- Peter Henlein
Peter Henlein (or Henle or Hele) (1479/1480 – August 1542), a locksmith and
watchmaker fromNuremberg , is often considered the inventor of the portable timekeeper, making him the inventor of thewatch , but this claim is disputed. His small, drum-shaped "Taschenuhr", a portable watch which he built and made during his asylum from 1504 to 1508, could run for forty hours before it needed rewinding.Although many sources erroneously credit Henlein with the invention of the
mainspring ,descriptions and two surviving examples show that spring driven clocks existed by the early 1400s. [cite book
last=Milham
first=Willis I.
title=Time and Timekeepers
year=1945
publisher=MacMillan
location=New York
isbn=0780800087, p.121] [ cite encyclopedia
title=Clock
encyclopedia=The New Encyclopaedia Britannica
volume=4
page=747
publisher=Univ. of Chicago
year=1974
url=http://books.google.com/books?as_brr=0&id=Eb0qAAAAMAAJ&dq=Peter+Henlein+mainspring&q=peter+Henlein&pgis=1#search
isbn=0852292902] [cite book
last=Anzovin
first=Steve
coauthors=Podell, Janet
title=Famous First Facts : A record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in world history
year=2000
publisher=H. W. Wilson Company
url=
isbn=0824209583, p.440] [Cite book
last=Usher
first=Abbot Payson
title=A History of Mechanical Inventions
year=1988 | publisher=Courier Dover
isbn=048625593X
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xuDDqqa8FlwC&pg=PA305&sig=_SRpwfz0YBAjt2aGxXhmRkZ16GQ, p.305] cite book
last=White
first=Lynn Jr.
title=Medieval Technology and Social Change
publisher=Oxford Univ. Press
year=1966
location=New York
isbn=0195002660 , p.126-127] cite book
last=Dohrn-van Rossum
first=Gerhard
title=History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders
publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press
year=1997
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=53K32RiEigMC&pg=PA121&sig=5huN81ukYRbSlxq4MsToTDIXYDY
isbn=0-226-15510-2 , p.121]Literature
*Jürgen Abeler: "In Sachen Peter Henlein". Wuppertaler Uhrenmuseum, Wuppertal 1980
*Maren Winter: "Der Stundensammler". Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München 2004 (Roman), ISBN 3-453-40146-8,1510: Peter Henlein invents the pocket watchExternal links
* [http://www.peterhenlein.com/ Further information]
Notes
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