The Chronophage ("time-eater")

Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking is going to unveil a remarkable clock that has no hands and shows time with the help of light. Known as the Corpus Clock, the machine has been invented by and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.

Dr Taylor, an inventor and horologist, has put 500,000 pounds of his own money and seven years into developing the clock, which has been inspired from a design by a clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude... he came up with the 'grasshopper escapement... to turn rotational motion into a pendulum motion for timekeeping.

Two advantages of the grasshopper escapement are its regularity of operation and its freedom from the need for lubrication.... The lubricants available to Harrison were poor, messy and short-lived. This meant that clocks had to be stopped frequently for cleaning and oiling. Using his clean and absolutely stable grasshopper escapement Harrison was able to begin a series of long-term investigations into the performance of clocks... The performance of his clocks in turn gave him an accurate, convenient standard against which to test his marine timekeepers.