Galileo discovered that as long as a pendulum stays the same length and keeps swinging, the time it takes to swing back and forth is always the same. This makes a pendulum the ideal timekeeper. […]

Mechanical devices used to type text onto paper, typewriters paved the way for modern word processors. […]

How do these bird-ejecting timepieces work? A cuckoo clock is a specialised type of pendulum-regulated (traditionally) timepiece that, as well as striking the hour like a normal clock, releases a small model cuckoo and its audible call too. The clockworks through a series of internal and external components that, together, eject the cuckoo and play its call in time with the faceplate’s hands. […]

A key development in the industrial revolution of England, the spinning jenny allowed yarn to be manufactured in large quantities.

The spinning jenny – the world’s first industrial spinning frame – worked by connecting multiple spindles and multiple rovings (a long, narrow bundle of fibre) to the end of a fixed wooden frame.

Onto these spindles numerous rove threads were affixed, extended down its length and clamped between two movable horizontal bars that when drawn towards the spinner extended the thread in straight lines. […]