[time-nuts] pneumatically synchronized clocks

Marc Bury marc_bury at yahoo.fr
Tue Mar 10 16:16:17 UTC 2009


Bill,
I did a bit of research and this is what I found:

Between 1890 and 1930 in Paris, there was a plant that produced compressed air and managed a network to distribute it in the city.
They used 4 coal heated steam engines (2000 HP each) to compress air to 6 bars and send it through 1000Km of pipes.

This system was setup by Victor Popp, and the compressed air was indeed used to power clocks in public buildings. (5.800 clocks in 1910)
It was also designed to distribute mechanical power to small local plants and power lifts. (4.300 subscribers in 1910)

This was probably following the success of the pneumatic message transmission system setup 20 years earlier.


      


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