the.com/horology
the obsessive art of measuring something nobody has ever actually touched.
means The study and craft of measuring time and making timekeeping devices like clocks and watches.
from From Greek 'hōra,' meaning hour, season, or time — the same root that gives us 'hour' itself — joined to '-logia,' the suffix of study and discourse (from 'logos,' word or reason). The word arrived in English by way of Latin and French; it's a close cousin of 'horoscope,' which originally meant a 'watcher of the hour' marking the heavens at the moment of birth. So at heart, horology is simply hour-talk: the disciplined conversation about how we slice up the day.
- Word root
- From Greek hora, meaning hour or season.
- Atomic precision
- Best clocks lose one second per 15 billion years.
- Marine prize
- Britain offered fortunes to solve longitude with clocks.
- Mechanical heart
- Fine watches tick over 28,000 times per hour.
- Complications
- The fancier the watch, the more 'complications' it has.
marine chronometer h4 — john harrison's 1759 invention, lost only 5 seconds over 81 days at sea, solved longitude problem
atomic clock nist-f1 — u.s. national institute of standards, loses 1 second every 30 million years