For students, scientists, engineers, historians of
science and technology, teachers,
collectors, and all those fascinated by old scientific instruments
September 24, 6pm. PRECISION CLOCKS
Alan Emmerson
An introduction to the science underlying the key features of precision
mechanical clocks and to the wonders of horological craftsmanship.
Alan Emmerson.
Alan is a retired aeronautical engineer. His career included twenty years
in the RAAF, four years in the Commonwealth Bureau of Transport Economics,
and thirteen years in the Civil Aviation Safety Authority where he became
chief engineer. In the 1990s he was an advisor to the United Nation's
International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Alan has been involved with horology as an amateur for some thirty years.
He is one of perhaps a hundred people in Australia who masochistically
make clocks for fun. In 1999, the British Horological Institute journal
credited him with being the first person in 340 years to point out the
error in the traditional interpretation of the classic work of Christiaan
Huygens.
Horology fits neatly with Alan's deep and abiding interest in the
mechanical arts and the history and philosophy of science and engineering;
and you are unlikely to escape without a philosophical appeal to first
principles tonight.