With the daylight disappearing earlier and earlier these fall days, it has brought to mind the concept of time and with it some trivia. Have you ever wondered…

• how in the early days of tracking time when sundials were all the rage, people told time at night? They used the hourglass. Interestingly, no one knows the inventor of these nighttime time trackers.
• how you tell the difference between a timepiece and a clock? A timepiece remains silent when it passes the hour mark while a clock strikes a bell or chime.
• why a quartz crystal is used in the making of watches? Because specifically sized quartz crystals coupled with a digital counter will, without fail, generate a pulse in exactly one-second intervals.
• what Tempus Fugit means? It means “time flies” and can be found on many clock dials (try throwing in that phrase at your next cocktail party!).
• who was the first American to receive a patent for a clock mechanism by the United States Patent Office? That would be Eli Terry back in 1801. He was granted a patent for an equation clock. This mechanism helped Eli in his pursuit to mass produce clocks which had previously been costly and timely to make.