Monday, January 18, 2010

chronophage



yesterday me and Timur went into Cambridge, hoping to see some of the events in 800 years of University programme (800th Anniversary Finale). clever cookie that I am, I intended to park at the Backs - but there are plenty of cookies even cleverer'n me around, or at least faster, so I had to turn around and park in the grand arcade.

the fact that we went to the backs first was quite lucky - there were pictures projected onto King's college buildings visible there, and in relative darkness and with no crowd they looked good. later on we saw the light show from the front, but there were more people so it was more difficult, especially from Timur's height. still, he was impressed.

but the main impression for him was the chronophage clock. I don't know how come that he didn't see it before. maybe he did, but in daylight, when it jumps out less. We stood there for a while, waiting for the blue lights to jump to the next notch. because of that I realized for the first time that the pendulum paused from time to time. I thought it was a glitch, caused maybe by the recent cold weather, but I just read herethat it's a feature.

while walking back to the car, Timur talked about the clock, wandering aloud what caused the pendulum to stop (now we know) and whether it'll get less shiny with time ("maybe not, you know, because there is this glass thing around it").

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