Timewheel

The wheel of time (Hungarian: Időkerék ) is the largest hourglass in the world. It is close to the Heroes' Square, on the edge of the City Park in Hungary's capital Budapest. With her ​​Hungary celebrated on 1 May 2004 accession to the European Union. The inventor of the time wheel is János Herner.

Technical Description

The time wheel is a wheel with a diameter of 8 m, a width of 2.5 m. As the materials of stainless steel, safety glass and red granite were used. The total weight of the clock is 60 tons.

Hemmed it is of a blue ring made ​​of stainless steel, which should include protection during transport, the forces occurring already and had to protect the granite. Furthermore, it ensures the stability of the wheel, which is composed of various stone elements with a thickness of 22 cm. A total of 30 tons of Indian granite for the monument were consumed.

The two containers which contain the 4.5 cubic meter glass granules were made ​​from laminated glass. The advantage of the granules compared to normal sand is that the same size grains do not damage the surface of the container and have a well-defined Rieselgeschwindigkeit. This equal-sized, clean, absolutely dry and impact-resistant granules moving in pressurized nitrogen. Approximately 137 mm ³ ​​per hour granules trickle from the top tank to the bottom.

To control the flow, is located in the center of the wheel, a time control mechanism. This allows weathering compensate and adjust the clock on leap years.

By means of a lever, the clock is held annually on New Years Eve after the last grain of sand is sprinkled at 24:00 clock by the clock, turned by two people to 180 °, and thus again set in motion.

Formation

The idea of ​​a wheel of time had the cultural historian and inventor János Herner already in 1983 his design he described as: . "Originally they should even move ." " The goal was also vividly portray the time in the distance, so the 60 -ton Hourglass should not be simply set up but would also be slowly rolled - hence the shape. Within 87 years, the time wheel of the Kunsthalle would have migrated to fasor to Ajtósi Dürer. " In 1998, he received the permission of the Municipality of Budapest, set up the clock in this form. However, it turned out soon that will be built under the road a parking garage should. through this project, it was no longer guaranteed that the asphalt surface of the road would bear the burden of the clock. it was decided the time wheel to move behind the Kunsthalle and to anchor it firmly in the ground. Based in Üröm Steinmetz company "Renaissance" was awarded the contract for the construction of the monument, as they had already collected by restoration work on the St. Stephen's Basilica and the Parliament building in Budapest on experience with large projects. Particularly difficult was the combination of stone and steel. In addition, it was difficult to develop a mechanism that enabled the huge hourglass with the weight of a diesel locomotive to turn solely by human power once a year. The filling of the clock is celebrated on the edge of a skating rink near the Heroes' Square. For this purpose, a decorated with flags of the European Union, large funnel was placed in each could fill a spoon "sand". János Herner described it by saying, " Here, interested parties can enter a spoonful of sand and thus a spoonful of their own time. " In the first week, about 30,000 people took advantage of this offer, including many politicians and diplomats from various countries embassies. Anyone who einfüllte a spoon in the sand clock, got to a certificate on which a code and the exact time was entered, at the she / he had the sand filled in the container. After the inauguration, everyone should be using its code can see on the Internet, " what about his time in the hourglass".

Other countries, such as Germany and China, testified their interest in the time wheel. Thus, the Chinese government asked if they could purchase a license to set up a separate clock in Beijing.

Criticism

Especially in the Budapest population, there was a lot of criticism to the monumental work. Among other things, it was the oversized hourglass as too expensive. The Chancellor's Office in Budapest published a calculation in the following form:

• Construction: 350 million forints ( alone accounting for 240 million HUF on the state. )
• Maintenance Cost: 37 million forints (annually alone 7-10 million HUF for the eye. )
• Security: 3-4 million forints
• Cleaning: 3-5 million forints ( cleaning of the clock itself and the surrounding area)
• Technical Operation: 3-5 million forints (this should still 12-14 million forints are required to set up a computer network for operating the clock in an office. )

Many Hungary and Budapest were and are of the opinion that no one needs this monument and that it was simply an object of prestige of the government in Budapest.

Another criticism was that the clock was faulty and had to be serviced frequently. Already at the first time, the inauguration of the time wheel, it took the first repair. Later, during maintenance work on the New Year's celebration in 2005 it was said that they had found the clock had stopped because a " grain of sand " had fallen into the transmission. The reason for this has been speculated that water is seeped into the clock, and have transformed the granules in a tough and no more free-flowing mass. The chief executive of the responsible for the upkeep of the time wheel Khronos Foundation pointed out that in order to prevent such an effect, just dispensed with sand and have given to the glass granulate preference. These rumors have been dismissed by an official body. It was said that the clock had been intentionally stopped. For this purpose, the inventor János Herner: "After the rains we had to pump water out of the bay. For this we had to stop the clock. So we then realized that the time wheel is leaking and the gas that should prevent the formation of haze in the wheel of time, was emanated. Therefore, we have not set the movement back immediately in motion. If the repairs and scheduled maintenance to be completed, the time wheel will work properly again " He further explained: ". You will not even notice a delay, by computer, we will make up for the delay again, " What was also a point of criticism is the fact that the terrain turned to the wheel of time after persistent rains in a muddy swamp, which visitors could look at the monument only from a distance. Later disappeared even the information signs, which meant that many tourists with bewildered eyes were on the meaning of the monument in front of it.