You’re wearing the Past Present Future Watch on a date with a beautiful woman. You lean in to kiss her; she turns away, unsure. “There’s no time like the present,” you suggest. Then you show her proof.

Unless you’re a fan of high-tech jewelry, few things are as irksome as an overblown wristwatch design (we’re looking at you Tokyoflash ). While a binary timepiece will certainly up your geek cred, it’s not very useful for providing at-a-glance information. Robert Dabi’s Zero concept above, however, remains simple, beautiful, and amazingly enough, useful , all that same time. Practical too if he can coax a batch of round LCD displays into a production run.

Tonight at 2am, remember to set your clock an hour forward. Look forward to both more sunlight at the end of the day and unfortunately, an earlier rise to work. Wikipedia explains why: More

First, man made the analog clock. Then he made the digital clock. Then, just because he could, he made the funky cross between the two that looks like a digital clock but has moving mechanical parts like an analog one. Art Lebedev, the patron saint of cool concepts that will never be manufactured as real products, has applied his unique genius to the world of timekeeping. The result is Segmentus, a clock that uses swinging plastic segments to replicate LCD-style numbers

The Aurora Watch has no interest in traditional minute and second hands. It doesn’t even have a dial to speak of. Yep, you’re just going to have to settle for good old fashioned touch activated laser hands . Yes, designer Jihun Yeom has put laser lights in a watch, with red indicating minutes and blue indicating hours. The sad news is, it’s only a concept for now. Presumably they need to perfect a fail-safe to keep from singeing wrist-hairs.

You might have the vaguest of memories seeing this piece before — it made a cameo in an Engadget Show segment — but here we are with a much clearer picture of Adafruit Industries’ Monochron clock, now also on sale! As is its modus operandi, the timepiece is open source… but should you plan on sticking to default, you’ll be gifted with a great retro-style Table Tennis for two. The best part? The time changes whenever the clock “loses” — something tells us that gives one side at least a 59-to-1 advantage.

Clayton Boyer ’s intricate wooden clocks are, without a doubt, incredible works of art. But here’s what’s even more incredible: he thinks that with his woodworking plans, you’ll be able to recreate them yourself. Yes, Boyer believes that anyone with a little determination can put together any of his clock designs, like the one shown above, the Celestial Mechanical Calendar and Orrery. “As far as skill level required,” Boyer explains in the frequently asked questions section of his site, “I would suspect that if one has the tools necessary that skill is not as important as perseverance.” I’m not so sure about that myself, but thanks for the vote of confidence. Boyer sells full schematics of his designs, of which there are a few dozen, through his website. Though some designs—the “hard” ones, ha!—are relegated to the Masochist’s Corner, Boyer thinks that even a beginner woodworker could handle his projects: When I started building these, I had almost no skill whatsoever, but that always develops after getting a little sawdust into your lungs

As Make put it, the atomic clock is old and busted. And the quantum-logic clock from National Institute of Standards and Technology, keeping time 100,000 times more accurately than its predecessor, is definitely the new hotness. The quantum clock, developed by physicist Chin-wen Chou of the NIST, keeps time by measuring the energy of a single aluminum ion with UV lasers. It loses one second every 3.4 billion years, compared to the cesium fountain clock which loses a second every 100 million years, and upon which the current international standard is based. In fact, the new quantum-logic clock is so precise that Chou’s team can’t even measure it, as the current definition of a second is based on the prevailing cesium clock.

Discover Magazine has a great article on the real science and logic of the paradoxes of time travel . Just what is possible and what isn’t? Prepare to have your brain at least partially melted. Sure, it doesn’t address anything pesky like parallel timelines, but it does talk about the impossibility of changing something that’s already happened. The nub of the problem is that you cannot have a consistent “arrow of time” in the presence of closed timelike curves. The arrow of time is simply the distinction between the past and the future.

The Westminster Chiming Grandfather clock is an obelisk of discarded toys. At 2.2 meters tall, it’s also a monstrous, functioning timepiece that now resides in, where else, Dubai. But how was it created? Well, just a little Buzz Lightyear here, Hulk action figure there, and then a coat of high gloss polyurethane white paint to seal everyone in. There are more out there, says designer Ryan Mc Elhinney, with the toys used symbolizing the client’s childhood memories. This leads me to believe some clocks are far scarier than others.