I sat down and waited for the sunset. I was there once again, lost in my thoughts, on my mountain top to enjoy blank silence.
I stared at the sun as if to imprint its path through the blue sky.
The peaks all around me were landmarks of its parabolic motion, frame by frame I was checking it against the time on my watch.
And then I visualized a disk with 12 sectors on it - the hours - rotating clockwise, as if it was chasing the sun on its parabola. Local time was marked on the vertical above me, I saw numbers crossing my Zenith.
I had just created the concept of a watch with no hands.
I rushed back home and started sketching.
Few lines with my pencil and I suddenly realized it would have just taken a second disk with a pair of cities - at the antipodes - for each time zone, to have the time of the whole world at a glance.
I only had to sketch it around the inner one, one pair of cities in front of each of the 12 sectors indicating the hours: one number for two cities, the same hour - only AM/PM different - for the two time zones at opposite sides of the planet.
I drew a third disk with the minutes on it, the innermost one, I threw everything on a powerpoint animation and the watch started talking to me, disclosing all the information you can find today on the user's manual.
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I was thrilled!
I had just found the answer to a question that had challenged me for years, a question that ship masters often raised to my attention me being a naval engineer: Chief, we have Greenwich local time on our clocks, we also have the ship owner's local time but we would rather have all time zones on the same timepiece, be it the clock on the bridge or our own watches.
I was sitting in my studio, staring at the screen of my PC remembering those words as well as the numerous times I noticed the same lack of information for passengers and crews in international airports.
I had a solution, finally. I simply had to observe the sun crossing the sky from east to west and remember of the past.
Remember of Tolomeus and pull together a true world timer!!
Francesco Caruso