While working on a new novel set in 1772, I used the words “alarm clock” in my storyline, and then realized that it most likely could not be true that such a thing existed during the 18th Century. Thus, like with so many other things that I am curious about or need to research, I turned to the internet. What I found out fascinated me. I will not go into all the descriptions of the earliest alarm clocks, but I will mention the one that my mind keeps returning to over and over again.
In the year 725, a Chinese monk, named Yi Zing, who was also a mathematician, engineer, and astronomer, built a complicated clock that functioned because of a huge wheel dripping water and elaborate gears that caused gongs to ring at various hours. That, in itself, catches one’s attention, but the name of the devise, the “Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heaven” is what intrigues me the most.
What would it be like to ascend to a place where the bird’s eye view would prevail. From above, looking down, seeing all there was to see. And somehow the modern inventions of high rise buildings, hot air balloons, airplanes, or even space ships that would take a human being into the upper reaches do not quite tweak the imagination as does the one of being winged and elevated solely by feathers, air and the desire to fly.
Yi Zing’s clock was developed because astronomers were searching for a way to target not the moment of birth but the most likely moment of conception in order to assess which heir in the royal lineage would become the most auspicious. That also has the penchant of boggling the mind with all sorts of possible conundrums regarding fate and destiny if one believes in astrological inferences.
For me, I prefer to ponder what it would be like to sit calmly and watch water droplets turn gears, which would then ring chimes, which would let me know that a certain amount of time had passed; meanwhile, my mind could be flying high into the ether, not worrying, not caring, just allowing the passage of what is to turn into what was.
~LJ