Question

how did the development of clocks shape up societies and cultures and and how can we explain the significance of such a device in the history of tech ...?

Answer 1

efore the invention of the clock, the major world industry was agriculture, so clocks were unnecessary in the daily life of the individual. Clocks became available before the industrial revolution, but as economies began to industrialize, clocks started to be redly used by the people who ran factories as a way to decide when people worked. This created a culture shift in how a day is measured. Before clocks and the industrial revolution, a day in the life of the individual was governed by the sun. He woke up when the sun rose and went to sleep when the sun set. Clocks changed this. The life of the industrial worker, because of the clock, was governed by hours. While in retrospective the impact of the clock may seem minimal, this shift from rising with the sun to living based on specific hours was a fundamental shift in the way people lived. In short, during and after the industrial revolution, clocks mechanized and standardized how we lived our lives. I hope that explanation made some sense.

Answer 2

The clock had a more significant affect on travel (rather an accurate portable clock) than anything else. When crossing oceans, large unexplored land masses, or even small seas like the medditeranean - the stars were the travelers only means of navigation. Navigation by ships and planes depends on the ability to measure latitude and longitude. Latitude is fairly easy to determine through knowledge of the stars, but the measurement of longitude requires accurate measurement of time. This need was a major motivation for the development of accurate mechanical clocks. John Harrison created the first highly accurate marine chronometer in the mid-18th century. The Noon gun in Cape Town still fires an accurate signal to allow ships to check their chronometers.