However, what all clocks have in common is that they must be able to accurately tick off a second.
For example, a pendulum clock uses a pendulum moving at the same speed to move a gear on top of the pendulum. The cogwheel is meshed with several other cogwheels that rotate and turn the long hand for the minutes and the short hand for the hours.
Electric clocks in stations and squares use motors that are driven by an electric current to turn the clock. The electricity supplied by the electric company has a fixed frequency of oscillation, 50 times per second in the Kanto region and 60 times per second in the Kansai region. Since electric clocks use this "oscillation" of electricity, the rotation of the motor is also accurate. This rotation is directly transmitted to the gears to turn the hands.
Most clocks these days are quartz. Quartz is a crystal of quartz. When voltage is applied, quartz crystals vibrate precisely. These vibrations are used to make one second.

Clocks have a long history. In ancient Egypt, sundials were used to tell time by using the length of shadows. In Japan, it is written in the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) that a water clock was used to tell time in 671.