A Brief History of Time

When George Orwell opened his classic novel 1984 with the line, “It was a bright day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen”, he couldn’t have been more economical in signalling that this is a dystopia in which everything we once knew must now be called into question.

For clocks, and their defining regularity, have been relied upon to keep order on earth since the first mechanical timepieces were created, by monks, in the 14th century, and long before that in their earlier incarnations as sundials, water clocks, and more. They are the unsung conductors of our daily lives, providing the parameters within which we live, unfailingly keeping the rhythmic beat, getting us up at an appointed hour in the morning and putting us to bed at night.

And yet, for all their military precision, clocks can, in their highest form, be works of art, fusing science and the fine aesthetic. One such example that has transcended its role as