I haven’t had a chance to get up to Cambridge to see the clock myself. It was interesting to hear from someone who has seen it up close. As I understand it the clock is electrically powered so your right that it’s not entirely ‘mechanical’.

When I heard about the story of the Corpus Clock it reminded me a bit of the Clock of the Long Now, in that both are monumental horological projects by successful tech entrepeneurs.

cheers
John D

It has obviously been designed by an acadenic rather than a clockmaker. There are indeed lots of horological in-jokes of a scholarly kind, and the electronic blue display is bang up to date. However the grasshopper sculpture does not appear to be actually regulating the clock. In addition, and what is not shown in the video, is that the clock pendulum occasionally stops, restarts and speeds up. I think this is supposed to be another reference to time catching up, etc., but the resulting impression is that there is something very wrong with the mechanism. The amplified tick of the clock and the swinging of the ‘bells’ to strike the hour completes the perception that it is not mechanical at all but a poor application of a micro-controller project.

Perhaps the next public clock in Cambridge will do more unusual things on the hour, be more interesting to watch, celebrate events throughout the year, and generally suprise and amuse those who look at it.

Thank you for putting together such an interesting site.

Best wishes

Tom Armitstead