Show HN: Nonius Clock

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 &quot;Swatch Internet Time&quot;?[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Swatch_Internet_Time" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;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&#x27;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...

Not very well explained.