Time flies when we’re having fun. Or, as Dr John C Taylor OBE,
creator of the Midsummer Chronophage explains:
‘It was Einstein who said Time was relative. When asked for an
example, he paused and then said, “If you think about it, an hour
spent on a park bench with a pretty girl passes in a moment, but a
moment sat on a hot stove seems like an hour."’
What is the Chronophage?
It was through thinking about Einstein’s theories on time that
Dr Taylor conceived the idea for the Chronophage – from the Greek
chronos (time) and phage (eater) – a mythical,
insect-like creature which controls a magnificent golden clock.
Dr Taylor’s thoughts were triggered by the realisation that time
is both eternal at a universal level yet extremely limited at a
personal level, and that the time we have spent cannot be regained
– almost as if it has been eaten up by a relentless, menacing
creature…
Battle-hardened and leathery, the Chronophage is that creature,
consuming time by walking steadily above a huge clock face, pulling
the minutes along with a rocking motion, its jaws snapping shut
every 60 seconds as it swallows up another minute. Yet
occasionally, the creature seems to play a trick on us, speeding up
or slowing down the passage of time.
Above: The fearsome Chronophage creature,
which sits on top of the Midsummer Chronophage, controlling it.
Image © Dr John C Taylor Ltd.
How does the clock work?
The form of the Chronophage is inspired by and celebrates the
work of the 17th century horologist John Harrison. Harrison is
famous for his portable sea clocks, invented to solve the problem
of measuring longitude at sea. Harrison created a rocking mechanism
for controlling clocks which he called a ‘grasshopper
escapement’.
Dr Taylor turned the underlying mechanical workings of
Harrison’s ‘grasshopper escapement’ inside out, so that the teeth
of the escape wheel, normally concealed within the clock, rotate
around the outside of the massive, gold-plated face, moved along by
the feet of the unsettling, unstoppable creature, now placed on the
outside of the device for all to admire and fear.
Above: The Chronophage creature. Image ©
Dr John C Taylor Ltd.
How does the clock display the time?
The clock face has no hands or numbers. Instead it shows three
rings of light – the first clock design in the world to display
time in this way. The outer ring shows seconds, the middle ring
minutes and the inner ring hours and quarter hours. Every second,
the light rushes rapidly around the outer ring, then appears to
pause for a moment as the pendulum reaches the limit of its swing.
The sense of time racing away is very evident.
Above: The Chronophage showing the time as
three o'clock. Image © Dr John C Taylor Ltd.
Although the rings of lights appear to be flashing on and off,
the lights are actually on all the time. The escape wheel drives
three concealed stainless steel rings, each with a ring of slits,
in front of circular banks of LED lights in the core of the clock.
As these rings rotate, the appropriate slits align so only one
light in each ring is visible at any moment. Day and night are like
that in reality: the sun does not go out, it is simply
obscured.
Above: The three rings that make up the
Chronophage. Image © Dr John C Taylor Ltd.
You see how the Chronophage was made in this YouTube
video.
In this video, Dr Taylor explains how the Chronophage works.
How does the Chronophage tell ‘relative time’?
Despite the precision of scientific measurement, time is
unpredictable. We use expressions like ‘time standing still’ or
‘time running away’. The Chronophage is the first serious clock
that has attempted to take account of this.
Just occasionally (not very often), it will seem to stop
altogether, or to have moved rapidly forward so imperceptibly that
one can hardly see what has happened. The pendulum suddenly seems
to freeze. Sometimes we could almost swear that time went
backwards. These illusions appear to happen at random – yet the
clock returns to accurate time every fifth minute.
As Dr Taylor explains:
‘Once you have seen the Chronophage, all other clocks will seem
rather boring – all they do is tell the time.’