(The list is under construction, suggestions are welcome.)
- Ibn Ismail Ibn al-Razzaz Al-Jazari
- Musa Brothers
- Wolfgang von Kempelen
- Francesco di Giorgio Martini
- Jacques de Vaucansan
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Honorable Mention (Mainly people from other time periods)
Hero of Alexandria
How about Hero of Alexandria, who built anamatronics in 50 A.D.?
Hero of Alexandria lived in the classical Greco-Roman period and thus there are difference in opinion regarding if he should be included or not given that Clockpunk is mainly set in the Renaissance and shortly before that.
This may be a strange question, but I read a novel a long time ago (early 90’s, but the book was maybe 10 years older) about a guy who built clockwork automata in the 1700’s (?). He ended up traveling to, and living in, the Kingdom of Siam with a clockwork person he’d made. It was a strange book, and I didn’t particularly fall in love with it, but the descriptions of clockwork in it got me started on a lifelong obsession. Anyone ever heard of it? I’d love to find it again.
Heather, I am not familiar with the story but I would love to know more myself. Anyone got more info on this?
Da Vinci Automata wrote: “Clockpunk is mainly set in the Renaissance and shortly before that.”
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Isn’t this a bit limiting? If someone is before his or her time, should there not be at least an honourable mention?
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Sur, In some sense it is limiting but I like the idea of honorable mention and so I will add Hero the list.
Along with Bida’ azZaman, the Wonder of the Age, as al-Jazari was known, you should include his earlier predecessors in Islamic engineering and automata, the brothers Banu Musa, who worked as scientists and engineers for the calliph in Baghdad in the 9th century CE (3rd century AH, year of the Hijra). Ahmad ibn Musa’s “Book of Ingenious Devices” (kitab al hiyal) containes many, well, ingenious devices, largely using water pressure, including very fancy automata for serving wine (although not “programmable).
In general, the “Renaissance” is a very limiting time period for clockpunk, because many of the mechanical innovations that make it possible were in fact invented centuries earlier by Arabic/Muslim engineers and were only translated into European languages following the fall of Andalucia, Muslim Spain, in the decades preceeding 1492 CE. In general they made vast advances in gear technology, precision crafting, clockworks, and the study of water pressure and fluid dynamics, not to mention optics, medicine, astronomy and mathematics that became the basis for everything the Europeans did later once translations into Latin became available to them.
Ethan, that is an excellent point i.e., some of the inventions were indeed created before the Renaissance. However Renaissance comes with a particular mindset but I see your point so it would be fruitful to expand the definition which I will do so.
There was a medieval Japanese researcher who built a clockwork tea-serving robot.
http://int.kateigaho.com/spr05/robots.html
bonjour,
For Heather,
This stoy “ring a bell” I tried to remember, and perhaps (not sure…!) it could be a book of Han Suyin “la cité des sortilèges” (in french …)
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I founded this (english!!):
” The Enchantress shows Han Suyin’s unsurpassed mastery in creating top-quality fiction, which is like a powerful volcano eruption of untamed fantasy. As usual, the book is composed of a more general framework, with an incrustation in the form of a dreamworld and unfulfilled love between the twin brother and sister. The book’s events take place in the eighteenth century in Lausanne, then the real Mecca of clockmaking and the construction of precision clockwork machines that look human, draw pictures, play music, and are the rage of Europe. The orphaned teenage brother and sister already are the skilled constructors of such automata, and forced by some unfavourable external events abandon Europe and travel a long way to the court of Chinese emperors, to serve them with their highly esteemed and precious craftmanship. Eventually, they have to flee China, spending about twelve years in Thailand. Finally, they return to Lausanne. With this fascinating fiction, Han Suyin seems to pay a personal tribute to the land of her birth, China; to the area of her past residence for so many years, South-East Asia; and to the place of her present residence, Lausanne. “
Richard of Wallingford…the bloke who built one of the first ever clocks at St Albans Abbey
Aristarchus – the greek who proposed heliocentric universe, but missedout on any kudos because not many people believed him ,and he didnt publish….so Copernicus generally gets all the credit.
Jacques de VaucansOn… sorry
Tibetans were not known for their clockwork, but they did introduce the ball-and-chain governor to Italian machine design, according to Lynn Whyte. Have a look here:
http://tinyurl.com/b445se
and leave a comment if you have anything to say about what you find there.
Yours,
Dan
How about Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish inventor & philosopher.
In 1715 Swedenborg returned to Sweden, where he was to devote himself to natural science and engineering projects for the next two decades. A first step was his noted meeting with King Charles XII of Sweden in the city of Lund, in 1716. The Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem, who became a close friend of Swedenborg’s, was also present. Swedenborg’s purpose was to persuade the king to fund an observatory in northern Sweden. However, the warlike king did not consider this project important enough, but did appoint Swedenborg assessor-extraordinary on the Swedish board of mines (Bergskollegium) in Stockholm.[14]
From 1716 to 1718 Swedenborg published a scientific periodical entitled Daedalus Hyperboreus (“The Northern Daedalus”), a record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. One notable description was that of a flying machine, the same he had been sketching a few years earlier (see Flying Machine (Swedenborg)).[13]
In 1724 he was offered the chair of mathematics at Uppsala University but he declined, saying that he had mainly dealt with geometry, chemistry and metallurgy during his career.
Wilkipedia