Derek J. de Solla Price — the historian who decoded the Antikythera mechanism — argues in On the Origin of Clockwork that the mechanical clock descends not from utility but from cosmology: astronomical showpieces, perpetual-motion dreams and magnetic devices, out of which timekeeping precipitated almost by accident.
A short, brilliant, contrarian classic of the history of technology. Download the free EPUB and rethink where the tick came from.