Peter_henlein

portable watch ("Taschenuhr") by Peter Henlein

Peter Henlein (or Henle or Hele) (1479/1480 – August 1542), a locksmith from Nuremberg, is considered the inventor of the portable watch. His small, drum-shaped Taschenuhr, a portable watch which he invented and made during his asylum from 1504 to 1508, could run for forty hours before it needed rewinding.

Although many sources erroneously credit Henlein with the invention of the mainspring,Milham, Willis I. (1945). Time and Timekeepers. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0780800087. , p.121 "Clock". The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 4. (1974). Univ. of Chicago. ISBN 0852292902. Anzovin, Steve; Podell, Janet (2000). Famous First Facts: A record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in world history. H.W. Wilson. ISBN 0824209583. , p.440 descriptions and two surviving examples show that spring driven clocks existed by the early 1400s.Usher, Abbot Payson (1988). A History of Mechanical Inventions. Courier Dover. ISBN 048625593X. , p.305White, Lynn Jr. (1966). Medieval Technology and Social Change. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0195002660. , p.126-127Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard (1997). History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders. Univ. of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-15510-2. , p.121

Literature

• Jürgen Abeler: In Sachen Peter Henlein. Wuppertaler Uhrenmuseum, Wuppertal 1980
• Maren Winter: Der Stundensammler. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München 2004 (Roman), ISBN 3-453-40146-8,1510: Peter Henlein invents the pocket watch

External links

• Further information

Notes

This German engineer, inventor or industrial designer biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia