It gathered a collection of clocks from the entire period of mechanical and mechanical-electric watchmaking.
muzeum nauki gdanskiej
Clocks
You can see mechanisms dating back to the 14th or 15th century, as well as those created after World War II. Among them are such rarities as the original kolebnik clock, one of the few preserved in Europe, a clock from the only Polish factory of tower clocks, Michał Miesowicz from Krosno, and even a mechanism from the British Isles.
In 2011, in connection with the 400th anniversary of Hevelius’s birth, the first clock in the world made in the technology of pulsar signals was installed in the museum’s attic. This clock uses pulses emitted by pulsars (a type of neutron star) as a time base, and is the only clock that is based on a phenomenon far beyond Earth; pulsars located at a distance of 5,000 – 10,000 light years were selected for this. Moreover, the theory predicts that it may become the most accurate time standard ever constructed.
To celebrate Hevelius’s birthday and to remind him of his achievements as a designer, including, independently of Christiaan Huygens, the pendulum clock, the most accurate pendulum clock HEVELIUS-2011 was constructed in our department. It is, like its predecessor, the Shortt clock, an electro-mechanical clock, except that its accuracy is about three orders of magnitude higher; when Short’s clock showed a daily error of 2-3 milliseconds, HEVELIUS-2011 in the first attempts showed an error of 2-8 microseconds.
Żuławy clocks
The collection of Żuławy clocks comes from the family of the collector Paweł Fietkiewicz and is the largest in Poland. Among them are clocks from Żuławy, as well as pieces from Rosenthal in Ukraine. Most of the exhibits are eighteenth-century, one-pointers, called walkers.
Caryllion
In the upper parts of the tower you can admire the 50-bell carillon. The tradition of this instrument in the church of St. Catherine dates back to the 16th century. A new 37-bell instrument was fitted in 1738, but it burned down in a fire in 1905. Its successor from 1910 was taken down during World War II and scrapped.
The current one, rebuilt in 1989-1998, is the largest concert carillon in Poland and Central Europe. In 2013, it was supplemented with the 50th bell “Katarzyna” weighing 2875 kg. All in all, Gdańsk is the only city in Poland with working carillons, and in addition there are three instruments – all under the management of the Gdansk Museum.
Hewelius Telescope, Polish Da Vinci lived in Gdansk
Observation Tower
On the balcony of the tower’s cupola, 50 meters above the ground level, a viewpoint of extraordinary values was arranged. The view is very extensive – you can see the Gulf of Gdansk, the Hel Peninsula, the Vistula Spit, the moraine hills, the Low Lands, the Redlowo Cliff and, above all, the Old and Main Town in Gdańsk. From between the corner turrets of the helmet emerges a captivating view of Gdańsk and its surroundings, e.g. objects 20 meters high can be seen within a radius of twenty-odd kilometres.
Explanations in the museum are bilingual in Polish and English. You can directly check the operation of some mechanisms. Educational classes on the history of exact sciences are also conducted.
