Tag: history of technology
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Dickory Dickory Clock: Curing “Mouseitis”
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in Horology“Dickory Dickory dockThe mouse ran up the clockThe clock struck oneThe mouse sat stillThe Dickory Dickory clock was ill!” Here is a charming clock invented by Elmer Ellsworth Dungan around 1908 for his daughter who loved the nursery rhyme: “The Dickory Dickory Clock.” [at various times and places the rhyme has gone “hickory dickory,” “dickory…
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Pre-WWI Cuckoo Clock with Articulated Wings
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in HorologyThis is a cuckoo clock that was probably made between 1860 to 1914 in the Black Forrest in Germany (according to this). Aside from having cast bronze plates with a lyre pattern, the beautiful wooden bird that the mechanism puppets not only opens its beak but also spreads its wings! First I disassembled and cleaned…
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My Mechanical Calculator: How and Why
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in CreationsThis is my homemade mechanical calculator. For the why and how it works, I made this video about it: To give a little more about how I made it, I dug up old drawings I made of the parts. What follows is an explanation of making the calculator using those as a guide. After studying…
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Comtoise Clock: Repair and Determining Geography
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in HorologyThis is what’s known as a Comtoise or Morbier grandfather clock. Let’s clean it up and get it ticking again, then we can discuss its name. Someone repainted the case. My instructor and I began to scrape the paint away, but that process is still ongoing. Here’s our first look at the movement. With a…
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English Translation of “The Art of Working Precious Stones For Use in Watchmaking and Optics” by N. Dumontier, 1843
English translation of L’art de travailler les pierres précieuses à l’usage de l’horlogerie et de l’optique… Par N. Dumontier I believe this is one of the earliest sources about using jewels in clock and watchmaking. I mainly used google translate and checked the translation where I felt the phrasing was off. “The Art of Working…
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The Mēchanē in Prometheus Bound: Recognizing the Role of Technology on Stage
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in WritingsThis is a Classics essay I wrote that was then published in an academic journal, Discentes. This is an essay I originally wrote for a Classics seminar at college. As a senior seminar for Classics majors and minors, it attempted to draw on and explore many dimensions of Greek and Roman antiquity through analyzing Greek…
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Thesis: The “Other” in Nineteenth-Century French Automata: Technology, Domestication, and Imperialism
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in WritingsThe “Other” in Nineteenth-Century French Automata: Technology, Domestication, and Imperialism Abstract: Automata – mechanical, self-moving representations of animals and humans – have been studied by historians mainly to account for their popularity in the European Enlightenment, where they influenced conceptions of how matter takes on life and agency in a mechanistic world. However, automata continued…
What Will Makes 