Josh Clark

I mean, that's essentially it.

And you could supplement sundials with these because on a sundial, if it was really overcast, you had no idea what time it was.

At night, these things worked as well.

Really, there were two problems with them.

One was that they would freeze.

If it was freezing, your water clock probably wouldn't work quite as well.

And then also the viscosity of water can change depending on variables like temperature and stuff like that.

So they weren't entirely accurate or reliable all the time.

But they did the trick for enough time that people started to improve on them and add different kind of engineering principles like floats and valves and siphons to regulate water more accurately.

Yeah.

I wonder if there was ever like, sorry, I'm late.

You know, we had a cold snap.

My water clock froze.

Like you got to move those things inside, buddy.

I guarantee somebody used that excuse.

Yeah, for sure.

But because of the issues with water and temperature and stuff like that, mercury became a pretty reliable substitute.

This was in 10th century CE, and it was a Chinese engineer who figured this out.

And that basically, you know, solved a lot of the problems because mercury wouldn't freeze.

It wouldn't have different viscosities at different temperatures, and it would ensure that you're on time to that appointment.