Marking the Passage of Time: The Old City of Berne: UNESCO Culture Sector

The whole old city of Berne is The main street stretches from east to west across the city and is filled with a wide variety of shops. There is an old clock shop on one street corner. Clockmakers along with the industries of other skilled craftsmen flourished in Berne. Otto Scherer has been a clocksmith for 50 years. He even receives work from overseas clients who count on his masterly skill to fix old clocks.

He has another important job in this town. And he is also one of the controllers of the city’s clock tower. "That is Zytglogge, a clock tower. Let’s go over there." The clock tower standing on the main street is known as "Zytglogge". It has been keeping time in Berne since the 16th century. Built-in dolls come out of the clock at noon each day to dance around and tell the time. The clock has a sophisticated mechanism, working with many giant cogs. The driving force is a simple coiled spring. Mr Scherer winds up the coil for 15 minutes every day. This is how he adjusts the time by changing the length of the pendulum. The necessary adjustments have been made.

A world famous scientist in physics lived in this town in the early 20^th century. Albert Einstein. At the time he was an unknown person who worked in the patent bureau in Berne. He introduced his famous "Theory of Relativity" during his time in the city. The theory explained that space is relative and not constant, and the only thing that is constant is the velocity of light. It was a major breakthrough in Physics. It is said that Einstein once told his wife Mileva as; ……"In my Theory of Relativity, clocks exist everywhere in space."