Clock face

A second type of clock face is the 24-hour analog dial, widely used in military and other organizations that use 24-hour time.

[citation needed] The clock face is so familiar that the numbers are often omitted and replaced with unlabeled graduations (marks), particularly in the case of watches.

[citation needed] Most modern clocks have the numbers 1 through 12 printed at equally spaced intervals around the periphery of the face with the 12 at the top, indicating the hour, and on many models, sixty dots or lines evenly spaced in a ring around the outside of the dial, indicating minutes and seconds.

Soon after these first mechanical clocks were in place clockmakers realized that their wheels could be used to drive an indicator on a dial on the outside of the tower, where it could be widely seen, so the local population could tell the time between the hourly strikes.

In the Northern hemisphere, where the clock face originated, the shadow of the gnomon on a horizontal sundial moves clockwise during the day.

[4] During the French Revolution in 1793, in connection with its Republican calendar, France attempted to introduce a decimal time system.

Until the last quarter of the 17th century, hour markings were etched into metal faces and the recesses filled with black wax.

Subsequently, higher contrast and improved readability was achieved with white enamel plaques painted with black numbers.

It is customary for modern advertisements to display clocks and watches set to approximately 10:10 or 1:50,[6] as this V-shaped arrangement roughly makes a smile, imitates a human figure with raised arms, and leaves the watch company's logo unobscured by the hands.

A wall clock showing the time at 10:09
'12:14' in both analog and digital representations. In the analog clock, the minute hand is on "14" minutes, and the hour hand is moving from "12" to "1" – this indicates a time of 12:14.
A ship's radio room wall clock during the age of wireless telegraphy showing '10:09' and 36 seconds'. The green and red shaded areas denote 3 minute periods during which radio silence was maintained to facilitate listening for distress calls at 2182 kHz and 500 kHz respectively.
15th-century rotating dial clock face, St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk , Poland
French decimal clock (with the 24 standard hours included around the outside)
A modern quartz clock with a 24-hour face
A simple 24 hour clock showing the approximate position of the sun