Jun 2015 Stewart Huxley - The Corpus Christi Clock

Mon, Jun 1st 2015 at 5:45 pm - 7:45 pm

Stewart Huxley on the creation of the Corpus Christi 'Chronophage'.
General Host - Martin H, Cashier - Mike S, Speaker Host - Jan C.


Tonight, after the meal our speaker was Stewart Huxley who talked us through the intriguing ideas behind the creation of the new and striking Corpus Christi Clock part of the Taylor Library, Trumpington Street, Cambridge. The masterpiece, introduced by famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking in 2008, challenges all preconceptions about telling time. It has no hands or digital numbers and it is specially designed to run in erratic fashion, slowing down and speeding up from time to time, before correcting itself.

Dr John Taylor was the designer and funder of the clock.  He was a student at Corpus Christi College and wanted to give them a unique gift.  He had always admired the pioneering work on timepieces by John Harrison and wanted to commemorate it.  He needed some excellent innovative engineering and had worked with Stewart before, so they were drawn into the six years of development needed.

The Harrison grasshopper escapement is usually hidden in a clock but they decided to make it visible - hence the creature 'gobbling' time that we see at the top.

We heard about the very clever arrangement of mechanically moving slits that allow the blue time light through when its needed to show the seconds, minutes and hours.  The face of the clock is coated in real gold which is bonded and moulded to the back structure by explosion !

The clock is programmed to do interesting things at different times eg the wings flutter, the mouth opens and closes, the tail waves, the tongue is pushed out, the pendulum stops, the eyes blink, the hour chime is a chain that drops onto a hollow 'coffin' inside.

The clock is actually only accurate every 5 minutes as it corrects itself after all the stops and starts etc.

On some special dates such as Harrisons birthday totally unexpected things happen !

Huxley Bertram Engineering Ltd



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