The Water Clock, also known as The Giant Water Clock, is in the permanent collection of

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is the world's largest children's museum. It is located at 3000 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, Indiana in the United Northwest Area neighborhood of the city. The museum is accredited by the American Al ...

located in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

, United States. The modern

water clock A water clock or clepsydra (; ; ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured. Water clocks are one of the oldest time-m ...

is located in the Sunburst Atrium of The Children's Museum, and is adjacent to the Grand Staircase leading up to the second floor. It was created by French scientist and artist

Bernard Gitton Bernard Gitton (); born 24 June 1935) is a French physicist and artist who has built modern water clocks, fountains and other devices relating art and science. Biography He constructed " The Water Clock", at The Children's Museum of Indianapoli ...

in 1988, the same year that the museum acquired it. The artistic timepiece is the largest water clock in North America.

Description

The water clock, created by French chemist and artist

, is approximately tall and made of more than 40 pieces of glass and 100 pieces of metal. The lights on the clock are bright green and the water is dyed blue. The clock is made of glass, steel, and of a solution of deionized water, methyl alcohol, and coloring dye. It was assembled in France to ensure that it worked, then disassembled and shipped to Indianapolis. It was assembled again in the Children's Museum over two weeks time.

Process

Functionally, a Gitton water clock consists of four subsystems: An oscillator (the pendulum), a frequency divider, a minute counter (the minute discs), and an hour counter (the hour balls). Water from a pump in the basement, just below the clock, is pumped through a pipe running up the middle of the clock into a reservoir at the top. The water then drips down onto a scoop at the top which is connected to the green, swinging pendulum. The pendulum causes the scoop to dump the water into a series of siphons. The siphons fill and empty into the minutes' globes. A

Siphon A siphon (from grc, σίφων, síphōn, "pipe, tube", also spelled nonetymologically syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in a ...

is a tube in an inverted "U" shape which causes the solution to flow up, without pumps, powered by the fall of the liquid as it flows down the tube under the pull of gravity. One minute globe represents two minutes. When all thirty-minute globes are full, they empty and an additional hour globe fills. Twice a day, at one o'clock, all of the hour globes and minute discs are full and the water empties until only the first hour globe is left full. To read the clock the viewer finds the number of filled "hour" spheres lining the left side of the clock and the number of filled discs on the "minutes" side of the clock, with each disc equaling two minutes.

Maintenance

The water clock has two pumps in the basement – one that keeps the clock working, and a backup in case the first fails. The of fluid in the clock is not pure water. It is composed of deionized water (to keep it electrically non-conductive), coloring (to make the water easier to see), and methyl alcohol (to keep bacteria from growing in the clock). The color of the water can be changed by stopping the clock, draining the water, and replacing it with water of the new color.

Artist

The water clock was created by Bernard Gitton, a French physical chemist and artist who combines those two studies by creating water clocks, water calculators, fountains, and other items of art and science. Bernard began making items of artistic science in 1979, at the age of 43, when he left the world of research science to create scientific art.

References

External links