A Matter of Timing

If mechanical clocks had not been invented when they were, would they have eventually been developed? A friend of mine insists they would have been; I am inclined to agree, but am not certain of when. The idea of equal hours was already in existence, for time candles were based on it, and those had been around since at least the ninth century. Sand glasses were invented about the same time as the mechanical clock and were also based on equal hours. Very elaborate clepsydras (water clocks) had been built that moved figures around to tell time. They were in many ways similar to mechanical clocks, but they were terribly prone to error due to temperature variation. In all likelihood, the idea of falling water gave rise to the idea that a clock could be built using falling weights. (Spring-driven clocks came a bit later.) But here's the thing: elaborate clepsydras had been known and built for well over a thousand years, but prior to the thirteenth century, we know of no attempt to build a weight-driven clock.

So, the question is, when would this have been done? We cannot know. It might have waited a few decades or a few hundred years. The medieval and Renaissance mind was fertile when it came to inventions. Perhaps only the needs of long-distance navigation would have forced the issue. In that case the outcome of Cloudesley Shovell's demise might not have been the race to create the chronometer, but the race to invent a simple clock. The idea of the watchmaker God (God conceived of as a craftsman who built and wound up the world, then sat back and watched it go) would then not have arisen in the previous century, and an important underpinning of the philosophy and science of the early modern world would have been missing. That leads to the unknowable question, what would have replaced it? Would it have taken philosophy and science in a different direction?

Matters of timing are important. We have a good idea of what happens when an invention comes along before the world is ready. Ada Lovelace wrote what is now considered the first computer program in 1842-1843, but the machine for which it was written was never completed, and her effort produced no fruits for over a century. They remain in the realm of inspiring historical curiosities. What we lack is a good idea of what happens to inventions that are born late. Even more importantly, we have difficulty imagining how the lack of one idea at a critical time, perhaps an idea inspired by an invention, might have affected history, but that is a subject for consideration at another time.