Libertas Klimka. Measuring Boundless Time

Description

This book is about the earliest ways of measuring time, the invention of the mechanical clock, its evolution, changing styles and cultural significance. It focuses on the history of clocks in our country, which is beautifully illustrated by the collection of antique clocks in the National Museum of Lithuania.

When and where did the first clocks appear in Lithuania, why were sundials popular in our rainy lands, when did the bells of Vilnius Cathedral Square, the Town Hall and the towers of the towns begin to echo, how did the craftsmen of the Vilnius watchmakers' guild work, and to whom do we owe a debt for the invention of the magnetic pendulum and the electric marine chronometer?

All is revealed in this book. And the inserts in the text include examples of folklore about time, deeper thoughts on the influence of clocks on world culture from ancient times to the present day, and all sorts of interesting facts from the world of clocks.

The author of the book, Libertas Klimka (born in 1940), is a historian of science and ethnologist, Doctor of Science and a professor. His scientific work covers a wide range of topics: Baltic cosmology and the history of the calendar, the semantics of traditional calendar customs, the expression of folk art, the history of exact and applied sciences in Lithuania, monuments of science and technology. He is one of the founders of the Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology and co-author of the Nida Sundial project. The public value of his work has been recognised by the Jonas Basanavičius State Prize and the Stasys Šalkauskis Regional Prize. The author gathered knowledge about historical clocks by preparing lectures and writing articles; he supplemented it by studying archival sources, participating in expeditions and trips organised by the Lithuanian Local History Society.