I’m a big fan of vernier scales from my machining days, and it wasn’t until I read this site that I learned why: human vision has what’s called “vernier hyperacuity”: the ability to detect slightly misaligned line segments at up to 10x the acuity of regular vision. So that’s why they always felt so precise and easy to read!<p>Unfortunately I can’t make much sense of the clock presented here. It would help me understand if you had a digital clock next to the vernier clock and both were running at 60x normal speed.
One-handed clocks were once a thing. Benj. Franklin made one that rotated once every 4 hours. You probably know the time to within 4 hours, and so one hand was enough.<p>Anyone remember "Swatch Internet Time"?[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time</a>
This is a cool way of tho king about the problem.<p>Nevertheless I wouldn’t switch.* The value of a clock with arms is that you can read it at a glance, while a text (”digital”) clock requires parsing — much slower, especially when you want to compute a relationship (how much time before I have to leave?).<p>* I like that the author wasn’t actually trying to convince anyone to switch. It’s just a nice exploration.
Minutes are ok, but cahotic hours are not easy to read.<p>Can't you place the hours in the conventional order inside (except 12 would be where usually 11 is)? Imagine the moving ring has two sets of marks: 59 to 61 outer ones that align with the minute marks on the external ring, and 11 to 13 inner ones that align with the hour marks on the core disc...