The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-25
WHAT A CLOCK SAYS.
Why it 'sTick-Tocks" and What Makes
 People Think it Does.

People Think it Does.
 Tick-Tock, that familiar sound accom-
 panying the swinging of the pendulum
 of every clock, has been made the sub ject of an interesting investigation by o. Rosenbach, a Berlin psychologist. While studying the pecuIiarities of the
 sounds produced by the pulsations of
 the human heart, the irregularity of the heart beats and their pronounced
 rhythmic character suggested to the
 observer a comparison with the clocks | tick-toek. He set about to ascertain the cause of the difference in the ticks of the pendulum, but neither scientists
 nor laymen, neither clock-makers nor ! owners of clocks were able to give him the desired information. Some scien- tists considered the matter as too trivi- al and unimportant to give it any 1 thought, while others expressed the be-
 lief that the difference in the sound was | caused by some slight escapement me- chanism. The general opinion seemed to be that it was merely a matter of chance whether the "tick" accompanied eht left and the ''tock" the right beat of the pendulum or vice versa.
 Dr. Rosenbach was not satisfied with | the information obtained and decided to 1 investigate the problem on his own ac- count. The first important discovery | he made was that the tick" always | marks the moment when the pendulum
 reaches the extreme point of detonation from the perpendicular on it's beat to ,;~1,4 1a swing limit to the left is marked by the ''tock.' He found that rule applied to all clocks, irrespective of their size and l the length of the pendulum. The inten- sity of the sounds and their character
 varied considerably, according to the
 size of the parts of the mechanism, but | in every instance the tick accompa-
 nied the right, the ''tock' the left beat. To find the cause of the difference in the two sounds, the observer studied I the mechanism of a number of clocks. He found that, owing to the fact that 1 the anchor of the esctapement mechan-
 ism is above the rotating escapement
 wheel and in the same plane with it, i the conditions under which it's arms strike the cogs of the wheel are not the
 same for both arms. One of the arms of the anchor strikes against cog of 1 the wheel moving upward, in a direc-
 tfon opposed to that of the anchor,
 while the other arm strikes against the
 cog while it is moving downward. near | ly in the same direction as the anchor. The result of the unequal conditions
 under which the two arms of the an | ny, fIna 0f tha na n11f wheel is. naturally. an acoustic differ
 ence in the sounds produced by the con- l tact of the parts. The tick" is pro- | duced by the contact of the downward moving anchor with the sising cogs of | the wheel, the "tock" by that of the downward moving anchor with the cogs also moving downwards Contrary to the general opinion, as Dr. Rosenbach ascertained, the tick" sound is not higher than the "tock," but lower. In
 some instances, particularly in the case
 of large clocks, the interval is nearly
 a quart. The illusion which makes the
 "tick" appear to be of a higher tone
 than the "tock' is produced by the fact that the former is sharper and more
 accentuated than the latter. The inn . pect is more intensive and of shorter
 duration in producing the tick" than in the "tock," which is caused by the vii
 bration of larger part of the cog,
 struck at an oblique angle.
 1 Not satisfied with having at last as-
 certained the causes of the difference ir
 the acoustic properties. of the tick" and the ''tock," Dr. Rosenbach desired to find out why the sounds accompanying
 the beats of the pendulum by common
 usage are called tick-tock and not toclS-
 tick. As there is no noticeable differ i ence in the length of the beats of the
 pendulum, there is no rhythmical req
 son for beginning with the "tick' in stead of the stock'' The investigator came to the conclusion that the word
 combination tick-tock is simply an inli- tative, onomatopoetical expression coined after the manner of many sirni- lar words in different languages. Ht found that in nearly every case the syl-
 lable containing the "i' sound precedes that containing the "a'' or "o" sound
 as in pit pat, tit for tat, tip-top, riff Iraff, knick-knacks, teriktrack, pick
 pocket, sing-song.
 AS there IS no lOSlcdl redSOIl TOT pldc- ing the syllable with the ''i' sound first
 Dr, Rosenbach is of the opinion that
 the order was dictated by considera-
 tions of physiological and psychologi-
 cal nature. He believes that the sylla-
 bIe with the si'' sound is placed first
 because the combination in that order
 is easier to pronounce and possesses
 greater acoustic effectiveness. The ''f'
 being of more explosive character is stronger for the ''a'' or 70" and for that reason is selected as the vowel of the accentuated first syllable. That in pro- } nouncing the combination the tick" is i given higher tone than the "tock," al. though, according to the sounds of the clocks pendulum, of which the word is an imitation, it should be the. opposite { way, is accounted for, in Dr. Rosen- bach's opinion not only by the general .. illusion that the "tick'' of the pendulum : is really higher than the "tock," but also by the desire to make the first syl-