Hans Lang (watchmaker)
Hans Lang (born May 9, 1924 in Dresden ; † March 17, 2013 in Essen ) was an important watchmaker . He created complex astronomical clocks.
Life
Hans Lang was born in Dresden as the son of a hat maker and a straw hat seamstress. His youth was marked by spinal polio . In 1942 he passed the journeyman's examination for watchmakers with distinction. This was followed by the obligation to join the watch factory AG Glashütte. In 1948 he succeeded in setting up his first watchmaker's workshop in his small apartment in Dresden. In 1953 he passed the master craftsman examination. Two years later he took over a small watch shop in Pirna. In his spare time, Lang designed the first astronomical clock with extensive astronomical displays. But this watch has not yet been implemented. When he entered into letter contact with a Swiss watch manufacturer, Lang was spied on and asked to join the regional watchmaker's production cooperative. To avoid further repression, Hans Lang fled to the West in 1958.
From 1959 Lang worked as a watchmaker, later as a workshop manager at the Deiter watch company in Essen. In 1962, Lang built an astronomical clock. At the age of 58, Lang gave up his daily job to devote himself entirely to the manufacture of his large astronomical art clock, which was completed in 1986. For this watch, the Central Association for Watches, Jewelery and Time Measurement Technology awarded him the Peter Henlein Medal in 1987 for outstanding achievements in the field of watchmaking. This watch has been in the German Watch Museum in Furtwangen since 1994 . Until 1993, Lang built two more astronomical clocks of lesser complexity. An eye ailment forced Lang to give up the watchmaking profession.
In later years he wrote an autobiography, poems and texts on astropsychology.
The "Hans Lang clock"
The watch called the Hans Lang watch was created between 1982 and 1986 after 25 years of preparatory work. Several radio clocks serve as the time base . They control eight mechanical works with a total of 412 gears and scanning templates. The clock shows different times as well as astronomical and calendar information on 38 advertising pages. This makes it one of the most complex clocks ever built.
For the watchmaker and astrologer Hans Lang, knowledge and belief were one. Like the builders of medieval art clocks, Lang wanted to use this complex machine to show that all of creation was permeated by the divine spirit, by a harmony of spheres. He saw his watch in a very traditional way as a “work of art” that could be intuitively understood by everyone: “My concern was to offer all people who are open to beauty and aesthetics an eye-catcher that could have an effect on them, that should arouse feelings which revealed the embedding of human consciousness in the universal world of a divine order ”.
The planetarium
On this display sheet you can see the position of the planets in their course around the sun. Their orbital times increase from the inside out: Mercury needs just under 88 days to orbit the sun, Neptune over 163 years. The distances between the inner six planets are kept true to scale; for Uranus and Neptune they have been shortened. The individual planets are shown in their true proportions on a display board below the planetarium.
The Tellurium / Venus and Mars
The tellurium shows the movements of the sun, earth and moon in their constellations within a display ring with the zodiac. In addition to the sun and moon hands, a disk with the lunar nodes shows the position of the lunar orbit plane. When a new or full moon coincides with a nodal passage, a solar or lunar eclipse occurs. In addition, the distance of the moon from the earth is shown.
Mars and Venus offer an impressive game at dusk and at night. Your movements can be forwards or backwards, slowly or even faster. All of this can be read in the lower display. Thin nylon threads enable the planet to be found from Earth. Mars moves very eccentrically around the sun. The resulting uneven movement is displayed realistically. The closest point to the Sun (perihelion) in the orbit of Mars is also displayed.
Times of day and age of the moon
Right at the top in the middle field is the indication of normal time - the time we need in daily life. Below on the left is the indication of the world time UTC, the basis of the time zones that divide the earth. The sidereal time is displayed to the right of this. This is used to determine astronomical events. In the next area there is information on the time of the sun rising and setting, based on central Germany.
In the middle, a ball shows the light figure of the moon, below a dial the age of the moon, the time since the last new moon.
At the bottom, finally, the displays of Central European Time CET (zone time), mean and true local time. The latter shows the course of the sun over Furtwangen.
The celestial globe / Gregorian and world calendar
The visible starry sky is displayed by the celestial globe. Three movements play together: First, the sky seems to turn around once every day - the result of the daily rotation of the earth. Second, the slower course of the year is also visible: the star movement lags behind by a small amount every day. But even this movement is not precise: In 25,750 years there will be a rotation - the result of precession, the slow oscillation of the earth's axis. All of these movements are taken into account.
The calendar information is in the lower display field. Our Gregorian calendar with twelve months of unequal length and all leap years is included in the date of the middle displays. The date can be read from the so-called world calendar on the outer ring. The American Elisabeth Achelis (1880–1973) tried to introduce this calendar from around 1930.
The game of the moons of Jupiter
The small holes at the end of the moon hands indicate the size of the moons in relation to Jupiter in the middle. A delightful game is created through the passages of the satellites in front of and behind Jupiter and through the planet's shadow. These can be followed in detail using the two broad pointers: If a moon sweeps over the bright area D, it moves in front of the Jupiter disk; if it is above the black band, it casts its shadow on the surface of the planet. Conversely, the respective moon disappears behind the Jupiter disk when it wanders through the shadow area.
Publications
- Hans Lang: The Hans Lang clock. a superlative astronomical art clock. [first time in 1988] Slightly changed new edition. Furtwangen 2004
- Hans Lang: The watchmaker. Autobiographical narrative. About the meaning of life. Frankfurt a. M. [o. J.]
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Trenkle: "At first there was only the nebulous idea of building an astronomical art clock that was supposed to be more than just a timepiece, as a technical instrument for representing cosmic processes": The perfect clock . In: The time . No. 32/1994 ( online ).
- ^ Hans Lang: The Hans Lang clock. A superlative astronomical art clock. Furtwangen 2004, p. 14.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lang, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German watchmaker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 9, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dresden |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th March 2013 |
| Place of death | eat |