Rolling Ball Sculpture (detail) by Jeffrey Zachmann
Photo by and Copyright © 1997 Mark Olejarczyk
Rolling Ball Sculpture (detail) by Jeffrey Zachmann
Photo by and Copyright © 1997 Mark Olejarczyk
By
David M. MacMillan
With Help from
Jim Allen,
Simon Allen,
Keith Anderson,
Peter Bacon,
Vance Bass,
Ray Bates MBHI,
Daryl Bender,
Steven Berger,
Robert Bray,
David Brown,
Nicholas Carter,
Fred Crusade,
Frank Deutschmann,
Dale Bix Emery,
Andy Fielding,
Mark G. Forbes,
Jim Gage,
Gary Gunderson,
"Steamboat Ed" Haas,
Alan Heldman,
Bob Holmstrom,
David Ide,
Eliot Isaacs FBHI,
Falk Keuten,
Rollande Krandall,
Donn Lathrop,
Shab Levy,
A. J. LoCicero,
Michael Loescher,
Vernon MacMillan,
Tad Mayer,
Rick McKittrick,
James J. Momenee-DuPrie,
Fortunat F. Mueller-Maerki,
Cindi Nicotera,
James Nye,
Mark Olejarczyk,
Piet Reichwein,
Gene Sizemore,
Raul de Sorôa,
Bill Thayer,
Gordon Uber,
Chris Vaulter,
Hanns-Martin Wagner
Roderick Wall,
Matthias Wandel,
Mark Wardle,
Eugenia Weedon,
Robin Whittle,
Den Whitton
Ferndale, Michigan
1996-2001
The basis of ethics is man's right to play the games of his choice. I will not trample on your toys and you will not trample on mine; I won't spit on your idol and you will not spit on mine. (Isaac Bashevis Singer)
"There's no great work of art around here," he replied gruffly.
"Sure there is."
"Where?"
"In the Port Authority Bus Terminal, ... the thing with the balls."
"Oh that! That's a masterpiece."
(Reported in Kostelanetz)
This is the main entry point to a web of online documents devoted to the subject of "rolling ball" devices.
What is a rolling ball device? Nick Carter suggests the following defintion:
A rolling ball device may be defined as a mechanism or group of mechanisms, for the sake of art or utility, which uses the action of a ball or balls moving in either a constrained or unconstrained path to actuate the various effects of the mechanism(s).
This definition is very broad, but that breadth is necessary. Rolling ball machines can be serious or playful, artistic or scientific, the product of engineering or the result of tinkering. No sooner does one list a taxonomy of all rolling ball devices when someone comes up with a new type.
This webspace is divided into the following general areas (the first four of these are the same links as those which appear below):
(5 photos, approximately 53.2 kilobytes total)
Rolling ball devices may include sculptures, such as those of Gary Gunderson, George Rhoads, Shab Levy, or Jeffrey Zachmann. Often these sculptures are termed "ball run" sculptures (as indeed I termed them in an earlier version of this page) or "ball rolls," "marble runs," "marble rolls," and so forth. Rhoads terms his sculptures "audio-kinetic," Shab Levy terms his "Gravitrams."
Click on photo for larger image (25.6k) Lalaballoosa (detail) by George Rhoads Photo by and Copyright © 1997 Mark Olejarczyk |
Click on photo for larger image (43.7k)  Rolling Ball Sculpture by Jeffrey Zachmann Photo by and Copyright © 1997 Mark Olejarczyk |
If you haven't seen a rolling ball sculpture, then it's both very simple and very difficult to describe one to you. On the simple side: A typical rolling ball sculpture is one where many balls (marbles, billiard balls, ball bearings, spherical things) are raised to some height from which the individual balls follow one or more paths back down, encountering ingenious mechanisms on the way. On the complicated side: no written description is going to explain why it is that most people of any age just stop and watch these sculptures for a long time.
Another major category of rolling ball device is the rolling ball clock. RB clocks appear in many forms. In some clocks, the rolling balls form the basis of the timekeeping mechanism itself. One form of a rolling ball timebase dates back to the 16th century, while the more common "Congreve" rolling ball timebase clock dates to the early 19th century. In another form, the rolling balls do not themselves participate in the timekeeping, but instead display the time by any of several arrangements. Rolling ball display clocks date back at least to the Medieval Islamic period, and are still in commercial production today. Beyond these two major types, rolling balls have appeared in various other types of clocks, including precision "free pendulum" clocks.
Click on photo for larger image (27.3k) A "Congreve" Style Rolling Ball Clock Photo by and Copyright © 1997 Ray Bates, MBHI |
Click on photo for larger image (21.6k) A Modern Rolling Ball Display Clock Photo by and Copyright © 1997 David M. MacMillan |
Rolling Clocks
Closely allied to rolling ball clocks are clocks which themselves roll. As these are not really rolling ball devices, they are covered in a separate page.
Throughout most of the Twentieth Century, rolling ball games and toys have been popular. Often these are termed "marble rolls" or "marble runs" because the balls uses are or resemble marbles. More recently, computer-based rolling ball games have become available.
Rolling balls are also integral to popular games such as pinball and pachinko. These are not covered in this webspace simply because I do not know them well, and they are well-covered by other web sites, organizations, and books.
Rolling balls have also figured in scientific and scientific demonstration devices since well before the time of Galileo. As well, they have frequently been components of attempts at perpetual motion machines, both before and after the general acceptance of the second law of thermodynamics.
Rolling ball clocks, toys, and educational apparatus have appeared in various movies and books. This category necessarily overlaps others, since, for instance, a rolling ball clock appearing in a movie is also a rolling ball clock in its own right.
This e-mail list no longer exists. The posting level on the list had fallen nearly to zero, and it did not seem to be meeting the needs of the rolling-ball community.
There is a Yahoo! Club, founded by Edward Boes,
which is devoted to rolling-ball matters. It is at:
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/rollingballsculptures
With the exception of any material noted as being in the public domain, the text, images, and encoding of this document are copyright © 1996 - 1999 by David M. MacMillan, Mark Olejarczyk, and Ray Bates.
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