(..)he looked up the uninteresting left road to the fortifications. It was new, long, white, regular, tapering to a vanishing point, like a lesson in perspective. (..) Smaller and smaller she waned up the rigid mathematical road, still gazing at the soldier aloft, as Pierston gazed at her.
(quote-book)
Although Galileo had designed a pendulum clock, he never actually constructed one. The first pendulum clock was constructed by the Dutch physicist Christian Huygens (1629–1695) in 1657. He also developed the mathematical theory of the pendulum. Newton also studied the motion of a pendulum and experimented with pendulums made of different materials and of different lengths.