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For most of us clocks are a purely utilitarian device. They tell us the time and we don’t generally give a second thought to their inner workings. But the mechanical wooden clock designs of Clayton Boyer put the inner workings of clocks on full display resulting in conversation starters that are not only functional, but beautiful as well. And, if you’re feeling up for the challenge, you can build your own.

As part of his philosophy of trying to spread joy in the world through creative woodworking Boyer has designed a range of wooden mechanical clocks, calendars and even planetary orreries. He sells the plans for these designs that include a full set of instructions and a materials list as well as full-size drawings of most of the parts that can be cut out and glued to the appropriately-sized stock for cutting. This same “No Measuring” technique also applies to the metal parts used as arbors and spacers. Just put the right-sized metal part next to the plans, mark and cut.

The clocks use either a pendulum as the timekeeping element or can be wound up, whereas the combination calendar and orrery rely on a lever that is pulled daily to keep up to date. The planetary orrery is hand-cranked to show the relative positions of the first six planets nearest the sun with each crank equal to one Earth season.

Boyer says some wooden movement clocks that are 300 years old are still in working order today. He says with some care and maintenance clocks built from his designs should outlast the builder and their children and become heirlooms as they are passed from one generation to the next.

As complicated as the clocks may look, Boyer says that, if one has the necessary tools, then just about anyone can build clocks from his plans.

“Skill is not as important as perseverance,” he says, “These are not difficult to build, but they do take some time”.

However, for those looking for a real challenge, Boyer also has a number of more difficult plans in his “Masochist’s Corner”. Unlike his other plans these don’t come with a set of building instructions or a materials list. To weed out anyone not up to the task, (and presumably cut down on pleas for help), anyone looking to test their frustration threshold with one of these clocks will need to provide a picture of a completed clock from one of Boyer’s easier designs before being able to buy one from this collection.

So if you’re looking for a hobby Clayton Boyer’s plans are available through his website. The majority of the plans sell for US$37, while his Celestial Mechanical Calendar and Orrery plans sell for US$72. The plans are drawn in CAD and are sent as paper patterns.

NIST postdoctoral researcher James Chin-    wen Chou with the world’s most precise  clock  that probably won’t find its way into a wristwatch anytime soon

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built an enhanced version of an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom that would neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years. That makes it the world’s most precise clock, more than twice as precise as the previous pacesetter based on a mercury atom.

The new clock is the second version of NIST‘s “quantum logic clock,” so called because it borrows the logical processing used for atoms storing data in experimental quantum computing. The second version of the logic clock offers more than twice the precision of the original. In addition to demonstrating that aluminum is now a better timekeeper than mercury, the latest results confirm that optical clocks are widening their lead – in some respects – over the NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, the U.S. civilian time standard, which currently keeps time to within 1 second in about 100 million years.

Because the international definition of the second (in the International System of Units, or SI) is based on the cesium atom, cesium remains the “ruler” for official timekeeping, and no clock can be more accurate than cesium-based standards such as NIST-F1.

The logic clock is based on a single aluminum ion trapped by electric fields and vibrating at ultraviolet light frequencies, which are 100,000 times higher than microwave frequencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world. Optical clocks thus divide time into smaller units, and could someday lead to time standards more than 100 times as accurate as today’s microwave standards. Higher frequency is one of a variety of factors that enables improved precision and accuracy.

Aluminum is one contender for a future time standard to be selected by the international community. NIST scientists are working on five different types of experimental optical clocks, each based on different atoms (including ytterbium) and each offering its own advantages. NIST’s construction of a second, independent version of the logic clock proves it can be replicated, making it one of the first optical clocks to achieve that distinction. Any future time standard will need to be reproduced in many laboratories.

The enhanced logic clock differs from the original version in several ways. Most importantly, it uses a different type of “partner” ion to enable more efficient operations. Aluminum is an exceptionally stable source of clock ticks but its properties are not easily manipulated or detected with lasers. In the new clock, a magnesium ion is used to cool the aluminum and to signal its ticks. The original version of the clock used beryllium, a smaller and lighter ion that is a less efficient match for aluminum.

Aside from the obvious, clocks have myriad applications. The extreme precision offered by optical clocks is already providing record measurements of possible changes in the fundamental “constants” of nature, a line of inquiry that has important implications for cosmology and tests of the laws of physics, such as Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Next-generation clocks might lead to new types of gravity sensors for exploring underground natural resources and fundamental studies of the Earth. Other possible applications may include ultra-precise autonomous navigation, such as landing planes by GPS.