The Mechanical Clock

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Reality: No inventor is known. Unlike the printing press, it has no Gutenberg — it emerges across European monasteries and cathedral towns in the late 13th century anonymously.

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Reality: They were not. They were regularly reset against a sundial. Their significance is not precision but the idea that a machine could divide time into countable, repeatable beats.

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Reality: Two still run. Salisbury Cathedral’s dates from around 1386 and Wells Cathedral’s from 1392, the latter keeping its original medieval face.