Fascinating, seemed ahead of its *time* (lol pun intended). Could have really changed the *face* of clockmaking! The U.S. could have replicated this for *hour*-selves! Want more puns? Come back for *seconds!* OK, OK, I'm done now. 😂
Ingenious as the system is, it could not compete with contemporary electrical systems. The flood merely exposed one of the weaknesses of maintaining a large scale system of pressurized air pipes. Electric (not electronic) wires were/are much simpler and cheaper to install and service, with very little impact on infrastructure. The self winding clock company in America also had the advantage of being able to synchronize individual clocks with observatory time over telegraph wires already in place. Like the canal system vs. the railway, it was really obsolete as soon as it was perfected, and I'm surprised it lasted four decades.
This is the most steampunk tech that ever became reality. One can imagine those pulses of air engaging multiple relay pneumatic swichts. Human ingenuity
now that we think about it even CPU of modern computer *use the same pulse principles, only it use Electric instead of air or steam and gear *:edited from sue
(1) well in Europe most public clock run on DCF-77 since decades.😅 Plis as others said you have precise clock in any GNSS signal and a cheap module get you a second tick pin to sync your clock. 😊
@@daltongalloway -- Where I live, the clocks are indeed wildly out of synchrony. The clock on the city hall may read 11 a.m. The clock on the bank (a block away) has not yet been adjusted for the change from winter to summer time so it reads 10 a.m. The clock on the church (a block from city hall in the opposite direction) reads 10:53 a.m. The clock that stands on the street corner a block behind city hall reads 11:15 a.m. And on another street corner the clock has stopped completely. This is typical. So, will I be late or early for my 11 a.m. dentist appointment?
there are simple clocks that use the frequency on the power grid to tick the clock forward. When the grid is under peak load during daytime the frequency slow down when the power station machinery is under load. They use the night time to "catch up" and run with higher frequency. Most simple cheap office clocks, and clocks in schools and other public buildings are of this type and should keep the time if not damaged. ( or a power outage )
There's a video from 1975 on a demonstration of a particular programming language (APL). The presenter was using a typewriter as the keyboard and monitor. That one blew my mind.
This clock system is awesome. The amount of gears and small bits to keep track of is astounding… sometimes we take for granted the simplicity of electronic hardware today!
Just because you can't see the complexity of electronics doesn't mean its not there. Keep in mind those transistors are only a few atoms across, so sensitive than quantum mechanics can cause electrons to just teleport to places they shouldn't be. The machines that make them are so sensitive to vibrations, a truck driving by outside would cause the chips to be ruined. There was *some* simplicity to them back in the days of electron tubes and relays, but as soon as it went digital it became a manufacturing marvel.
It's an interesting debate. I found myself thinking of all the electronic innovations to minimize difficulties and randomness, of which binary is possibly the very biggest. Designing an 8- or 16-bit computer in the 80s was relatively simple. Clock speeds were so low, you hardly had to know anything about the actual behaviour of electricity. However, there was genius behind that simplicity; I'm still baffled when I think about how binary logic and 2s-complement math were invented. And as speeds increased and the analog behaviour of electricity started impacting digital systems, more brilliance was needed. Op-amps are a comparable marvel of simplification in analog electronics. They're very easy to use, but not at all easy to design. (And again, high speed causes big problems.) In mechanical clocks, the basic design of the escapement doesn't vary much. Like digital electronics, it reduces a lot of variables to a series of discrete steps. However, I'm sure the design of an escapement must balance a lot of hidden issues.
Doing some basic back-of-the-enveloped calculations and making reasonable assumptions about the number of subscribers, the size of the network, and the expected losses, I am not sure I believe that there only is a single central source for all the compressed air. But I absolutely can believe that there is a single authoritative time source. As for a network of auxiliary compressors, it would be trivially easy to build repeating stations every so often. All you have to have is a reliable source for compressed air, and a valve that opens and closes whenever it detects a pulse from the master clock. And since this is the age of early electrification and of ubiquitous steam engines, we can assume that producing compressed air is a solved problem. So, it is plausible that the distribution network included some sort of repeaters as it expanded over larger parts of the Paris metropolitan region. With only marginally more effort, you could even build a mechanical "reclocking" device that regenerates the 20:40 duty cycle of the signal. You'd still obtain the sequence of pulses from the central clock, but you would regenerate the actual timing of each individual pulse from scratch. All of this can be done with straight-forward mechanical components. The beauty of this system is that the duty cycle doesn't need to be super precise, and neither does anybody care about phase shift nor jitter. So, a lot of problems that modern time-keeping solutions spend enormous resources on (c.f. atomic clocks and GPS) are completely out of scope and don't need to be addressed. The only thing that matters is generating precisely 1440 pulses of approximately 20s per day. And that's easy to do with a mechanical repeater.
its just a pulse of air, small leaks won't matter unless its more cfm then what is called for, their has to be a way for the pipe to depressurize, every clock might have a bleed hole , obviously if it is pressurized for 20 seconds, then off for 40 seconds to depressurize
@@cardboardboxification I am sure that small leaks are actually part of the design requirements. The most basic design would use bellows in each subscriber's device that are somewhat leaky. This not only ensures that the bellows won't explode when the 20s pulse keeps inflating an already full airbladder, it also means that you don't need to add any extra mechanical components to deflate the bellows. 40s should be enough for air to leak out. The beauty of this system is that it is very tolerant of variations in bladder performance and variations in absolute flow rate.
@@gutschke I think your idea makes sense. It would be fairly easy to have slave air compressors/reservoirs and control output through a slave valve actuated by a single master signal pipe.
@ke I dunno. Thousands of tiny leaks add up, and compressed air isn't free. They'd want to limit leaks to keep down the necessary size of the compressor's engine, and the fuel it would consume. You could put some sort of pressure switch into each clock, so that when the pressure falls, it opens a relief valve for the bellows. That's not in the design animated here but that seems like a simplification. They might just de-pressurise the system at the control centre. Have the outlet pipes connected to pressure for 20 seconds, then just connect them to an exhaust pipe for the other 40, let those little weights in all those clocks push the air back out again. If the pressure can reach every clock in 20 seconds, they should all be able to exhaust back to ambient in 40. You could keep the bellows from exploding with another valve activated by the bellows when they inflated to be high enough to trip a switch. Or else just do what pressure cookers do, for emergencies, have an outlet valve with a weight on it connected to the bellows, if pressure gets high enough to lift the weight, air escapes.
Right? I’ve always loved those chiming pendulum clocks. They’re absolutely beautiful and bring back a certain unexplainable nostalgia for me. Then Big Ben was amazing to understand as well, now this!
My grandfather who died in 2013, was a jeweler from the 1950's up to the time he passed away. So almost 70 years. I ran the same jewelry store all that time.
I absolutely love the spirit of 1800's inventions. It feels like people were so inspired to solve the worlds problems with technology they had at the time.
@Muaaz-26 no, I doubt about that. Do we say teh same thing for the dark ages? No. Do you have the Golden Age Athens lower than Athens anytime since then just because it was 2500 years ago?
Popp was way ahead of his time! So amazing! I think the best thing about this is the fact that the city contracted him to keep everybody in sync. I'd be so proud of my job.
I ve always had an obsession for unnecessarily complex systems we used to have for something that we take for granted today... And this one checks all the marks thanks primal space
The folk that make meticulous things all throughout history such as clockwork or modern computers are great example of how smart humans are and the capability we have. great respect to those people.
The creative aspect strikes me most, the problem solving; shoot, autism can make you meticulous, I would know, but the frame of thinking which seeks to expand the horizon of unknowing is what impresses me. Humans rock.
@@SakutoNoSAInow imagine waht humanity could achive if the barrior known as "money" could somehow be removed but ppl still work and produce without any tyranny or governmenttal intervention?
The way he integrates pneumatic mechanisms with clockwork is simply mesmerizing. It's refreshing to see innovation in traditional timekeeping. Kudos to Victor for pushing the boundaries of what's possible!"
This and the monorail episode are departures from the usual space-themed content you put on this channel, but it’s really well done. I hope you continue making videos like this!
@@TheSwaroopB That was like actual "soap operas", where from singing opera on TV the actors seamlessly switched to advertising their sponsor's washing agent.
Just how do you do that? In this day and age when almost everything has been seen at least once by everyone, you still manage to surprise me with something I've never heard of. This is so Steampunk.
The genius mind of people at that time to make a system out of the analog system and calibrate to the minimum error , is just so wonderful. On top of that the amazing video and the capability of @primalspace to explain complex systems with ease is just amazing
Sooo, why did the clock stop on Jan 21, 1910? And how the air waves travelled long distances still capable of moving the arrows in hundreds on clocks? The more clocks you connect, the more powerful air burst you need, isn't that right? This video made me ask more questions than it itself answered, lol.
No, you don't need a "more powerful air burst". Since its a sealed, enclosed system, it just meant, you needed a longer airburst. The airburst of 20 seconds were enough to move all clocks on each "branch". When all clocks on a branch were "full", the system would just build pressure without using it, and release the pressure out of some safety valve or similiar. Think like this, you put 1 baloon on a air compressor. It takes pretty quick to blow it up. Repeat same thing with 100 baloons. You would still be able to blow it up, it would just take 100x longer time. You don't need more pressure or more power for that. So as long as each branch were limited to a specific number of clocks, it would work fine. Note how there was a large pipe connecting to several smaller pipes, this ensured so each branch shared the same air amounts. Yes, if one branch got 1 clock too much, it would "steal" air from another branch eventually, so there was a upper limit how many clocks the whole network took. Thats why it was connected to a fee, because if too many clocks were connected, no clocks would work. So they needed to limit adoption, thats why there was a fee. If too many users would still join the system, they would need to elongate the time the system worked by increase the area of the airbrake so the valve would remain open for a longer time than 20 seconds. But they couldn't enlongate the airbrake previously, because if the system closed the valve too late, there was too few clocks to release air pressure quickly enough to ensure it was ready for another minute when the next pressure wave came. So the pressure advancer would be in a "open position" all the time. Thats why the airbrake needed to be adopted for the number of clocks on system, so if too few clocks were active, they would need a shorter open time, and if too many clocks are there, they would need to elongate the open time.
@@Bobo-ox7fj Not greater pressure. More flow, more liters per second. Putting lot of pressure in the system wont help. Think like this: Connecting a wheelnut gun requiring 5 bar to a compressor. If you connect 10 such guns, you dont need more pressure - its not like you need 50 bar. You however need much more liters per second at 5 bar.
Impedance matching, more piper lowers the resistance, which can be measured at the source. Though, this isn't what they did, this idea is actually really dumb and there's a lot of reasons no one else did it
That's actually very smart and Ingenious idea!! But i do wonder, where the first air preasure from the master lock came from and how it's strong enough to reach whole paris.
Yes, I was wondering the same thing. I mean there were plenty of air compressors around at that time. They had diving suits all over. There was a large sponge harvesting industry in Indonesia that use them. The smaller boats had hand cranked compressors. So I'm not that amazed by the source, But, like you said, I'm amazed that they could get sufficient air flow through the pipes that were shown to reach a few kilometers. Maybe they had "amplifiers" along the way? Anyway, amazing stuff.
@@2ndfloorsongsnot only the distance but the timing. How to manage to circulate air in the whole system BY THE MINUTE (or withing the first 20 seconds)
The pressure differential was probably 8 bar or more so when the air is released it's like an explosion, it's close to speed of sound. Sure it takes a lot of air to inflate the bellows of all clocks but the change in pressure is very fast, is not gradual change, it's sudden
@@memovilmx6239you don't have to have the pulses arrive at the same time everywhere, because they only broadcast the tempo. You'd still have to set each clock first to the correct start time. It's not like GPS clocks now that broadcast their exact time as well as the tempo signals. So if you cared about the seconds, you could probably rotate the clock face by one degree for every ten seconds behind you were. I'm guessing precision to the second wasn't that important though still yet.
@@GIPvideos I can only speculate...But at that time the French were very good with optics. It may seem audacious for a distance of about 3-4km today (When you'd simply use an IP camera) but there's a fair chance the _Compagnie d'Horloges Pneumatique_ might've used a periscope with fixed focus to another at the Meudon end. 👁 Get the mirrors in the right place and the magnification right (Which the French could do in their sleep) and checking the clock in Meudon is simply a case of « _Péréscope Haut!_ » 😁
@@dieseldragon6756 @tommyvercetti7 I did some of my own research. The observatory had its own clocks around the city. But they ran on electricity and were too expensive for private use. One of those clocks was about 300M from the Popps office. So in the article it assumes that someone with a half decent pocket watch could set it to observatory time and then walk over to the office to make sure the pneumatic master clock was in sync
As an intrigued person who likes organization, this is pleasing. As an engineer this got me crazy. As a project manager is sort of makes sense and really inspired of this.
I learn something new with every video you release. This is something that I was completely unaware of. What a brilliant engineering solution this was! We take for granted the basic quartz movement of modern timepieces and the lengths in which we took to get where we are today. Incredible video as always!
Well done explaination of the Paris synchronized clock system. Made me remember the Simplex clocks when I was In school. Every classroom had the same synchronized time. I guess by then it was electronic pulses instead of air.
There is theoretically no pressure drop since it was a closed system. Leaks were inevitable, however as long as they were kept to less than the amount necessary to pressurize the system for each pulse, they had no effect. The leak would be detected by the clocks that appeared out of sync.
@@billmoran3812 if you had many small lines manifolded out of one big one, I would imagine a large leak on one of the small lines would cause issues with all the others and be complicated and time consuming to isolate. You would have to one by one leakdown test each circuit to detirmine which was leaking
@@billmoran3812 Likely the signal would travel more like a sound wave than reaching every place at once. So a small leak won't matter so long the wave first reaches its destination before air has escaped.
This is awesome. This reminds me of a friend who once said that it would sometimes be better to stay with a mechanical link than to replace it with electrical signaling, and under some circumstances I think he's right. And this adds a whole new aspect to the steampunk genere, imagine all the systems that could be synchronized... :D
I was wondering this too and looked it up: "At the Paris Observatoire a high-standard astronomical regulator clock was kept running on correct mean time by astronomical transit observations, being corrected daily. Pulses of electricity were sent every second to secondary clocks around the city, the wires being run through ducts in the sewers. Two loops starting and ending at the Observatoire carried thirteen clocks between them, the farthest being at a distance of seven and a half kilometres, or nearly four and a half miles from the observatory. The clocks were of a high standard, so they could keep good time even if the synchronising pulses failed. (The pulses synchronised the clocks but did not drive them, they were weight-driven in the conventional way) The secondary clocks were furnished with second-hands, and were placed so that they could be easily seen from the street, usually in prominent positions. They further distributed time by sending electric signals once an hour to synchronise various public clocks. The system came into operation in 1878." So it appears that electronic synchronization was in use at this time but just not cost effective at the level for mass production. However, having a few extremely well made electronic clocks was worth the cost.
As someone who likes to work on his own watches, this system is amazing! It would be interesting to hear what else the mind of this inventor came up with in his life. Thank you for sharing this fascinating information!!
@@primalspace That was like actual "soap operas", where from singing opera on TV the same actors seamlessly switched to advertising their sponsor's washing agent. I can only hope that coming AI based ads won't become all like this, which will NOT be funny at all.
I'm currently in my 2nd year of mechanical engineering and seeing the clock mechanism be so complicated yet so simple and reliable is incredibly cool. The mechanisms in the clocks distributed in the whole city were particularly interesting to me due to their simplicity.
Honestly this was a suboptimal solution but absolutely amazing. I personally ADORE network systems specialized for something. There is just something satisfying about different sorts of signals and things and liquids being carried around along the same routes and tunnels in networks.... instead of just one cable for internet, one for electricity and one for water.
At 6:35 he says it takes up to a minute to reach some of the furthest clocks, does this mean those clocks were a minute behind? Or were the clocks calibrated in some way?
I think that the thing is "ok, you're within a minute of the real time ", and that's enough if you consider that a whole city was sinchronized within one minute. Byt yes, you need to accept some delay. Today too, we have delay in clock sinchronization, but it's way less than a second. But being it a full second, it would still be ok for our day to day use.
@@ethangibson8645 Also that ... maybe they had a system that all the clocks over a certain range are ahead one minute so the medium delay is around 30 sec ( still an impressive feat to do with only pneumatic air ... )
Autistic folks back then could prob calculate it like UPS delivery, the further away from point of origin, estimate a slight delay - so subtract a min on the outskirts of the city?
This clock is engenious for it's time! Maybe if digital clocks/electronic devices weren't as sufisticated in the 1920's, we could see air-powered time around many cities in europe, all syncing to the masterclock in Paris! Maybe along with the first cables laid along the seafloor in 1958, there could be air tubes to go with it, so the whole world would run on syncronized time, but then it will take more time for the air to travel from Paris, to say Los Angeles (No kidding!) Anyways great video! I await your next episode!
really cool how simple it all is, literally just gears and air. Not everything has to be complicated circuitry in fact thats part of why its so reliable. great video!
the animations in this video are so clear and accurate, some of the most educational ones I've ever seen by seperating parts to allow individual understanding before relating it back to the whole workings, well done!
It's amazing how they managed to find the solutions back in the day, 1min for a city the size of Paris is not really an issue. Wish they would've left at least one at display!
*You don't think about this now that everyone has accurate time in the palm of their hands. I remember when my grandma used to have to wind her clocks and watches*
As you type on a phone of which there are millions grooves and circuits… of which there are millions….of which are multiple times more complex than air pumped clocks on pipes.
I love all of your videos, and I really love space! All of your animations are always great and easy to understand, and most importantly entertaining! I am always excited for a new video! And of course, the way the clocks works was just genius. It would be really cool if we still had them around! I hope I can win the Voyager Poster! That would be awesome on my wall!
This is excellent, thank you. I absolutely love clocks of all sizes. At college in Southern Ohio, I weasled myself in charge of the so-called South Green Tower Clock, which had 4 faces and each hour hand was 7 feet long. It was all electric, but I lubricated things, re-sync'ed with the WWV radio signal, and changed out the clockface lightbulbs. It also had an amplified bell toll (Westminster Quarters) that I programmed to play between noon and 9PM because no one in college wants to be woken before the crack of noon. I've also built Regulator-style clocks and worked on in-building master clocks. Just fascinated with clocks. I was scratching my head on this pneumatic system because of the lag. But, if you think about it, all of the clocks will be in the same minute within the minute. Back then seconds were unnecessary. :)
An amazingly simple system, way ahead of its time! I do wonder however what the maximum range of these pneumatic clocks would have been, considering Popp used 0.75 bar and lines ranging from 20 to 6 mm...
I definitely didn't know about this system... I also love how entertaining and educational this is despite not being your usual subject! This channel could definitely be expanded! And wow, a sponsor I will actually use! This is great!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. Space is always going to be my biggest passion, but there are so many other topics I find super interesting and can't help but share every now and then. Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
This is such a cool piece of history! It's amazing to think about how something so innovative shaped everyday life in Paris for decades. Thanks for sharing this gem!
A solution to a problem that used things they knew worked. Would probably still be in use today if it had not been too expensive, as you can see from the USA still having a few sections of 100VDC systems still in use in SF, where it once was built out with the tram lines as a power source, and was sold to buildings along the routes as a convenient power source to drive things like elevators and pumps, along with winches and lighting as well.
Wow, I didn't know that such a system existed. Very cool and genious engineering for that time! Thanks for the extraordinary video quality, especially for the animations.
I knew the pneumatic messaging system in Paris and elsewhere but I have never heard of that system for synchronizing the clocks! Amazing. Thanks a lot.
That is such a creative and pleasing solution. I wouldn't have expected pneumatic power could travel such a distance with so many branches, given how compressible air is. But it obviously worked, and for 50 years!
What an amazing invention, it shows the one thing that humans are amazing at "ingenuity". And a very amazing video, explaining about how the machine works❤
I find the system quite interesting, it’s a practical simplistic and efficient way to solve the problem at hand and I think this shows the philosophy of if it works build upon it until you can’t. Thanks for the amazing video.
I think it is incredible that the education existed to design such a great system, including that master clock.. and the Anydesk looks great too. I used VM Horizon to work at home for the last 3 years..
What do you think of this incredible system? Shoutout to AnyDesk for making this vid possible. Get it for free here: www.anydesk.com/primalspace
nah anydesk is what indians scammers use to trick people
Never knew this existed! Just amazing what they could do with the technology back then.
Fascinating, seemed ahead of its *time* (lol pun intended). Could have really changed the *face* of clockmaking! The U.S. could have replicated this for *hour*-selves! Want more puns? Come back for *seconds!* OK, OK, I'm done now. 😂
Ingenious as the system is, it could not compete with contemporary electrical systems. The flood merely exposed one of the weaknesses of maintaining a large scale system of pressurized air pipes. Electric (not electronic) wires were/are much simpler and cheaper to install and service, with very little impact on infrastructure. The self winding clock company in America also had the advantage of being able to synchronize individual clocks with observatory time over telegraph wires already in place. Like the canal system vs. the railway, it was really obsolete as soon as it was perfected, and I'm surprised it lasted four decades.
12 minutes per hour. Got it.
This is the most steampunk tech that ever became reality.
One can imagine those pulses of air engaging multiple relay pneumatic swichts. Human ingenuity
now that we think about it
even CPU of modern computer *use the same pulse principles, only it use Electric instead of air or steam and gear
*:edited from sue
Uhmmm, clockpunk?
@@ВадимНечунаев-л2о i dont think theres a clockpunk?
@@shiro3146 There is. It is close to steampunk, but... clocks. Lots of gears turning.
@@ВадимНечунаев-л2о ah i see... new genre i just know, thanks for new info
(1) Even in the 21st century, a public clock that tells the correct time is a miracle.
(2) Beautiful animations.
(1) well in Europe most public clock run on DCF-77 since decades.😅 Plis as others said you have precise clock in any GNSS signal and a cheap module get you a second tick pin to sync your clock. 😊
Public clocks are usually only a few minutes out of sync with your phones clock. You act like they’re wildly off 😂
@@daltongalloway -- Where I live, the clocks are indeed wildly out of synchrony. The clock on the city hall may read 11 a.m. The clock on the bank (a block away) has not yet been adjusted for the change from winter to summer time so it reads 10 a.m. The clock on the church (a block from city hall in the opposite direction) reads 10:53 a.m. The clock that stands on the street corner a block behind city hall reads 11:15 a.m. And on another street corner the clock has stopped completely. This is typical. So, will I be late or early for my 11 a.m. dentist appointment?
there are simple clocks that use the frequency on the power grid to tick the clock forward. When the grid is under peak load during daytime the frequency slow down when the power station machinery is under load. They use the night time to "catch up" and run with higher frequency. Most simple cheap office clocks, and clocks in schools and other public buildings are of this type and should keep the time if not damaged. ( or a power outage )
@@kevinbyrne4538I mean when basically every person has a super precise clock in their pocket or car public clocks serve no purpose
This system is sooo ingenious. It just shows how humans will always find a solution to every problem
Israel-Palestine has entered the chat.
There's a video from 1975 on a demonstration of a particular programming language (APL). The presenter was using a typewriter as the keyboard and monitor. That one blew my mind.
Racism
If it's so ingenious, why is it not used anymore?? It sucked!
@@donnyestee no, air in these pneumatic system wasn't sucked. In fact, it was blowed, pushed away through pipes
As living in France, I would have loved to see these clocks still working today !
Hearing about old technologies like this is always a breath of fresh air.
I see what you did there! 😂
That one almost blew right past me.
@@TheAnimeist Glad to hear that I'm not always full of hot air.
old air)))
Old technologies, always invented by European phenotypes.
I'm amazed how they've build such a long and intricate pipe system at that time. Incredible
That's a huge array of pipes to keep pressurized!
@@bubblesculptor It would have been driven by a French built compressor. I can guarantee it would have been able to handle it... 💪🇫🇷🌬😁
Also, from todays perspective, it is wild that this was the cheaper solution compared to wires and electronic clocks!
@@demog2882 hard to imagine low-voltage wiring more expensive than pressurized pipes!
@@demog2882 I mean, how expensive can a tiny pipe be, next to nothing if not the markup.
This clock system is awesome. The amount of gears and small bits to keep track of is astounding… sometimes we take for granted the simplicity of electronic hardware today!
So true.
what do you mean by "simplicity of electronic hardware"?
@@Daniel_VolumeDown I think that comment was meant to be sarcastic... I hope?
Just because you can't see the complexity of electronics doesn't mean its not there. Keep in mind those transistors are only a few atoms across, so sensitive than quantum mechanics can cause electrons to just teleport to places they shouldn't be. The machines that make them are so sensitive to vibrations, a truck driving by outside would cause the chips to be ruined. There was *some* simplicity to them back in the days of electron tubes and relays, but as soon as it went digital it became a manufacturing marvel.
It's an interesting debate. I found myself thinking of all the electronic innovations to minimize difficulties and randomness, of which binary is possibly the very biggest. Designing an 8- or 16-bit computer in the 80s was relatively simple. Clock speeds were so low, you hardly had to know anything about the actual behaviour of electricity.
However, there was genius behind that simplicity; I'm still baffled when I think about how binary logic and 2s-complement math were invented. And as speeds increased and the analog behaviour of electricity started impacting digital systems, more brilliance was needed.
Op-amps are a comparable marvel of simplification in analog electronics. They're very easy to use, but not at all easy to design. (And again, high speed causes big problems.)
In mechanical clocks, the basic design of the escapement doesn't vary much. Like digital electronics, it reduces a lot of variables to a series of discrete steps. However, I'm sure the design of an escapement must balance a lot of hidden issues.
Given the compressibility of air and the invariable leaks of such an extensive system of pipes, it is amazing it actually worked.
Doing some basic back-of-the-enveloped calculations and making reasonable assumptions about the number of subscribers, the size of the network, and the expected losses, I am not sure I believe that there only is a single central source for all the compressed air. But I absolutely can believe that there is a single authoritative time source.
As for a network of auxiliary compressors, it would be trivially easy to build repeating stations every so often. All you have to have is a reliable source for compressed air, and a valve that opens and closes whenever it detects a pulse from the master clock. And since this is the age of early electrification and of ubiquitous steam engines, we can assume that producing compressed air is a solved problem. So, it is plausible that the distribution network included some sort of repeaters as it expanded over larger parts of the Paris metropolitan region.
With only marginally more effort, you could even build a mechanical "reclocking" device that regenerates the 20:40 duty cycle of the signal. You'd still obtain the sequence of pulses from the central clock, but you would regenerate the actual timing of each individual pulse from scratch. All of this can be done with straight-forward mechanical components.
The beauty of this system is that the duty cycle doesn't need to be super precise, and neither does anybody care about phase shift nor jitter. So, a lot of problems that modern time-keeping solutions spend enormous resources on (c.f. atomic clocks and GPS) are completely out of scope and don't need to be addressed. The only thing that matters is generating precisely 1440 pulses of approximately 20s per day. And that's easy to do with a mechanical repeater.
its just a pulse of air, small leaks won't matter unless its more cfm then what is called for, their has to be a way for the pipe to depressurize, every clock might have a bleed hole , obviously if it is pressurized for 20 seconds, then off for 40 seconds to depressurize
@@cardboardboxification I am sure that small leaks are actually part of the design requirements. The most basic design would use bellows in each subscriber's device that are somewhat leaky. This not only ensures that the bellows won't explode when the 20s pulse keeps inflating an already full airbladder, it also means that you don't need to add any extra mechanical components to deflate the bellows. 40s should be enough for air to leak out. The beauty of this system is that it is very tolerant of variations in bladder performance and variations in absolute flow rate.
@@gutschke I think your idea makes sense. It would be fairly easy to have slave air compressors/reservoirs and control output through a slave valve actuated by a single master signal pipe.
@ke I dunno. Thousands of tiny leaks add up, and compressed air isn't free. They'd want to limit leaks to keep down the necessary size of the compressor's engine, and the fuel it would consume. You could put some sort of pressure switch into each clock, so that when the pressure falls, it opens a relief valve for the bellows. That's not in the design animated here but that seems like a simplification.
They might just de-pressurise the system at the control centre. Have the outlet pipes connected to pressure for 20 seconds, then just connect them to an exhaust pipe for the other 40, let those little weights in all those clocks push the air back out again. If the pressure can reach every clock in 20 seconds, they should all be able to exhaust back to ambient in 40.
You could keep the bellows from exploding with another valve activated by the bellows when they inflated to be high enough to trip a switch. Or else just do what pressure cookers do, for emergencies, have an outlet valve with a weight on it connected to the bellows, if pressure gets high enough to lift the weight, air escapes.
using Anydesk ☠️
XDDDDDDD
lmao that was smooth af. I gladly watched the ad
Sir do not redeem!!
I have always admired pneumatic systems. They were robustly used in many cities up to WW2. Their remnants lurk under a 1000 streets.
Clocks have always intrigued me, this system was another brilliant invention!
💯💯💯
Right? I’ve always loved those chiming pendulum clocks. They’re absolutely beautiful and bring back a certain unexplainable nostalgia for me. Then Big Ben was amazing to understand as well, now this!
The. I am infertile from eat scented candles.
My grandfather who died in 2013, was a jeweler from the 1950's up to the time he passed away. So almost 70 years. I ran the same jewelry store all that time.
I got bored with clocks when I was 9 and had disassembled Dad's Baby Ben alarm clock, then reassembled it - slightly more accurately in timekeeping.
I absolutely love the spirit of 1800's inventions. It feels like people were so inspired to solve the worlds problems with technology they had at the time.
Truly a magical time, so many different technologies being invented at the same time
in the future people will look back at us and say the same thing😄
Because their primary motivation was not impacted by corporations and money
@Muaaz-26 no, I doubt about that. Do we say teh same thing for the dark ages? No. Do you have the Golden Age Athens lower than Athens anytime since then just because it was 2500 years ago?
@@politicallyincorrect2564in termas of critical thinking we are living in a dystopian hellhole and its only getting worse
I didnt think such systems could ever be used, but as it turns out even the most crazy inventions could sometimes work really well
Popp was way ahead of his time! So amazing! I think the best thing about this is the fact that the city contracted him to keep everybody in sync. I'd be so proud of my job.
I ve always had an obsession for unnecessarily complex systems we used to have for something that we take for granted today...
And this one checks all the marks thanks primal space
All the complexity and consumption came with the electrical system.
Amazing story, and excellent graphics, excellent narration
Thank you so much. So glad you enjoyed it!
Agree!
The folk that make meticulous things all throughout history such as clockwork or modern computers are great example of how smart humans are and the capability we have. great respect to those people.
The creative aspect strikes me most, the problem solving; shoot, autism can make you meticulous, I would know, but the frame of thinking which seeks to expand the horizon of unknowing is what impresses me. Humans rock.
@@SakutoNoSAInow imagine waht humanity could achive if the barrior known as "money" could somehow be removed but ppl still work and produce without any tyranny or governmenttal intervention?
The way he integrates pneumatic mechanisms with clockwork is simply mesmerizing. It's refreshing to see innovation in traditional timekeeping. Kudos to Victor for pushing the boundaries of what's possible!"
Dude you just killed me with the joke @3:45
That AnyDesk seque was hilarious! And what a cool system, never knew it existed! It's so... steampunk!
This and the monorail episode are departures from the usual space-themed content you put on this channel, but it’s really well done. I hope you continue making videos like this!
I worry that AI based advertising will soon behave all like this. Then it won't be funny anymore, Yuck!
I really do appreciate how skillfully RUclipsrs transition into a sponsor ad
That was one of the most jarring and intrusive ad transitions I've ever seen.
This was so far the most unexpected, yet seamless and yet funny!
Another thing to appreciate is the ability to drag the timeline past that ad and skip ahead to the content. 😉
@@TheSwaroopB That was like actual "soap operas", where from singing opera on TV the actors seamlessly switched to advertising their sponsor's washing agent.
just kidding
Just how do you do that? In this day and age when almost everything has been seen at least once by everyone, you still manage to surprise me with something I've never heard of. This is so Steampunk.
or compressed-air-punk?
Correction, clock punk!
@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648compressorpunk
all falls down under the same thing! Steampunk! Whatever, just steampunk!
@@Ashleyhru No clock punk and steam punk are very different, that's like equating solar punk with cyberpunk.
Even though they did operate for 50 years it is an incredible piece of paris history
Absolutely
The genius mind of people at that time to make a system out of the analog system and calibrate to the minimum error , is just so wonderful. On top of that the amazing video and the capability of @primalspace to explain complex systems with ease is just amazing
Sooo, why did the clock stop on Jan 21, 1910?
And how the air waves travelled long distances still capable of moving the arrows in hundreds on clocks? The more clocks you connect, the more powerful air burst you need, isn't that right? This video made me ask more questions than it itself answered, lol.
I think a pipe was destroyed in the flood, or the master clock damaged.
No, you don't need a "more powerful air burst". Since its a sealed, enclosed system, it just meant, you needed a longer airburst. The airburst of 20 seconds were enough to move all clocks on each "branch".
When all clocks on a branch were "full", the system would just build pressure without using it, and release the pressure out of some safety valve or similiar.
Think like this, you put 1 baloon on a air compressor. It takes pretty quick to blow it up.
Repeat same thing with 100 baloons. You would still be able to blow it up, it would just take 100x longer time. You don't need more pressure or more power for that.
So as long as each branch were limited to a specific number of clocks, it would work fine. Note how there was a large pipe connecting to several smaller pipes, this ensured so each branch shared the same air amounts. Yes, if one branch got 1 clock too much, it would "steal" air from another branch eventually, so there was a upper limit how many clocks the whole network took.
Thats why it was connected to a fee, because if too many clocks were connected, no clocks would work. So they needed to limit adoption, thats why there was a fee. If too many users would still join the system, they would need to elongate the time the system worked by increase the area of the airbrake so the valve would remain open for a longer time than 20 seconds.
But they couldn't enlongate the airbrake previously, because if the system closed the valve too late, there was too few clocks to release air pressure quickly enough to ensure it was ready for another minute when the next pressure wave came. So the pressure advancer would be in a "open position" all the time. Thats why the airbrake needed to be adopted for the number of clocks on system, so if too few clocks were active, they would need a shorter open time, and if too many clocks are there, they would need to elongate the open time.
@@Bobo-ox7fj Not greater pressure. More flow, more liters per second. Putting lot of pressure in the system wont help.
Think like this: Connecting a wheelnut gun requiring 5 bar to a compressor. If you connect 10 such guns, you dont need more pressure - its not like you need 50 bar.
You however need much more liters per second at 5 bar.
@@sebastiannielsenI've been in automotive industry for decades. Never have I heard someone call an impact a wheelnut gun. I'm writing that one down.
Impedance matching, more piper lowers the resistance, which can be measured at the source. Though, this isn't what they did, this idea is actually really dumb and there's a lot of reasons no one else did it
That's actually very smart and Ingenious idea!! But i do wonder, where the first air preasure from the master lock came from and how it's strong enough to reach whole paris.
Yes, I was wondering the same thing. I mean there were plenty of air compressors around at that time. They had diving suits all over. There was a large sponge harvesting industry in Indonesia that use them. The smaller boats had hand cranked compressors. So I'm not that amazed by the source, But, like you said, I'm amazed that they could get sufficient air flow through the pipes that were shown to reach a few kilometers. Maybe they had "amplifiers" along the way? Anyway, amazing stuff.
@@2ndfloorsongsnot only the distance but the timing. How to manage to circulate air in the whole system BY THE MINUTE (or withing the first 20 seconds)
The pressure differential was probably 8 bar or more so when the air is released it's like an explosion, it's close to speed of sound. Sure it takes a lot of air to inflate the bellows of all clocks but the change in pressure is very fast, is not gradual change, it's sudden
I believe it travels AT the speed of sound. Still, it would take a lot of air to power like thousands of clocks.
@@memovilmx6239you don't have to have the pulses arrive at the same time everywhere, because they only broadcast the tempo. You'd still have to set each clock first to the correct start time. It's not like GPS clocks now that broadcast their exact time as well as the tempo signals. So if you cared about the seconds, you could probably rotate the clock face by one degree for every ten seconds behind you were. I'm guessing precision to the second wasn't that important though still yet.
Bro amazing commercial transition. I lol'd
Haha thanks. Glad you enjoyed that one.
But he didn’t answer the question about how they were synced up.. how did the master clock see what the observatory clock was seeing?
@@GIPvideosagreed! Damn sponsor sections 😩
@@GIPvideos I can only speculate...But at that time the French were very good with optics. It may seem audacious for a distance of about 3-4km today (When you'd simply use an IP camera) but there's a fair chance the _Compagnie d'Horloges Pneumatique_ might've used a periscope with fixed focus to another at the Meudon end. 👁
Get the mirrors in the right place and the magnification right (Which the French could do in their sleep) and checking the clock in Meudon is simply a case of « _Péréscope Haut!_ » 😁
@@dieseldragon6756 @tommyvercetti7
I did some of my own research. The observatory had its own clocks around the city. But they ran on electricity and were too expensive for private use. One of those clocks was about 300M from the Popps office. So in the article it assumes that someone with a half decent pocket watch could set it to observatory time and then walk over to the office to make sure the pneumatic master clock was in sync
As an intrigued person who likes organization, this is pleasing. As an engineer this got me crazy. As a project manager is sort of makes sense and really inspired of this.
That was the best cut to an advertisement I've yet heard. I lol'ed... and didn't skip the ad. Well done
Haha thanks. Glad you enjoyed that one.
Agreed! @primalspace But I'm curious how did they make sure they aligned it to the more accurate click across the city?
0:30 missed chance to say that they "popped" up all around the city
😂😂😂
I thought the same! 😆🤙🏽
I learn something new with every video you release. This is something that I was completely unaware of. What a brilliant engineering solution this was! We take for granted the basic quartz movement of modern timepieces and the lengths in which we took to get where we are today.
Incredible video as always!
Well done explaination of the Paris synchronized clock system. Made me remember the Simplex clocks when I was In school. Every classroom had the same synchronized time. I guess by then it was electronic pulses instead of air.
Awesomeee!!! Ingenuity at it's finest indeed in making the City of Love (Paris) in sync by time back then!! Time to check what time it is hehe.
Absolutely! Glad you enjoyed this topic. Thanks for watching!
I never thought clocks had been working underground.Its amazing till where humanity has evolved.
Can't imagine the pressure drop at the end of the tubes or what they did to deal with leaks... Very cool!
There is theoretically no pressure drop since it was a closed system. Leaks were inevitable, however as long as they were kept to less than the amount necessary to pressurize the system for each pulse, they had no effect. The leak would be detected by the clocks that appeared out of sync.
@@billmoran3812 if you had many small lines manifolded out of one big one, I would imagine a large leak on one of the small lines would cause issues with all the others and be complicated and time consuming to isolate. You would have to one by one leakdown test each circuit to detirmine which was leaking
@@billmoran3812 Likely the signal would travel more like a sound wave than reaching every place at once. So a small leak won't matter so long the wave first reaches its destination before air has escaped.
This is awesome. This reminds me of a friend who once said that it would sometimes be better to stay with a mechanical link than to replace it with electrical signaling, and under some circumstances I think he's right. And this adds a whole new aspect to the steampunk genere, imagine all the systems that could be synchronized... :D
Wait... so how did the timekeeper see the observatory clock?
I was wondering this too and looked it up:
"At the Paris Observatoire a high-standard astronomical regulator clock was kept running on correct mean time by astronomical transit observations, being corrected daily. Pulses of electricity were sent every second to secondary clocks around the city, the wires being run through ducts in the sewers. Two loops starting and ending at the Observatoire carried thirteen clocks between them, the farthest being at a distance of seven and a half kilometres, or nearly four and a half miles from the observatory. The clocks were of a high standard, so they could keep good time even if the synchronising pulses failed. (The pulses synchronised the clocks but did not drive them, they were weight-driven in the conventional way) The secondary clocks were furnished with second-hands, and were placed so that they could be easily seen from the street, usually in prominent positions. They further distributed time by sending electric signals once an hour to synchronise various public clocks. The system came into operation in 1878."
So it appears that electronic synchronization was in use at this time but just not cost effective at the level for mass production. However, having a few extremely well made electronic clocks was worth the cost.
(electrical time distrubition from the observatory)
Like the narrator said he used anydesk to see the time of observatory clock
wrong he said that it was a joke
@@IgnatiusIsaacWeeKaiJunyuanps bro don't you know something known as "sarcasm"
How am I just finding this channel! Awesome!
As someone who likes to work on his own watches, this system is amazing! It would be interesting to hear what else the mind of this inventor came up with in his life. Thank you for sharing this fascinating information!!
The most clever and well placed sponsor segment ever! I've watch the Anydesk part twice just for that. Hats off to you sir!
haha thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed that one.
@@primalspace That was like actual "soap operas", where from singing opera on TV the same actors seamlessly switched to advertising their sponsor's washing agent. I can only hope that coming AI based ads won't become all like this, which will NOT be funny at all.
I'm currently in my 2nd year of mechanical engineering and seeing the clock mechanism be so complicated yet so simple and reliable is incredibly cool. The mechanisms in the clocks distributed in the whole city were particularly interesting to me due to their simplicity.
Anydesk sounds like a hackers paradise
Honestly this was a suboptimal solution but absolutely amazing. I personally ADORE network systems specialized for something. There is just something satisfying about different sorts of signals and things and liquids being carried around along the same routes and tunnels in networks.... instead of just one cable for internet, one for electricity and one for water.
water cables?
@@engineer0239 you know what i meant :P
I really wish this was still used today. It would be nice.
Would definitely be interesting to see in action!
If you like this look at distillery and brewery plumbing
At 6:35 he says it takes up to a minute to reach some of the furthest clocks, does this mean those clocks were a minute behind? Or were the clocks calibrated in some way?
I think that the thing is "ok, you're within a minute of the real time ", and that's enough if you consider that a whole city was sinchronized within one minute.
Byt yes, you need to accept some delay.
Today too, we have delay in clock sinchronization, but it's way less than a second.
But being it a full second, it would still be ok for our day to day use.
It's possible those clocks were set ahead by a minute but it's also possible they left them as-is
@@ethangibson8645 Also that ... maybe they had a system that all the clocks over a certain range are ahead one minute so the medium delay is around 30 sec ( still an impressive feat to do with only pneumatic air ... )
Autistic folks back then could prob calculate it like UPS delivery, the further away from point of origin, estimate a slight delay - so subtract a min on the outskirts of the city?
0:53 😢No wonder the city got flooded. That's their fault for wishing it to be in a sync.
3:43 The anydesk throw me away 😂😂
This clock is engenious for it's time! Maybe if digital clocks/electronic devices weren't as sufisticated in the 1920's, we could see air-powered time around many cities in europe, all syncing to the masterclock in Paris! Maybe along with the first cables laid along the seafloor in 1958, there could be air tubes to go with it, so the whole world would run on syncronized time, but then it will take more time for the air to travel from Paris, to say Los Angeles (No kidding!) Anyways great video! I await your next episode!
really cool how simple it all is, literally just gears and air. Not everything has to be complicated circuitry in fact thats part of why its so reliable. great video!
The animation so beautiful, as an engineer and technician I touch by how it stands the time for almost 50 years. A marvel time piece. 😊
Thank you so much. Really glad you enjoyed the video!
Did you catch that some of the footage is from New York in 1911? at 1:22
I thought that looked more NYC than Paris.
what about the lag in reaching the air at the furthest part of the city?
That's litteraly the purpose of the video...
@noebertazzo3616 Correct me if I'm wrong, but they didn't explain what I asked as a question.
the person who made this system is a genius.
And some cities should have this amazing thing as a history.
This is extremely extraordinary engineering
So glad you agree!
Teeth on the gear at 2:45 are the wrong way around. The wheel would slip in this configuration.
What would happen if someone cut their own personal pipe, depressurizing some sections of the system?
Maybe it depressurized the entire system and could be adjusted at the master clock?
You can have a simple one way valve at each output point so that would never happen
3:43 this threw me off so hard
the animations in this video are so clear and accurate, some of the most educational ones I've ever seen by seperating parts to allow individual understanding before relating it back to the whole workings, well done!
Thank you so much. I'm really glad you enjoyed the video - your comment means a lot! Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
It was so ingenious for the time :O
Absolutely
@ 5:04 ...the roman numeral 6...
. . . looks just like the Roman numeral 4.
its the second 4
It's amazing how they managed to find the solutions back in the day, 1min for a city the size of Paris is not really an issue. Wish they would've left at least one at display!
4:21 does that mean PC is better ?
It is tho
Great video, I had never understood how these clocks worked.
So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
*You don't think about this now that everyone has accurate time in the palm of their hands. I remember when my grandma used to have to wind her clocks and watches*
Awesome system, 1880…ppl were way smarter
No.
As you type on a phone of which there are millions grooves and circuits… of which there are millions….of which are multiple times more complex than air pumped clocks on pipes.
They were just as smart as us, they just had to work with what they had at the time
It's funny how people are basically calling themselves stupid.
Some people were stupid in the 1880's, but probably less compared to today.
Imagine one gear is melted wrong...
😂😂😂 ok touche your spam mention of Anydesk was wonderful.. had a great laugh. Thanks.
Haha glad you enjoyed that one.
Great engineering. A spectacle of what can be done with whatever is at hand, not waiting for future
I love all of your videos, and I really love space! All of your animations are always great and easy to understand, and most importantly entertaining! I am always excited for a new video! And of course, the way the clocks works was just genius. It would be really cool if we still had them around! I hope I can win the Voyager Poster! That would be awesome on my wall!
Thanks so much! So glad to hear that you enjoy the content and enjoyed this video in particular. Good luck in the giveaway!
@@primalspace Wait you replied? That’s actually awesome!
Also quick question, how do you guys pick the winners? Do you guys pick or is it randomized? Just wondering.
Mechanical clocks are the most amazing invention ever made. Pure ingenuity, just amazing.
Also great animations as always!
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed the video
Outstanding Performance
love seeing ancient technologies like anydesk getting use
As an engineer, I'm really astonished by this implementation! Such a simple, but effective solution for that technological period. Thank you, sir!
And thank you for watching. So glad you enjoyed the video.
This is excellent, thank you. I absolutely love clocks of all sizes. At college in Southern Ohio, I weasled myself in charge of the so-called South Green Tower Clock, which had 4 faces and each hour hand was 7 feet long. It was all electric, but I lubricated things, re-sync'ed with the WWV radio signal, and changed out the clockface lightbulbs. It also had an amplified bell toll (Westminster Quarters) that I programmed to play between noon and 9PM because no one in college wants to be woken before the crack of noon. I've also built Regulator-style clocks and worked on in-building master clocks. Just fascinated with clocks. I was scratching my head on this pneumatic system because of the lag. But, if you think about it, all of the clocks will be in the same minute within the minute. Back then seconds were unnecessary. :)
An amazingly simple system, way ahead of its time! I do wonder however what the maximum range of these pneumatic clocks would have been, considering Popp used 0.75 bar and lines ranging from 20 to 6 mm...
Incredible engineering, great story! As a watch lover I fell in love with this fact about Paris. What a cool history!
Simple and effective. Masterpiece of engineering. I think the clocks at the edge of the city were quite late, but brobably within one minute range.
This is such a cool and informative video! Thank you!
And thank you for watching. So glad you enjoyed it
@@primalspace :D
a very beautiful piece of art and tech
I agree. I was really excited to share this one!
Amazing, there are so many things we take for granted nowadays..
I definitely didn't know about this system... I also love how entertaining and educational this is despite not being your usual subject! This channel could definitely be expanded! And wow, a sponsor I will actually use! This is great!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. Space is always going to be my biggest passion, but there are so many other topics I find super interesting and can't help but share every now and then. Thanks for watching and good luck in the giveaway!
I dearly love the ingenuity of the human mind.. that was one of the main reasons I truly enjoy this awesome collection of videos
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you enjoy the content and feel the same way about the human mind. So much to learn, share, and be in awe of!
Thank u Nanami, very cool!
Very on brand of you to talk about time keeping. can't go into overtime!
This is incredible! Thanks so much for this!
And thank you for watching. So glad you enjoyed the video!
@@primalspace Thanks for the reply!
This is such a cool piece of history! It's amazing to think about how something so innovative shaped everyday life in Paris for decades. Thanks for sharing this gem!
A solution to a problem that used things they knew worked. Would probably still be in use today if it had not been too expensive, as you can see from the USA still having a few sections of 100VDC systems still in use in SF, where it once was built out with the tram lines as a power source, and was sold to buildings along the routes as a convenient power source to drive things like elevators and pumps, along with winches and lighting as well.
You had me with that “anydesk”. After that anydesk word I literaly said “wait how the hell..” 😂
😂😂😂
What a brilliant system - almost unbelievable that in those days you could automate and synchronize clocks for an entire city! Amazing!!
I learned way more than just how these clocks worked, but pretty much how all mechanical clocks in general worked. Great video!
I never knew about the existence of this mechanism, it is phenomenal, ingenious and relatively "simple"
mechanical inventions are fabulous.
You just beat it to my top5 channels. Really good informative videos, thank you for that i didn't know about Paris 👏🤩👏
Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you're enjoying my content - it really means a lot!
Wow, I didn't know that such a system existed. Very cool and genious engineering for that time! Thanks for the extraordinary video quality, especially for the animations.
I knew the pneumatic messaging system in Paris and elsewhere but I have never heard of that system for synchronizing the clocks! Amazing. Thanks a lot.
Thank you for watching. So glad you enjoyed the video.
That is such a creative and pleasing solution. I wouldn't have expected pneumatic power could travel such a distance with so many branches, given how compressible air is. But it obviously worked, and for 50 years!
What an amazing invention, it shows the one thing that humans are amazing at "ingenuity". And a very amazing video, explaining about how the machine works❤
I find the system quite interesting, it’s a practical simplistic and efficient way to solve the problem at hand and I think this shows the philosophy of if it works build upon it until you can’t. Thanks for the amazing video.
And thank you for watching. So glad you enjoyed it, and good luck in the giveaway!
I think it is incredible that the education existed to design such a great system, including that master clock.. and the Anydesk looks great too. I used VM Horizon to work at home for the last 3 years..
As a compressor technician for more than 30 years, I never had any idea of this. Goes to show how much there is to learn 😂
So much to learn! Really glad you enjoyed the video.