Science: Wonder Clock

On display in Manhattan last week was a huge clockwork mechanism which the New York Museum of Science & Industry called, with some justification, “the outstanding Wonder of this age.” Constructed with boundless patience and skill by Lodewyk Zimmer, famed Belgian watchmaker, this imposing gadget, which looks like a gross exaggeration of an airplane instrument panel, stands 16 ft. high, weighs 4,500 Ibs., is painted a robin’s-egg blue. It has 93 dials and 14 automatons which continuously record such astronomical and terrestrial data as the rotation of the sun and the planets; solar longitude of the planets; phases of the moon; “year of the Saros'” (recurring eclipse cycle); velocity of Earth at the equator; velocity of Earth at New York; astronomical and civil time twilight; movement of the sun through the zodiac. The needle on one dial, which records the precession (slow conical wobbling) of Earth’s axis, will take 26.000 years to complete one revolution.

This wonder clock is the personal property of Lodewyk Zimmer, a short, pink, cylindrical man who was born 50 years ago at Lierre, the son of a watchmaker and now billed as “Watchmaker to His Majesty, King Leopold III.” M. Zimmer is reluctant to disclose how much money and time he spent on his contrivance. It runs by electricity; if the power fails, it can continue for two days on its own batteries. Shipped to the U. S. in 22 packing cases, the wonder clock will be kept on display at the museum for the benefit of World’s Fair visitors.