The noise of obligation

How do mechanical clocks/watches function? Well, that is not all that easy to answer. Or is it? Let's just deviate a little. Just imagine, someone comes along and wants us to measure the length of a corridor with lots of little match-sticks. You'd say, that that is a stupid idea? You're right, but have a little patience please. In order to solve the task, we could proceed as follows: each match-stick is cut down to a length of exactly 10 mm. Then we begin to lay one match-stick behind the other. Once that's done we have already determined the length of our corridor. We've done it by just having counted the number of match-sticks that lie down in a row. Even interim results are no problem. We just count the amount of match-sticks from the kitchen door to the toilet door for example and right away we also know this distance. Now you'll probably ask, what this has to do with clocks/watches? Well, that's easily explained: mechanical clocks/watches do exactly the same as to what we have just done with those match-sticks in our mind. They also put match-stick next to match-stick where each match-stick has exactly the same length and they also count those match-sticks, aiming to tell us the "length" of a day, for example. Of course, the clock/watch doesn't really use match-sticks. But there is something inside every clock/watch that embodies a piece of time just like a piece of wood (a match-stick) embodies a bit of length. But what exactly embodies the time inside a clock/watch? (Whereas the word embodies is not really the correct wording, but...)  (...)