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Founded | 1965 |
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Founder | James Kilburg |
Headquarters | Estacada, Oregon, U.S. |
Products | Geochron Global Time Indicator |
Geochron, Inc. is an American company founded in 1965 by James Kilburg, [1] an inventor from Luxembourg. It is also the name of their flagship product, the Geochron Global Time Indicator. The Geochron was the first world clock to display day and night on a world map, showing the familiar "bell curve" of light and darkness. The Geochron employs an intricate analog clockwork mechanism for its display, that shows the month, date, day of the week, hours and minutes, the areas of the world currently experiencing day and night, and the meridian passage of the sun. The main display is dominated by a world map, with time zones prominently indicated. At the top of the map are arrows corresponding to each time zone. As each day progresses, the map is scrolled from left to right by gear mechanisms, and the arrows for each time zone shift their positions relative to a stationary band fixed at the top that has a horizontal series of numbers representing hours. The viewer may read the time by seeing what number the time zone's arrow is currently pointing to. The map is backlit, and a mechanism behind the map defines well-lit and shaded areas that are also stationary relative to the movement of the map. In this way, as time progresses, different areas are shown to be experiencing daytime and night. The center of the lit area lines up with the 12 noon on the stationary time strip. There is also a day-and-month readout below the map, and a minutes readout above.
Each Geochron is assembled upon demand, with prices starting at above $1,500. President Ronald Reagan presented a Geochron to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 [2] as an "example of American ingenuity." In the mid-1980s, the company was selling about 75 clocks per month, increasing to around 200 per month during the holiday season. [2] It had 16 employees in 1987. [2]
The Hubble Space Telescope control center at Goddard Space Flight Center uses a Geochron in its day-to-day operations. The European Space Agency displays a Geochron in their command center. The Smithsonian Institution has called the Geochron the "last significant contribution in timekeeping." The world clock was featured in motion pictures such as Hunt for Red October , Patriot Games , Clear and Present Danger and Three Days of the Condor .
Founder James Kilburg died in 1985. His son, James M. Kilburg, had purchased one-third of the company from his father a short time earlier. [2] Bob Williamson acquired the other two-thirds of the company, and he and the younger Kilburg became partners in managing the business. [2]
After many years in Redwood City, California, [3] in 2007 Geochron Enterprises was sold and moved to Oregon City, Oregon, [1] and became Geochron, Inc. It was sold again in 2015, to Patrick Bolan. [1] The Geochron World Clock has been updated under new management to include new mapsets, lighting options, and new magnetic stepper motors. Geochron World Clocks are still built and restored by hand and manufactured at a small machine shop in Oregon City. In September 2019, the company announced that it was preparing to move from Oregon City to Estacada, Oregon. [1]
In 2018, Geochron released an electronic version of its mechanical clock, [1] optimized for 4K resolution displays. It includes many features that were unavailable prior to the internet, including satellite tracking, and demographic layers above different mapsets. All Geochron mapsets are in a Mercator Projection. As of October 2019, the company continues to sell the mechanical version, in addition to the digital version. [1]
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and set "due west". This occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September.
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions.
A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it is convenient for areas in frequent communication to keep the same time.
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or other type of bracelet, including metal bands, leather straps, or any other kind of bracelet. A pocket watch is designed for a person to carry in a pocket, often attached to a chain.
Surface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations.
The Antikythera mechanism is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest known example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.
The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock under construction that is designed to keep time for 10,000 years. It is being built by the Long Now Foundation. A two-meter prototype is on display at the Science Museum in London. As of June 2018, two more prototypes are on display at The Long Now Museum & Store at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.
A water clock or clepsydra is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel, and where the amount of liquid can then be measured.
The Prague astronomical clock or Prague Orloj is a medieval astronomical clock attached to the Old Town Hall in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
An astronomical clock, horologium, or orloj is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.
A scoreboard is a large board for publicly displaying the score in a game. Most levels of sport from high school and above use at least one scoreboard for keeping score, measuring time, and displaying statistics. Scoreboards in the past used a mechanical clock and numeral cards to display the score. When a point was made, a person would put the appropriate digits on a hook. Most modern scoreboards use electromechanical or electronic means of displaying the score. In these, digits are often composed of large dot-matrix or seven-segment displays made of incandescent bulbs, light-emitting diodes, or electromechanical flip segments. An official or neutral person will operate the scoreboard, using a control panel.
A world clock is a clock which displays the time for various cities around the world. The display can take various forms:
A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell, gong, or other audible device. In 12-hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1:00 am, twice at 2:00 am, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12:00 mid-day, then starts again, striking once at 1:00 pm, twice at 2:00 pm, up to twelve times at 12:00 midnight.
Cincinnati Union Terminal is an intercity train station and museum center in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Commonly abbreviated as CUT, or by its Amtrak station code, CIN, the terminal is served by Amtrak's Cardinal line, passing through Cincinnati three times weekly. The building's largest tenant is the Cincinnati Museum Center, comprising the Cincinnati History Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, Duke Energy Children's Museum, the Cincinnati History Library and Archives, and an Omnimax theater.
The Clock Towers, is a government-owned complex of seven skyscraper hotels in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. These towers are a part of the King Abdulaziz Endowment Project that aims to modernize the city in catering to its pilgrims. The central hotel tower, which is the Makkah Clock Royal Tower, is the fourth-tallest building and sixth-tallest freestanding structure in the world. The clock tower contains the Clock Tower Museum that occupies the top four floors of the tower.
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio watches, which are quartz watches synchronized to an atomic clock via radio waves. A mechanical watch is driven by a mainspring which must be wound either periodically by hand or via a self-winding mechanism. Its force is transmitted through a series of gears to power the balance wheel, a weighted wheel which oscillates back and forth at a constant rate. A device called an escapement releases the watch's wheels to move forward a small amount with each swing of the balance wheel, moving the watch's hands forward at a constant rate. The escapement is what makes the 'ticking' sound which is heard in an operating mechanical watch. Mechanical watches evolved in Europe in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century.
A time switch is a device that operates an electric switch controlled by a timer.
In physics, time is defined by its measurement: time is what a clock reads. In classical, non-relativistic physics, it is a scalar quantity and, like length, mass, and charge, is usually described as a fundamental quantity. Time can be combined mathematically with other physical quantities to derive other concepts such as motion, kinetic energy and time-dependent fields. Timekeeping is a complex of technological and scientific issues, and part of the foundation of recordkeeping.
The World Clock, also known as the Urania World Clock, is a large turret-style world clock located in the public square of Alexanderplatz in Mitte, Berlin. By reading the markings on its metal rotunda, the current time in 148 major cities from around the world can be determined. Since its erection in 1969, it has become a tourist attraction and meeting place. In July 2015, the German government declared the clock as a historically and culturally significant monument.
The Münster astronomical clock is an astronomical clock in Münster Cathedral in Münster, Germany.