Warsztat Kochańskiego

Demonstration version 0.9 — a working model. Everything marked as reconstruction awaits refinement once archival research is done. See what we still don't know.

Announcing an invention without giving it away

sourcereconstruction

Book IX of Caspar Schott's Technica curiosa (Würzburg 1664) is the first systematic treatment of clockmaking in Europe. Kochański set out the construction of magnetic balances there in cipher, in a work published under another man's name. The key is the number of hours on a dial.

Two concentric rings of letters; the outer one fixed, the inner one turning. 3
3

Magnetic force governs the balance of the clock. The same idea as in the pendulum instrument, five years later, written so that nobody could take it.

The shift cipher, the Latin text and the diagram are a reconstruction of the method, not a reading of the original.

Text description of the instrument

The cipher disc shifts the alphabet by a chosen number of positions. At a shift of twelve the text reads as a Latin sentence stating that magnetic force governs the balance of the clock. Both cipher and text are a reconstruction of the method, not a reading of the original.