Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, 4th ed.c

electronic equipment, biomedical applications, combustion, materials casting, materials pro-

cessing, plastic forming, building heating or cooling applications, and in food processing. The

transient response of a mechanical or structural system to a suddenly applied force is another

instance of an unsteady engineering problem; for example, the response of a car’s suspension

system as you drive through a pothole, or the response of a building to an earthquake.

8.2 Measurement of Time

Early humans relied on the relative position of the earth with respect to the sun, moon,

stars, or other planets to keep track of time. The lunar calendar was used by many early civ-

ilizations. These celestial calendars were useful in keeping track of long periods of time, but

humans needed to devise a means to keep track of shorter time intervals, such as what today

we call an hour. This need led to the development of clocks (see Figure 8.1). Sun clocks, also

known as shadow clocks or sundials, were used to divide a given day into smaller periods.

The moving shadow of the dial marked the time intervals. Like other human-invented

instruments, the sundial evolved over time into elaborate instruments that accounted for the

shortness of the day during the winter as compared to the summer to provide for a better

year-round accuracy. Sand glasses (glass containers filled with sand) and water clocks were

among the first time-measuring devices that did not make use of the relative position of the

earth with respect to the sun or other celestial bodies. Most of you have seen a sand glass

(sometimes referred to as an hourglass); the water clocks were basically made of a graduated

container with a small hole near the bottom. The container held water and was tilted so

that the water would drip out of the hole slowly. Graduated cylindrical containers, into

which water dripped at a constant rate, were also used to measure the passage of an hour.

Over the years, the design of water clocks was also modified. The next revolution in time-

keeping came during the 14th century when weight-driven mechanical clocks were used in

8.2 Measurement of time 207

■Figure 8.1

Are we really measuring time?

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