Peter Henlein

Peter Henlein (or Heinlein or Henle or Hele) (1479/1480 – August 1542), a locksmith and watchmaker from Nuremberg, is often considered the inventor of the portable timekeeper, making him the inventor of the watch, but this claim is disputed. His small, drum-shaped Taschenuhr, a portable watch which he built during his asylum from 1504 to 1508, could run for forty hours before it needed rewinding.

Although many sources erroneously credit Henlein with the invention of the mainspring, descriptions and two surviving examples show that spring-driven clocks existed by the early 15th century.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

See also

Literature

Notes

  1. ^ Milham, Willis I. (1945). Time and Timekeepers. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0780800087. , p.121
  2. ^ "Clock". The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. 4. Univ. of Chicago. 1974. p. 747. ISBN 0852292902. http://books.google.com/books?as_brr=0&id=Eb0qAAAAMAAJ&dq=Peter+Henlein+mainspring&q=peter+Henlein&pgis=1#search. 
  3. ^ Anzovin, Steve; Podell, Janet (2000). Famous First Facts: A record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in world history. H. W. Wilson Company. ISBN 0824209583. , p.440
  4. ^ Usher, Abbot Payson (1988). A History of Mechanical Inventions. Courier Dover. ISBN 048625593X. http://books.google.com/books?id=xuDDqqa8FlwC&pg=PA305&sig=_SRpwfz0YBAjt2aGxXhmRkZ16GQ. , p.305
  5. ^ White, Lynn Jr. (1966). Medieval Technology and Social Change. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0195002660. , p.126-127
  6. ^ Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard (1997). History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders. Univ. of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-15510-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=53K32RiEigMC&pg=PA121&sig=5huN81ukYRbSlxq4MsToTDIXYDY. , p.121