How do you power clocks with liquids?

Answer 1

In general, liquids have mass, take the shape of their containers, and can be made to flow at fairly constant rates. Water that is moving in a stream has what we call kinetic energy, and if we put something in the stream, the object gets pushed. If we put a paddle wheel part way into the stream, it pushes the wheel around and we can use the power converted to run machinery (such as grinding mills, pumps, or clocks). If we dump the water onto the top of the wheel, that allows the water to perform more work over a longer arc, increasing the efficiency of the energy conversion. From observations like these, many Egyptian, Chinese and Greek inventors used this power to perform some very elaborate chores, such as running water clocks (see the link below).