EXPLORIT Science Center - Weekly Column

Three...two...one...HAPPY NEW YEAR!! It's almost time to count down the seconds until midnight. To celebrate moving into a new year, century, and millennium.

Have you ever wondered how our clocks and calendars became what they are today? From where did these inventions originate?

Explorit Science Center's current exhibition, "Inventors and Inventions Through the Centuries," provides visitors a chance to investigate the tremendous capacity of human imagination by exploring a variety of dynamic inventions...including those designed to measure time.

To keep track of time is a fundamental human need. One of the first embarked efforts to record and communicate information, outside of language and pictorial art, was the calendar. Our Stone Age ancestors may have started making calendars as much as 35,000 years ago.

Ancient civilizations used the movement of the sun to create their calendars. Here is a way to create your own backyard calendar. All you need is a stick, some pebbles and alot of patience!

Level the ground, then plant the stick vertically. Beginning one morning, mark the tip of the shadow cast by the stick with a pebble. Add more markers during the day until the evening. The pebbles placed over one day should form a curve. Repeat the procedure every day (this is where your patience comes into play!).

The curve formed by the markers will gradually move farther away from the stick until a day comes when it begins to move back again. This turning point marks a solstice (either summer or winter), which is either the longest or shortest day of the year. Count the number of days it takes for the shadow curve to move from one solstice to the other and back again - it should be 365!

The first clocks were also based on the movement of the sun. Your backyard calendar, if you placed pebbles at approximately the same time each day, can also be used as a time keeping device. Sundials like this were developed more than 4000 years ago.

The water clock was invented about 3,500 years ago by the Egyptians, in order to tell the time at night, when a sundial was not reliable. The water clock consisted of two buckets, one that was filled with water and had a hole near the bottom that allowed water to trickle out. The time that had passed could be measured by a lined scale scratched into the receiving bucket.

The necessity to divide the day in a more detailed order, led to the invention of mechanical clocks. The first of these relied on the energy stored in moving parts. For example, the rhythmic movement of weights suspended on a chain could be measured. The first pendulum clock was invented in 1656 by the Dutch scientist, Christian Huygens. By the mid 1600's, the precise measurement of gears revolutionized clockwork forever. Imagine our world without this evolution of time measurement!

Explore the world of "Inventors and Inventions Through the Centuries" at Explorit Science Center. Investigate different mediums of communication. Send messages to a friend with Explorit's telegraph machine, or try to read and type in Braille.

In addition to topics of counting and communication, visitors can delve into inventions spanning many topics including Travel and Conquest, Daily Life and Health, and Agriculture and Industry. Visit Explorit soon because this exhibition will only be up and running through February 6, 2000.

Explorit Science Center is located at 3141 5th Street in East Davis. The current exhibition is "Inventors and Inventions Through the Centuries.” Public hours are Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Sunday from 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., and Tuesday through Friday from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. Regular admission is $3; members, teachers (with school ID) and children under 4 are free.

Explorit Science Center Weekly Column