How it works
Which pharaoh was buried with a water clock, and who wore the wristwatch before soldiers did? These trivia questions about clocks run in order of time, from shadows and dripping water to quartz and atoms.
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Before the pendulum
Sun, water, sand and fire asks about sundials, water clocks, incense, candles and Magellan's hourglasses. Bells, wheels and springs has the medieval clocks: the verge and foliot, the cathedral clocks of Salisbury and Wells, and the mainspring.
After it
Pendulums and the sea goes from Galileo's lamps to John Harrison and the longitude prize. Electricity, quartz and atoms ends with trench watches, flip clocks and the atomic second.
Questions and answers
What are some easy trivia questions about clocks?
What is horology? By which name is the longcase clock better known? Where was the hourglass one of the few reliable timekeepers? The answers are the study of timekeeping, the grandfather clock and at sea.
Who invented the clock?
No one person. Water clocks and sundials are possibly the oldest instruments for measuring time, the first mechanical clocks appeared in Europe around 1300, and Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock in 1656.
What is the oldest clock still working?
The clock of Salisbury Cathedral, from about 1386, is one of the oldest working clocks in the world and may be the oldest. It strikes the hours and still has most of its original parts.
How were the answers checked?
Each was read on October 7, 2026 in the English Wikipedia article Clock or History of timekeeping devices, linked under the question. Where the two articles disagree on a date or a place the question was dropped, and watch brands are left out.