[AnimalMuppet]

> It's when you take apart a mechanical clock and keep looking for the time-keeping part, until you figure out that there isn't a time-keeping part in there, it's just gears and a spring.

The time-keeping part is arranging gears and a spring in a way that will, in fact, keep time.

> It's when you learn about integrated circuits and full-adders, and keep trying to understand how a bunch of transistors can do Mathematics, until you figure out that there isn't a mathematics-doing part in there, it's just circuits and wires, arranged in a way that makes the voltages come out right.

The mathematics-doing part in there is the arrangement of circuits and wires in ways that can actually do arithmetical operations on voltages.

It's not magic. But an adder, while never more than a bunch of circuits and wires, is still a mathematics-doing part.

[harperlee]

Well to be pedantic: the time-keeping part isn’t the gears but a pendulum.

The spring gives energy to the pendulum, but that can’t effect more than in its amplitude: the period of a given pendulum is constant. Later springs demultiply the tick tack of the pendulum into desired units.

The heart of the clock is that choke on energy though a period.

Thats also why the famous phrase: clocks dont measure time but other clocks.

(Please dont mind the grammar: writing on mobile)

[wlesieutre]

Or a balance wheel