The Giant Water Clock is a watch from the permanent collection of the Indianapolis Children's Museum , located in the Sunburst Atrium by the stairs leading to the second floor [1] . They were created by French scientist and artist Bernard Gitton in 1988, and in the same year the museum acquired them. [2]
The height of the watch is 8.1 meters; It is the largest water clock in North America . [3]
Content
Description
The water clock was created by French chemist and artist Bernard Gitton. They are about 8 meters high and made of more than 40 pieces of glass and 100 pieces of metal [2] . The water is colored blue, the clock is highlighted in green. The watch is made of glass, steel and 70 gallons of a solution of deionized water, methyl alcohol and dye.
Watches were assembled in France in order for the creator to understand whether they work; then disassembled and shipped to Indianapolis. In the museum they were again assembled in two weeks [1] .
Workflow
Functionally, a Hitton clock consists of four subsystems: an oscillator (pendulum), a frequency divider, a minute counter (minute dials) and a clock counter [2] .
Water from the pump, located in the basement under the clock, is pumped through pipes running in the center of the clock into the reservoir above. Then the water pours down into a bucket connected to a green swinging pendulum. The pendulum pours water through a bucket into a group of siphons. Filled siphons are emptied into spheres. Each filled sphere corresponds to two minutes. When all thirty minute spheres are full, they are immediately emptied and at the same time one hour sphere is filled. Twice a day, at 1:00 a.m. before and after noon, all hour and minute spheres are filled, and after the next drop in water, only one hour sphere remains full.
To determine the clock you need to count the filled hour spheres, which will give the number of hours before or after noon, and count the filled minute spheres, twice the number of which is equal to the number of minutes that have passed the current hour.
Service
The water clock is equipped with two pumps in the basement - one working and one standby. 70 liters of fluid in a watch is not pure water. It consists of deionized water (to be electrically neutral), a dye (to make water easier to see) and methyl alcohol (to prevent bacteria from multiplying in hours) [1] . The color of the water can be changed if you stop the clock, drain the water and replace it with water of a different color.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Facts About the Giant Water Clock. - The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, 2000.
- ↑ 1 2 3 David M. MacMillan. [www.marcdatabase.com/~lemur/dm-gitton.html Bernard Gitton's Liquid Science] . Delightful Machines version 1.18 (2000). Date of treatment September 3, 2002.
- ↑ Archived copy (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment February 26, 2011. Archived December 27, 2010.