These Clocks Helped Measure the World
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- Опубликовано: 22 июл 2024
- At The Royal Society in London, Adam takes a look inside a few special timepieces that were used by Captain James Cook during his voyages traveling the world. These regulator clocks and chronometers were used as a way of timing the transit of planets across the sun and coordinating those observations with others made around the globe. They weren't just timekeepers, but important scientific instruments on Cook's expeditions that still work to this day!
Adam's last visit to the Royal Society: • Adam Savage vs The "Pe...
Shot by Josh Self and edited by Norman Chan
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Keith is a legend. Amazing to hear him tell these stories with Adam. Thanks Keith, and Adam!
"Longitude" by Dava Sobel is a great book about the development of reliable time devices and the reason they were so desperately needed.
I remember it as a pretty good television series as well, with Michael Gambon as Harrison.
Thanks for the tip!
Even better = "The Quest for Longtitude" by William Andrewes (all lectures of the 1993 Longitude Symposium at Harvard University USA)
Or just watch map men
Harrison, the guy who invented the marine chronometers invented also the bimetallic pendulum as well ( actually he made the first usable one since the idea predated him). He fine-tuned his pendulums by having one in freezing cold (in the winter) and another one near a fireplace at full blast
11:33 The "chain drive" is called a fusée. It compensates for the diminishing torque of the mainspring as it winds down maintaining the rate regardless of changes in the drive force.
^^ This. I was a bit shocked that the museum curator seemingly didn't know this, since it's such a fundamental feature in historic watches and spring powered clocks.. Also, none of the metals in a bimetallic pendulum contracts when the other expands. Both metals expand with rising temperatures, just like all metals do. But they are connected in a way that while the main pendulum rods push the weight down when expanding, a shorter, secondary set with a slightly higher expansion coefficient push it up by the same amount. So, even though both metals expand, the effective length of the pendulum doesn't change.
The fusee is the spindle around which the chain is wound, more correctly you would refer to it as a fusee and chain.
I love Adams curiosity, fascination, enthusiasm and knowledge he brings to these videos. He has a tremendous respect for the objects and their history, and I believe that the Royal Institute recognizes those qualities and shows him the same respect. It's wonderful to see.
Adam, as much as I love your build videos; I must say that these type of museum show and tell videos are the icing on the cake! Love the the Royal Society series. Cheers.
A few years ago, I saw a collection of chronometers at Greenwich ... and to me, the most noticeable one was slightly battered as it was the actual one that Shackleton had taken on his rescue voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia !
Absolutely amazing piece of history !!
The Marine chronometer was invented by John Harrison in 1735. The chain is referred to as a "Fusee" (invented in 1525). Early spring/metal-alloy technology was still in its infancy and spring driven clocks from the era had the issue of running fast on a full wind and running slower as they unwind. To fix this they had these cone shape tracks for a chain to run on (with some clever math) to counteract that. (Think of it almost like a CVT transmission.) These chains were often hand built and assembled by orphans to earn their keep. These were very small parts and they needed people with good eyes and small hands. Lots of history there. (Keep in mind the industrial revolution didn't start until 1760'ish.)
Child labor?!? Cancel culture.
The book Longitude covers this story very well, at least from the perspective of having never known the history beforehand.
Slight note, the chain isn't called the 'Fusee', the cone is. The chain is referred to as the 'Fusee chain'.
@@Mr.Fabulous-1990 Thank you.
One of my favorite pocket watches has a fusee movement. It keeps surprisingly good time.
For those not in the know, Brady Haran has many a youTube channel, including one called Objectivity which deals with objects or other works at The Royal Society
I was just watching another RUclipsr talking about how the method for determining your longitude was found, and how much the Royal Society was involved. It really was some interesting science and interpersonal drama LOL I wish this series of Adam at the Royal Society would never end! More and more just keep showing up! Adam talking to museum folk never gets old, please keep doing more of these! And more of Adam creating something for the museums too. Did he create something for the book binding museum? I was so amazed at the machine that creates ledgers. Keep up the awesome work!
I've wound hundreds of clocks in my lifetime so far, but I've never seen anyone so excited to wind a clock as Adam. I'd love to have him visit our clock workshop at some point.
The purpose of the changing radius on the chain drum is to offset the reducing torque produced by the mainspring as it unwinds.
I spent many many hours as a child in the clock room at the Greenwich Maritime Museum in London after school, just watching John Harrison’s superb chronometers… And although they are works of art in their own right, it was the obvious tiny modifications, alterations, and tool marks that told the real story of their development…
The chain drive is wrapped around the spring barrel in a tapering helix. A wound up spring exerts a lot of force, so the chain starts in a track with a wide radius. As the spring unwinds, its pull reduces, so the helical track's radius diminishes to allow consistent tension on the chain.
As a navigator, this was even more fascinating to me than a lot of your amazing content. When I'm at sea, besides the nav system, I have an independent GPS tracking Apple Watch and two very accurate Timex IronMan watches that I consult. Nowadays, the other watches are really just to make sure GPS time (which all mariners use these days as their timestamp) is accurate to your position.
I love this kind of content! It combines science, engineering, technology, craftmenship, history, exploration, and the human spirit into a captivating story. Thank you, sir!
These Royal Society videos are just fascinating!
Wonderful! I hope you have another segment showing and talking about John Harrison's work at creating the first clock able to solve the problem of Longitude. It's an amazing story! It blows my mind that those craftsmen were able to build such accurate timepieces with little more than simple hand tools.
I’m honoured that you paid a visit to our shores, dear Adam. GOD bless you.
When I hear Keith talk I always am looking for Brady. But I cannot get enough of Keith and the Royal Society stuff. - cheers
I've always loved these sort of mechanical clock mechanisms (the ship's clocks). I've been dying to be able to find a good replica of these sorts of things (so i can use them and handle them and examine them without fear of damaging something historic) along with a few other types of mechanical clocks. These things are just absolutely marvels of engineering and manufacturing!
Fascinating. Folks interested in the development of accurate timekeeping could read Dava Sobel's "Longitude" - it focuses on Harrison's work.
Really interesting. Enjoying these visits
I love old science stuff. This was so cool to see. I hope I'm able to get a one on one tour of the RS some day. Im a physics major so its not 100% impossible that they will want me there some day lol.
One correction - when they arrived to make their measurements, they established true time by taking observations of the Moons of Jupiter. They made tables that accurately predicted when a moon would move behind or in front of Jupiter, and could establish time, and know the rates of the clocks and chronometers from there.
They needed the chronometers at sea because you needed a high magnification to observe Jupiter that accurately, and you couldn't establish that on a moving ship. But if the chrometers stopped, say, because of an unreliable midshipman, and you were near to shore, you could take your telescope, land, and take the needed observations to re-establish the time.
The big regulator clock is needed because the occultation of a Moon of Jupiter might happen days or weeks before your scientific observation, so you needed to maintain the time you established. You might also want to confirm and refine your established time by making multiple observations over multiple occultations.
I just find every one of these Royal Society videos fascinating
I wanted to learn something new this winter, and I learned how to repair clocks.... I have more than 20 ticking in my house now, and have done a few for others.
It's really fascinating!
Very, very cool Adam!!!!!
I love time keeping even though time is not real.
I see you have an Apple Watch. I have the Apple pocket watch(aka iPhone).
You have other watches SKX and such. Please do a video showing your watches or other timing devices.
Thank so much for the years of education and entertainment. Love MB’s and your channel.
This was awesome to watch.
I saw some of those working clocks during my trip to Greenwich Observatory in 2014.
This series feels like a cover album of Objectivity's greatest hits (in a good way). Bet the treasure chest is next.
Great to see all these important timekeepers. FYI the Regulator is a clock for use on land, it was developed by George Graham around 1725, his later clocks were made by Shelton. This one is fitted with a Harrison bimetallic pendulum.
The two 'Chronometers' by Arnold here are two of his earliest known productions and are experimental. These were for use on the sea in order to determine longitude and they immediately followed Harrison's highly complex but successful timekeeper 'H4'.
Arnold, not Harrison was in fact the inventor of the 'Chronometer' , a term invented by him in 1779. His was a completely different machine to Harrison's and importantly, could be produced in numbers.
Arnold's patented inventions became the basis for both the precision watch and the later Marine Chronometer. Between C.1780 - C.1795 just about all the marine chronometers used on ships were produced by him.
I'm sure that Technology Connections Alec would be very excited about the bi-metal mechanism in this video. In fact, legend has it that if you utter the phrase "Bi-Metallic Strip" three times in a row while holding a rice cooker, he will instantly appear in front of you like Beetlejuice.
Which is weird, because rice cookers don't use bi-metallic strips.
Thank you 😊
i can only imagine they film like 4 different videos each day he's there, so they have to greet each other at least 5x a day lol
Remember those pop quizzes in school that you felt totally unprepared for? That's how this curator feels about Adams questions. Lol. But he's doing great
The chain is called a fusee, it wraps around the “fusee cone” which is a tiered cone which was used to level out the torque from the mainspring as mainsprings of this period weren’t made as consistently as they are today, it essentially works the same way gears work on a bicycle. It succeeded the stackfreed which was another attempt at providing more consistent torque to the escapement, which was essential for the type of escapement this chronometer used.
It's even identical, but tiny, to a bicycle chain... and then you see a fusee watch 😮
Small note, the cone is called the "fusee" and the chain is called "fusee chain". Apart from that you're correct
Adam really ought to go see the Harrison clocks at Greenwich. Wonderful things.
Awesome video
This guy has a fantastic voice and way of speaking , very friendly and welcoming :) Two grayfoxes marveling old timers :P pun intended
"I mean, then, slicing time into precise increments is literally like, one of the oldest human endeavors." That was beautiful.
You should study up on fusees. It's a fascinating method for equalizing power for a spring wound watch across the duration of the wind. In watches, the chains were made by children in many cases because adults had trouble with vision and fine motor skills.
It's true what they say that people usually end up looking like what others expect people in a particular career to look like.
The chain drive on the two small chronometers is called a fusee. The purpose of the fusee is to compensate for differences in power when the spring is fully wound and when it has run down. You probably noticed that one side of the chain is on a cone and the other side is a cylinder. The cylinder side has the mainspring, when fully wound the chain is fully on the cone.
There's an excellent docu drama about Harrison, with Michael Gambon. It's free on RUclips or was the last time i checked.
Adam Hart did an excellent program as well.
And more importantly, Only Fool's And Horses...
Am I the only one that wants to sit with Keith and listen to him speak about.... ANYTHING? Anything that reminds him... "...Oh yes we have one of these things over here... and oh that reminds me of this thing... and this thing... and this person, and that event...." i want to be a part of his ' stream of conscientiousness'.
I had the opportunity to work in a clock tower on a school in northern Illinois some years ago (installing first gen .11 2.4/5 Ghz transceivers). It was a pendulum clock that, as far as I know, is still functioning. I was threatened with torture and pain of death if I so much as looked at it sideways. There were two small stacks of coins covered in a century worth of dust that were the "Fine Tune" balance/adjustment. I follow a watchmaker's channel, Wristwatch Revival, and still find the precision fascinating.
they look like brothers
Time really flew by while I was watching this video.
I see what you did there 😂
The legend of Keith continues!
Timekeeping is still incredibly important in ship's Navigation. GPS positioning is all about time keeping. The satellites have incredibly accurate clocks onboard (corrected for relativity too), and broadcast the exact time and their exact orbital data. Your GPS receiver in turn receives all these different times, and in turn can work out the distance to each of the satellites, where exactly each satellite is at any given time, and thus figure out where the receiver is. On ship, other kinds of fixings are also all dependent on when the fix was taken, as the ship is always in motion.
So even hundreds of years after Harrison, it still all comes down to time.
Feels like an episode of "The Antique Roadshow"
I would love to see a meeting between this fellow, Keith Moore, and Bill Nighy… Nighy played bowtie-wearing museum tour “Dr. Black” in the Musée d'Orsay - the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor”. It would be epic!! 🌼
this would be a really nice object to get a 3d model of, or a x-ray scan. so that you could really look at the internal mechanism. I'm personally curious about the function of the chain
I had a clock like that at my childhood home
1:44: Mixes up regulators (very precise pendulum clocks, like the John Shelton at the beginning of the video) and chronometers (very precise oversized balance wheel clocks, like the Arnolds later in the video)
3:48: Adam says one metal expands as the other contracts with temperature... but of course both metals expand with temperature! The trick is that one metal expands more than the other for the same temperature change, but the gridiron pendulum arranges the rods so that one metal expands downward and the other upward. Wikipedia has a good diagram: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridiron_pendulum
6:20: That topic of how they managed to travel the sea with a clock like this packed up is magnificently illustrated in a video that Dr John Taylor has posted here to RUclips of another Venus transit regulator, this one by Ellicott, in which video Dr. Taylor demonstrates how the case in that one was specifically designed for transporting it. In fact I wonder if the case in this Shelton regulator is original, Dr. Taylor's video of the Ellicott Venus transit regulator illustrates for example how that one's case had brackets built in to secure the pendulum bob during transport: ruclips.net/video/DrIDtoDAzTs/видео.html
9:27 and 13:32: A crucial bit of context that's missing here is that during Cook's voyage marine chronometers were still experimental devices. These two Arnold chronometers and a few others were sent literally as a practical test of the concept and the specific designs. Arnold's chronometers in fact as I recall worked poorly in that trip, but the star of the show worked out to be Larcum Kendall's copy of Harrison's H5-the Board of Longitude wasn't happy just yet to award Harrison the Longitude prize unless a second watchmaker like Kendall could actually construct one on their own.
The primary time standard in the field for this voyage would have been astronomical observations with the observatory set up at the destination-use the sun to establish what the local time is, and the time of the transits of Jupiter's moons to establish the Greenwich time (they had printed almanacs saying at which dates and times they would happen).
Using marine chronometers as the time standard and taking three on board so you could tell which was the bad one when one malfuctioned really only became standard procedure some 25-40 years later-at this point they were still in the process of inventing practical marine chronometers! In the meantime during these trips they were also testing out on-ship methods based on observing the moon with sextants (the lunar distances method).
11:37: The question/answer sequence makes it sound like the fusee chain is bimetallic and involved in the temperature compensation, but the bimetallic compensation is not in the fusee chain, it's a different part of the watch.
12:04: The reason the chain is wrapped around the barrel is because as the mainspring unwinds it pulls through that chain on another part called the "fusee" that acts as a sort of continuously variable transmission to change the leverage between the mainspring and the chronometer's gear train. The reason for this is that as the mainspring winds down its torque falls, so the fusee changes the gear ratio continuously to even out the force that is transmitted to the rest of the mechanism. It actually isn't exception that this chronometer had a fusee and chain, it used to be a standard feature in spring-driven clocks and watches; searching for "fusee clock" or "fusee watch" will turn up lots of examples (although often they used gut lines instead of chain).
12:50: There was indeed been a lot of handwork into making chronometers, but these Arnold chronometers specifically were part of the process whereby other watchmakers were working out simpler alternative designs to Harrison's pioneering but baroquely complex chronometers, and therefore leverage the established watch and clockmaking industry to manufacture them in bigger numbers. In fact, this ties up with what I mention in my 9:27 note above-this is why Arnold's chronometers were sent on Cook's voyage, to test alternatives to Harrison's design. As I mention above, Arnold's chronometers performed poorly on this trip, but by the 1780s he'd settled on a good design almost like what became standard in the 19th century. Again, these two Arnold pieces are not standard marine chronometers, they're part of the historical process that led from Harrison's pioneering chronometer of the late 1750s to the technologically mature chronometers of the 1780s and onward.
It feels like you are on cooks ship with the filming in this video
I'd be willing to bet Adam has an awesome watch collection and owns at least one Accutron.
Hamilton Watch Co of Lancaster, Pennsylvania won the contract to produce ship’s chronometers for US Naval vessels in WWII.
Accurate timekeeping is taken for granted now, but it was hugely difficult and incredibly important for a great many scientific disciplines.
Not to mention navigation. Hell, modern GPS is based almost entirely on super accurate timekeeping.
Welp! now chris clickspring knows how we all feel watching his videos :D
brilliant.
Doesn't "the regulator" specifically denote that each degree (seconds, minutes and hours) of the timing is being displayed on a separate dial and axis (tho in this case only the sweep dial is separate, and the axis is the "same" as the minutes, or rather is coaxial with the minutes one)?
The title alone made me instantly think of the Harrison 2
The Marine Chronometer looks like the mechanism of a 18th Century Pocket Watch.
Thought that was Bill Nighy for a sec there haha! 😆
I want one of Adam's flashlight.
I see Adam has “dressed up” to visit the RAS. 😄❣️
You would also need a really accurate location. So just a compass isn't sufficient. You need very accurate maps too.
Arnold as in Arnold and Sons, who made the timepiece used by the Greenwich Time Lady?
Why do the seconds not line up exactly.
Apologies for straying way off topic, but does anyone know what flashlight it is that Adam pulls out at @11:19 to look at the ships timepieces?
Looks like a mini tactical right angle flashlight
On Cook’s voyage to Tahiti (and NZ and Australia) the navigator messed up and both clocks stopped after the entered the Pacific by Chile. Cook was furious and reset the clocks using his own internal mental clock and that navigator never made that mistake again.
Classic colonizer,believing that their "mental clock" exists,and would in any way be accurate. A "primitive" on the other hand,just wouldn't know how to tell time of course lol I love how classic British all of this is.
@@jeffdroog Aww, widdle Wokie can spell big words; maybe even understand them one day...
@Pygar2 LOL At least I'm not openly supporting murdering people,and colonizing.Good to know where you stand bud.
@@jeffdroog I'm pretty sure no one alive today, deserves your scorn for it. They'd all be dead by now anyway. There's a reason they call it history. And remember, the Woke will be the scorned troublemakers, 200 years from now.
I very much doubt that Cook used an internal mental clock. If you've got solid land, a telescope, and appropriate astronomical tables you can find the local time, and compare it with a remote reference (say, Greenwich). Some people thought that that would be the way the problem of longitude would be solved, and possibly one reason that Harrison had such a hard time getting his payment was that just having a very reliable clock wasn't the proper way to do it.
There's actually an interesting contrast in the way two seafaring cultures did their navigation. Cook was a great practitioner of the Western mode, with the knowledge embodied in instruments like sextants (and their predecessors) and clocks and maps. Traditional Polynesian navigators internalized a great deal of knowledge about prevailing currents and sea states and winds, and also internalized a moving picture of the position of certain stars in the sky at different times of year, and as they apparently moved during the night. Ultimately the Western way was easier to transmit and extend--it didn't take as long to learn to navigate in the Western fashion as in the Polynesian way, and you could extend your charts more or less indefinitely; but Cook took Tupaia, a traditional navigator from Tahiti with him on one his first voyage to New Zealand. Maori, because Tupaia's cultural style was much more familiar, sometimes assumed that he was the leader of the expedition.
Keith is like Adam's British twin brother.
A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with 2 watches is never sure..
Your best video to date, but as an engineer and a horologist I am biased, thank you.
A shame he didn't mention the maintaining power on the clock. The pin that was pushed down to be able to wind it not only opens up the winding hole, it also acts a driving force on the clock train, keeping it going. When a clock is wound, all tension is removed from the train and the clock stops for a few seconds (until it is wound). These clocks werr so accurate that this would actually make a difference. After maybe a minute or two the winding hole cover would come down again. This cover was to stop you from accidentaly winding the clock without engaging the maintaining power.
Clock content FTW!
Someone get Keith to start his own channel please!
I'm sorry I have to say something. He's wearing those purple gloves so he can handle artifacts without seriously contaminating them from things like dirt, dead skin cells, and oil from his hands. THEN HE SHAKES HANDS while wearing the gloves, contaminating them with Adam's hand dirt, skin cells, and oil, then immediately handles the artifacts. (and it was SO much worse in the video where he just immediately started handling that telescope!) Are any other conservationists here in the comments also screaming at the screen right now?
What material is used for the clock face? Looks like brushed and polished aluminium, which it clearly can't be given the age of the clock. Perhaps something ceramic?
it is very likely silvered Brass. Could also be solid depletion guilded Silver
@@randomakerfilm Wouldn't silver have tarnished to a brownish black fairly quickly?
Was the big clock mounted on a gimbal on the ship to keep it from rocking?
Yes
No, the clock wasn’t used aboard the ship. They unpacked it when they got to their destination and set it using their ship’s chronometer.
I really wish there was someone making true replicas of some 18th C. marine chronometers. :(
Notice how Adam is keeping one or both hands behind him; classic "don't touch' behavior.
Funny,because the reason this exists was so that British empire could exercise their awesome right to literally touch,and take everything that WASN'T already theirs.This was literally used for a trip to go murder people,and take their stuff lol Classic British empire.
They look like long lost brothers
Finely some thing about clocks again, still waiting for videos about watches...
Are these things even COSC certified?
It's only a clock if it chimes... otherwise it's a timepiece
My father was a Watchmaker to trade, technically a scientific precision engineer one of two at Timex, Dundee, Scotland,1946 when they first started, and were called UK Time
He was offered a job in New York by a senior partner... my mother wouldn't let him 😂
I thought Brady Haran looked weird at first.
This Keith guy looks like you would think a guy like him would look like.
Does the length of the pendulum really matter? I thought the period of a pendulum was the same regardless of the length.
The period of a pendulum is proportional to the square root of its length but independent of the mass.
yes it matters a lot. Also the altitude is changing the movement/time.
A close meter is the typical lenght for a second of time in one swung.
In german called Sekundenpendel = Second pendulum.
That clock needs some attention. The second pointer is a bit off.
it's friction coupled. You can move the hands on the pin. Done in a few seconds (normally xD )
@@Watchmaker_Gereon-Schloesser Thank you, sir. I don't study clocks much.
😂 I'm a fan of clocks and regulators...they are also an inside joke for time travelers.😂👍
You still in London
What do you think you pleb 😂
At 12:41
Am I the only one thinking how Catastrophic that would be if he dropped the mechanism and it bounced off the table, over the Abyss, and to the floor below? 😱😁
Mike in San Diego. 🌞🎸🚀🖖
Stop shaking his hand, Adam. He can't use those gloves now. 😛
With a bit of training, you might have a stunt double!
it's not really that surprising that people were able to make something like that by hand if you think that people have been making intricate jewelry for a lot longer which uses a lot of the same processes like working with sheet metals, shaping small details in symetrical patterns, etc.
It's not so much the ability to work with those materials,but rather what work they were able to do with those materials.The surprising part is that someone was able to figure out exactly what types of gears,and other mechanics of it would need to be specifically machined,and to what to dimensions,to get the desired results.
@@jeffdroog The Antikythera mechanism is instructive. According to some accounts (on RUclips) the mathematics embodied in the gears is capable of remarkable precision; but the limits of accuracy in hand working gear teeth meant that the mechanism couldn't have actually reproduced the calculations.
@michaelwright2986 ...I was referring to the clocks that are still in working condition,but THANKS for just assuming shit lol
@@jeffdroog Don't worry, you'll grow out of it.
@michaelwright2986 I'm pretty grown as it is.Left an abusive home at 14 years of age,with nothing but the pair of jeans,and shirt I was wearing,and the pair of rollerblades on my feet,and bought my first house at 24 lol You appear to literally in your 70's,and haven't achieved anything.
I have my volume all the way up and can't understand him
Sup
Slightly painful to listen to two non clock experts getting it not wrong but also not completely right. For instance no ship's chronometer is ever wholly original, in use they will have been serviced every time the ship docked back at home port, often the ones in use being swapped out and serviced ones replacing them. A service might entail replacement of worn parts, replacement of that fusee chain and mainspring, and rebushing of pivots. Many saw service for a hundred years and became a Trigger's broom with parts replaced wholesale.
For this reason Harrison's H4 at Greenwich is not run, to preserve the 'as made by Harrison' condition.