Chronophage - Time Eater

What is Time? Time is relative. Time flies!

It seems no time at all since J and I first met at High School as 11 year olds, yet this evening we were celebrating her birthday many years later at a special dinner at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. Outside the college is an unusual clock designed by John C Taylor to represent the principle of relative time as Time means different things in different circumstances.

The insect at the top is called a Chronophage meaning Time Eater as it appears to eat up the seconds with the inevitable passing of time. The concentric circles show the time in seconds, minutes and hours. A series of slits are cut into the face and blue flashing LED lights are arranged behind the slits which run rapidly behind to show the time. Sometimes the lights appear to go faster or slower representing our perception of time. All the time the ugly monstrous insects appears to devour the seconds.

Very many seconds (in fact years) have passed since the College was built in 1352 almost 100 years before the world famous King's College whose reflection the Time Eater appears to be trying to devour.

A similar clock was recently on display in the museum in Edinburgh but I think it is now in the Science Museum in London. I seem to remember reading that the inventor has just made another using a dragon.