5 Intriguing Facts About Watches!
Nestled along the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia – some 3,500 years ago – lay a thriving, bustling city known as Babylon. Here, some of the first, primitive sundials would be invented and used for early efforts in astronomy and timekeeping.
With the creation of the sundial, human civilizations had found a more reliable, consistent way to keep track of time. But efforts to track time even more precisely continued – relentlessly. Thus, from pendulums to atomic clocks, and from water clocks to wristwatches, innumerable timekeeping methods have emerged.
Now, as horological aficionados, we think watches are one of the most beautiful examples of timekeeping, because the watch combines fashion with function (the function of tracking time, to be exact). Fellow horological enthusiasts, then, will enjoy reading the following surprising, intriguing facts about watches.
- Before the invention of the wristwatch, pocket watches were “in.” Pocket watches were seen as a symbol of good taste and fashion sense. In fact, during the very early years of the 1900s, wristwatches were at first mocked as a passing fad – and were derisively referred to as “wristlets.” It would take a few decades before wristwatches gained prominence in culture and society – and turned the pocket watch into an obsolete piece of history.
- How did the word “watch” come to mean a personal instrument for timekeeping? No one knows sure, but one hypothesis goes back to the word’s Old English roots. In England, in bygone days, town watchmen – charged with public safety tasks – would use crude watches to keep their shifts on schedule. And a watchman was called a “woecce” – hence the origin of the word “watch” in the timekeeping sense (according to this hypothesis, anyway).
- Modern watches use a variety of power sources, including battery cells and solar power. One of the most unique (but rate) ways to power a watch? Through the body temperature of the watch wearer. Such watches are basically heat-powered.
- Early watches had to be opened up regularly for winding and maintenance by the watch wearer. Thus, watch designers paid just as much attention to the design and aesthetic of the watch’s inner workings as they did to the watch’s outer appearance. Some examples of this kind of “internal decoration” included engravings of stars, roses, and tulips – which could be seen only when the watch was opened and its interior revealed.
- One of the first wristwatches was invented by Louis Cartier for early 20th century airship pilots. Because these pilots had to keep their hands on the airship’s steering equipment at all times, it was impractical (and even dangerous) for them to dig into their pocket for a pocket-watch. Yet keeping track of time was essential to approximating how much fuel was left in the airship. Louis Cartier’s solution? The wristwatch. Pilots could then steer the airship while taking quick glances at their wristwatch – no pocket-watch needed.