On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 20:34:52 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:
On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 3:45:12 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

In such a broad sense sundials are mechanical clocks too, since
they
work through celestial mechanics.

I was fitting my terms to the debate with Oriel, who feels
timekeeping should be
referenced to the Sun in the sky and not to the kind of clocks
people build with
their hands. Something electronic is in the same category as
something built from
springs and gears from that viewpoint.

Any clocks contain s two parts:

1. Something that oscillates. E.g. the Sun in our sky, a spring, a
pendulum, a quartz crystal, an atom.

2. Something that counts the oscillations. E.g. people counting
sunrises, sunsets or transits, mechanical gears, electronic counters.


The stability of the clocks depends on the stability of the
oscillatior. The rotating Earth is no longer our best available
oscillator.