Question: why do clocks tick?

Ed Bracey answered on 8 Nov 2017:

Hi Natalie, glad you asked, because I had no idea and never wondered why till you did!
Apparently it’s because of a little part called an escapement.
There’s a nice animation and explanation here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapement
I guess that’s kind of similar to the mechanism that makes a bike free wheel tick when it turns, but not quite:

This makes me pretty happy – I love finding out how things work!