Original · 2026

Touching Circles

In Touching Circles, the dial is also the hand.

Seconds Ticks and numbers

How to read

Here, the dials are the hands.

Fig. 1

Hours
The large circle that stands still is the hour dial. The minute circle rolls around inside it, and touches it exactly where the hour hand of a classic clock would point.
Fig. 2

Minutes
Inside the minute circle rolls the smallest circle. It is only a hand: it touches the minute circle exactly where the minute hand would point.
Fig. 3

Seconds
The largest circle, mostly outside the picture, is the seconds circle. Its inner edge is the seconds dial, and it touches the hour dial exactly where the second hand would point.

Why is the smallest circle the minute hand? Your eye finds the small circle first. That is where the emphasis belongs: you usually know the hour – it’s the minutes you look for.

Rules it breaks

Compared with the classic clock.

R1
The classic clock
All hands turn around one centre.

Here →No two circles share a centre. Each circle sits inside the next one, and the time is where they touch.
Also broken by Intersecting Circles
R2
The classic clock
The dial stands still; the hands move.

Here →The dials move too. The minute circle is the dial for the minutes – and, at the same time, the hour hand.
Also broken by Intersecting Circles

Same as the classic clock

12 at the top
Clockwise
The hour alone tells the rough time
12-hour cycle

Story

I spent a long time experimenting with clocks in which the dial also works as a hand. Touching Circles became one answer; Intersecting Circles is the other. I no longer know whether touching circles were my own idea, or whether I had seen them somewhere before.

I made several versions. In the early ones, the seconds went round inside the small circle that is now just the minute hand. I didn’t like how the circles moved in that version – there was nothing interesting about it. So I turned the seconds into a huge circle, and I liked it much more.

I also tried which circle should stand still: the hour circle or the minute circle. What I like about the current version is that the minutes carry the emphasis. They are what matters: when you want the exact time, it’s the minutes you’re curious about – the hour you usually know already.

I like watching this clock. It calms me, the way the seconds circle glides round and round: steady, yet never boring.