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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06785_Field_TCUM T350.txt
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1996-04-10
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into the visual principle of uniform but segmented succession.
Escapement introduced the reciprocal reversing action of the
hands in rotating a spindle forward and backward. The meeting
in the mechanical clock of this ancient extension of hand
movement with the forward rotary motion of the wheel was, in
effect, the translation of hands into feet, and feet into hands.
Perhaps no more difficult technological extension of
interinvolved bodily appendages could be found. The source of
the energy of the clock was thus separated from the hands, or
the source of information, by technological translation.
Escapement as a translation of one kind of wheel space into
uniform and visual space is thus a direct anticipation of the
infinitesimal calculus that translates any kind of space or
movement into a uniform, continuous, and visual space.
Parkinson, sitting on the fence between the mechanical