CLOCKS IN 100 FACTS: 17

Why time doesn't flow-it's manufactured. From Babylonian water clocks tracking seasonal lengths to optical lattice clocks questioning the stability of constants, Clocks in 100 Facts strips away the poetry of time to look at the machinery keeping civilization synchronized. Did you know a mechanical clock doesn't actually measure time? It counts recurring failures. Did you know entire national economies shifted because a railway station master in Ohio got tired of local solar noon? Packed with sharp, standalone entries, this book explores: - The Dual Engine: Why every true clock requires a repeater and a counter.- The Quality Factor ( Q): How mechanical balances traded elegance for raw frequency stability.- The Politics of Noon: From Greenwich baseline politics to China's single-timezone mandate and the scheduled 2035 abolition of the leap second.- Precision vs. Reality: Why a clock that is "right twice a day" is scientifically useless, while a predictable error is gold. For readers of Longitude, A Brief History of Time, and technical deep-dives that refuse to dumb down the physics or the history. Cornelis van Houte is a watch enthusiast and collector.