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The practice of measuring time goes back thousands of years. The most obvious example is noting the change of the seasons and the repetition of day followed by night, over and over.

The Sumerians developed water clocks, sundials and a host of other inventions to measure the passage of time.

In the late Middle Ages the first true clocks were created, incorporating an impressive variety of designs. The first mechanical clock was devised in Italy around 1300.

By the time the first self-winding mechanism was devised in the late 18th century, all the essentials – balance wheel, mainspring and gear train, escapement, analog hands – were well advanced.

Two hundred years later timepieces have become so accurate that further precision would add merely another meaningless decimal place.

There are time counting devices that are accurate to within a femto-second (10 to the power minus fifteen, or 15 places to the right of the decimal place).

At the same time, wristwatches have attained a degree of artistic development that the 20th and 21st centuries can be considered the Golden Age of watchmaking.

There are so many individual designs on the market – whether available as vintage watches from the 1930s-1970s, or as contemporary models – that it would be impossible to see even 10% of them.

With the increasingly common use of cell phones, many have thought watches obsolete. Yet watchmaking companies like Hamilton, Seiko, Rolex, Omega, Swatch and many others continue to make record profits.

Humankind’s endless fascination with time measurement carried personally is unlikely to fade anytime soon. Even apart from the practical need to be on time for an appointment or to complete a task before a deadline, the passage of time is so fundamental that we often unconsciously measure our lives by it. We think of ourselves as not only young or middle aged or elderly, but as a ‘morning person’ or a ‘night person’.

Watching the mechanical assembly in motion of a finely crafted watch mesmerizes many. For a time electronic watches looked as if they would replace their historical cousins. Yet the latter became so commonplace that a revival arose, bringing mechanical watches to a state of popularity higher than ever.

The comforting tick has been seen as so valuable that some electronic watches simulate the sound, even though the traditional click is a purely mechanical phenomenon.

There’s something about seeing a movie in which the bomb is heard ticking away that the change of illuminated numbers can never fully replace.

Watches continue to fascinate, inform, accessorize and delight. Whether as jewelry or micro-computer or miniature wrist-borne communicator or who knows what in the future, watches are here to stay.