of Isaac b. Sid consists of an astrolabe dial, rotated
as in the anaphoric clock, and fitted with 30 leaf-shaped gear teeth
(see fig. 13). These are driven by a pinion of 6 leaves mounted on a
horizontal axle (shown very diagrammatically in the illustration) and at
the other end of this axle is a wheel on which is mounted the special
mercury drum which is powered by a normal weight drive.
It is the mercury drum which forms the most novel feature of this
device; the fluid, constrained in 12 chambers so as to just fill 6 of
them, must slowly filter through small holes in the constraining walls.
In practice, of course, the top mercury surfaces will not be level, but
higher on the right so as to balance dynamically the moment of the
applied weight on its driven rope. This curious arrangement shows point
of resemblance to the Indian "mercury-holes," to the perpetual-motion
devices found in the medieval European tradition and also in the texts
associated with Riḍwān, which we shall next examine.
[Illustration: Figure 15.--ANOTHER PERPETUAL MOTION WHEEL, after the
text cited in figure 14.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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