There are watches that show the movement of the Sun through the signs of the Zodiac (the aforementioned Tellurium Johannes Kepler, for instance) but I've never seen or heard of a watch that shows the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets through the signs of the Zodiac as well. Such a watch might be very challenging to make mechanically as thanks to the relative motion of the planets in their orbits with respect to the Earth in its orbit, the moving planets sometimes appear to slow down or even reverse their motion along the plane of the ecliptic. This is called retrograde motion and it gave geocentric cosmologists fits until Galileo and Kepler came along and pointed out that the whole problem evaporated if you made the Sun the center of the Solar System instead of the Earth. The church fought the assertion tooth and nail for a while but we got there in the end. A
Awesome article! Geologic time is already mind-blowing; celestial time is too big for my brain.
You may find it enjoyable to check out the use of water clocks and digressions into celestial observation in Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Not really germane to your excellent work here; just a super fun read
I'm an astronomer so this is the kind of story that tugs on my heartstrings. I also love watches. Superb article, as expected from a master watch scholar. Thank you.
I love this article! Also with the popularity of astrology these days, it’s hard to believe there isn’t a zodiac calendar Watch or two
There are watches that show the movement of the Sun through the signs of the Zodiac (the aforementioned Tellurium Johannes Kepler, for instance) but I've never seen or heard of a watch that shows the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets through the signs of the Zodiac as well. Such a watch might be very challenging to make mechanically as thanks to the relative motion of the planets in their orbits with respect to the Earth in its orbit, the moving planets sometimes appear to slow down or even reverse their motion along the plane of the ecliptic. This is called retrograde motion and it gave geocentric cosmologists fits until Galileo and Kepler came along and pointed out that the whole problem evaporated if you made the Sun the center of the Solar System instead of the Earth. The church fought the assertion tooth and nail for a while but we got there in the end. A
Awesome article! Geologic time is already mind-blowing; celestial time is too big for my brain.
You may find it enjoyable to check out the use of water clocks and digressions into celestial observation in Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Not really germane to your excellent work here; just a super fun read
I'm a huge Stephenson fan! I have not read Anathem, sadly enough, but as a committed lover of Great Big Books with Big Ideas, it sounds like I should.
I'm an astronomer so this is the kind of story that tugs on my heartstrings. I also love watches. Superb article, as expected from a master watch scholar. Thank you.