Sweet merciful Lord that clock is a thing of beauty. 😍💕💕 HD reshoot someday please??

That was wonderful, I love stuff like this. And I need to see Cambridge one day, I bet you could feel the history of the great and the good who went there over the centuries. What a place.

This should be a TV show!

@godlfire Wikipedia: "In some turret clocks, adjustment is accomplished by a small tray mounted on the rod where small weights are placed or removed to change the effective length, so the rate can be adjusted without stopping the clock."

I was a student at Trinity a few years ago, and I heard many theories about why the clock rings the hours twice, mostly about Trinity/St John's rivalries. Unfortunately, I didn't beat the clock during the Great Court run, but someone looked like they just made it in my matric year (2002). Really fascinating to see the clockwork mechanism go when it's striking the time. Top stuff!

@FHomeBrew I'm sure Hugh would love it if people checked out the trinity clock website and found out more. We couldn't make it too long, but we filmed more so I might put extra stuff up from this, possibly on my Facebook page instead of here. Or as well as here. Links in the description.

@scuffle I cut some stuff about this, they've been around since 1600-something but have been melted down and re-cast a couple of times. The last time in 1910.

The additional weight of the pendulum reduces slightly the arc of swing and thus the Cycloidal Error so giving a gaining rate, and vice - versa. On the Westminster clock pennies (old ones) are always used to give this effect.

@godlfire That is an ideal 'mathematical' pendulum: it's assumed to have a massless cord. In this case you have a compound pendulum: the mass of the (rigid) rod is not negligible. You'd have to solve the laws of motion to get precise answers but an (incomplete) intuitive way of looking at it is by seeing the pendulum as a mixture of two pendulums: the rod (half length) and the bob (ideal pendulum, full length), where the heavier one is, the more it influences the resulting period.

@looperkiller Which one of us are you talking about?

@acdc10133 well actually the period of a pendulum doesnt matter how far it swings, just the length of the pendulum arm and the gravity of the planet, so friction would actually slow down the clock. actually singing banana looked it up and said that the mass increases the length of the pendulum arm in many clock towers

@godlfire Because L is the distance from the pivot to the center of mass of the pendulum. Move the weight, you change the center of mass.

@supernoraa ya singingbanana responded to this with why it changes the period, in some clock towers the added mass changes the effective length

My dream college O.O hahahahaha.

@masterlink101 it is wound, the pendulum just stores the energy for the day

@singingbanana sure, the way you were standing (weight on inside leg with other leg behind to keep you from falling backwards) was a dead giveaway

@Blackcat008 Could you tell! :D

Were those big cathedral windows originally stained glass?

I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see James' face when Hugh Hunt mentioned "the first dong of the hour". Now I'll never know if he had the same small smile I had.

isn't the period of a pendulum this equation T=2π√(L/g) and the change in period is proportional to only the length and the gravity, so how is adding mass gonna effect the time? im gonna assume this is a little more complicated then just mass on a pendulum

Nice! :)

@singingbanana o ok that makes more sense

James, are you afraid of heights?

My mom whent to that college woo

This is the guy from the Numberphile.

not really.... period is actually independent of mass. ultimately the independent variable is the length, L, of the pendulum.

trinity college clock

@gzierer That's just as bad as actually doing it, you are not commenting on the video, just drawing attention to yourself. I know I am too, but because I'm addressing you, because it really annoys me.

my aunt went to trinity college, my parents went to oxford, and various other went to cambridge, the people from oxford are much more normal than those that went to cambridge... sorry james :/

es" des" fis' des"

@xXCookieCaptainXx read singing bananas reply to my comment

That sounds bloody awful!

You're so skinny.

@godlfire Because L is the distance from the pivot to the center of mass of the pendulum. Move the weight, you change the center of mass.