The Gitton Time Flow Clock

Here at Comitti Clocks we like to show you something just a little bit different from time to time and as we have a vested interest in artfully crafted engineering clocks such as our Congreve and Grasshopper models we do like to consider other novelty designs and concepts at times.

Bernard Gitton is a french physicist and artist who combines a fascination for liquid engineering with a love for novelty. He is well known within horological circles for his amazing and very entertaining Time Flow clocks.

The Gitton Time Flow clock has to be one of the most ingenious and inventive clocks built in the last 50 years. It does, in fact, embody quite a revolutionary principal and is a masterpiece of hydrodynamic engineering. Without going into too much detail (because it is mind boggling) the Time Flow functions on a principal of cascading syphons and vacuum locking and breaking that forms a system analogous to the escapement mechanism in a mechanical clock. The system takes its primary power from a pendulum which drives a pump. This concept of a pendulum driven hydrodynamic system with a very beautiful aesthetic has conferred a certain legendary status on this clock and consequently the original Time Flow is a highly collectable (and very valuable) item.



Time Flow iPhone app :)

Gitton is known for many other innovative hydrodynamic inventions not least his liquid 'logic' devices which are analogous to digital electronic circuits, such devices have been used to create an extraordinary water calculator that actually has the same functional principal as its electronic counterpart only using flows of water instead of electrons. Of course it is not quite as fast as the electronic version.

For those who are interested click the link below for more detailed information on the Time Flow principal including a very technical explanation of exactly how it works.

The Gitton Time Flow clock

The Time Flow antique clocks