… if one is to rely on human judges, it is very important that they never admit to error.

… the invention of the mechanical clock in medieval Europe. This was one of the great inventions in this history of mankind — not in a class with fire and the wheel, but comparable to...

The invention of the mechanical clock was one of a number of major advances that turned Europe from a weak, peripheral, highly vulnerable outpost of Mediterranean civilization into a hegemonic aggressor.

The mechanical clock was self-contained, and once horologists learned to drive it by means of a coiled spring rather than a falling weight, it could be miniaturized so as to be portable, whether in the...