Corpus Clock and Chronophage

The Corpus Clock, unveiled by Stephen Hawking in 2008, is mounted on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College on King's Parade. A golden grasshopper-like creature called the Chronophage (Greek for "time-eater") sits on top of the clock face, its pendulum legs rocking as it appears to devour the seconds. LED lights trace the time across the clock's shimmering surface in a pattern that requires concentration to read.

The clock was designed and paid for by John Taylor, who made his fortune from the thermostat. It contains no hands, no numbers, and no digital display in any conventional sense. The mechanism is deliberately designed to be slightly inaccurate most of the time. It stands on the street outside the college and can be viewed at any hour for free.

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A story
The Chronophage — the grasshopper-like creature that eats time — is deliberately unsettling. John Taylor, who commissioned the clock, intended it as a meditation on mortality. The clock is accurate only every five minutes; between those moments it speeds up, slows down, and occasionally seems to stop altogether. Time, the clock suggests, is not the regular friendly thing we pretend it is.