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Elements of a Clock
Source: About.com Having described a variety of ways devised over the past few millennia to mark the passage of time, it is instructive to define in broad terms what constitutes a clock. All clocks must have two basic components:
- A regular, constant or repetitive process or action to mark off equal increments of time. Early examples of such processes included movement of the sun across the sky, candles marked in increments, oil lamps with marked reservoirs, sand glasses ("hourglasses"), and in the Orient, small stone or metal mazes filled with incense that would burn at a certain pace.
- A means of keeping track of the increments of time and displaying the result. Our means of keeping track of time passage include the position of clock hands and a digital time display.
The history of timekeeping is the story of the search for ever more consistent actions or processes to regulate the rate of a clock.
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