THE MECHANICS OF TIME A JOURNEY INTO ZEITGEIST WATCHES Words by Tue Elkjær
Since this issue is the smarty pants issue, we at the magazine decided to try to learn something about the inner workings of some those hyped design products on the market, namely mechanical watches. It dawned on us, that even though we all knew, that mechanical design watches is something to be in awe of, none of us actually had no real idea about what mechanics, actually was. We always associated mechanics with cars, although we knew that some physicists works with quantum mechanics. But we’re more, lets say artistic, than into natural science and have no interest in getting our clothes dirty by messing around with a car engine. So we decided to learn more about how the hell watches work and what mechanics is anyhow.
So first I did an intensive Google search on watch mechanics, According to Google it’s a bit of a mystery when the mechanical watch was invented. But it’s pin pointed that the spring powered clock was invented somewhere in the 12 or 13 century and was first used in the catholic church, to know the time for prayer and mass. These mechanical clocks were way more accurate than the water powered clocks or sundials they replaced. The mechanical clock won popularity through the renaissance up til the 16 century were the wristwatch was invented and marketed as women’s jewellery. One of the early wearers of the wristwatch, was Queen Elizabeth the 1. Queen E was given a wristwatch by the 1. Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. As you might remember from the Queen Elizabeth movies with Cate Blanchett, Dudley was Queen E’s suitor and generally believed to be her lover-boy.
In fact the wristwatch wasn’t marketed towards men until the 19 century...imagine that. Before that time men carried portable watches or pocket watches (which, apparently, is two different things). It would make James Bond movies a bit different if he had a magic pocket watch...not really as