who invented the first mechanical clock in 1300
History of timekeeping devices The first geared clock was invented in the 11th century by the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Iberia; it was a water clock that employed a complex gear train mechanism, including both segmental and epicyclic gearing,[4][83] capable of transmitting high torque. The clock was unrivalled in its use of sophisticated complex gearing, until the mechanical clocks of the mid-14th century.[83] Al-Muradi's clock also employed the use of mercury in its hydraulic linkages,[84][85] which could function mechanical automata.[85] Al-Muradi's work was known to scholars working under Alfonso X of Castile,[86] hence the mechanism may have played a role in the development of the European mechanical clocks.[83] Other monumental water clocks constructed by medieval Muslim engineers also employed complex gear trains and arrays of automata.[87] Like the earlier Greeks and Chinese, Arab engineers at the time also developed a liquid-driven escapement mechanism which they employed in some of their water clocks. Heavy floats were used as weights and a constant-head system was used as an escapement mechanism,[4] which was present in the hydraulic controls they used to make heavy floats descend at a slow and steady rate.[87]