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On Reproducibility and Clocks - ASCB

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It is not easy to build a clock. When my daughter got married, I decided to build a clock as an heirloom wedding present. An accomplished designer, Clayton Boyer, offers a variety of plans for clocks that can be built almost entirely out of wood.1 His website and linked YouTube videos show ample examples of others who have built these delicate machines successfully and in several artistic iterations. Presented with the set of plans, which I considered akin to a validated methods section, I set out to build a wooden clock. When dissected into its principal components, a clock is not that complicated. First, there is a train of gears. Its role is to transmit the force generated by the weights that power the clock. The last gear drives the escapement that, in a stop-and-go motion, synchronizes all movement to the pendulum. Swinging back and forth at its own leisurely pace, the pendulum sets the time. Finally, there is another train of gears with the sole purpose of running the hour and mi

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