The Clockmaker of Strasbourg

In 1842, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué completed his life's masterwork: the astronomical clock inside Strasbourg Cathedral. He had spent thirty years studying the original medieval mechanism, dismantling its failures, understanding every gear and spring before designing his replacement. Schwilgué knew that clock more intimately than its original makers ever had. He could predict its movements centuries into the future — the phases of the moon, the procession of equinoxes, the exact date of Easter for thousands of years to come.…