timewheel

English

Noun

timewheel (countable and uncountable, plural timewheels)

1. Synonym of wheel of time
   • 2009, Eric Flint, Grantville Gazette, Volume V:

     Kalachakra is a term used in tantric Buddhism that means "timewheel" or "timecycles."

   • 2016, K S Bhardwaj, Love Beyond Horizons:

     The universe, the nature and the timewheel always keeps moving.

   • 2019, Rudy Rucker, The Ware Tetralogy:

     Liddle baby Emerinice or Beremul, another slaver on the timewheel, I think that's what the equipment's for, huh?

2. (computing) A circular array of items sorted by time.
   • 1998, Shivakant Mishra, Christof Fetzer, Flaviu Cristian, “The Timewheel Group Membership Protocol”, in Jose Rolim, editor, Parallel and Distributed Processing, page 678:

     The three atomicity semantics of an update broadcast using the timewheel group communication service are affected by the group membership protocol.

   • 2004, Wayne Wolf, FPGA-Based System Design, pages 3-61:

     The event-driven simulator uses a timewheel to manage the relationships between components.

   • 2004, William James Dally, Brian Patrick Towles, Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks, page 294:

     Then, a pointer into the timewheel table indicates the current time slot and the owner of the resource during that time slot.

   • 2016, Marilyn Wolf, Computers as Components, page 443:

     Timewheels are used in event-driven simulators to control the order in which simulated events are processed.

3. (horology) A circular control or device on which the distance around the circumference represents an amount of time.
   • 1905 June, “The Deadreckoner”, in Steamship and Other Power Vessels, volume 16, number 192, page 460:

     The travel of the timewheel is directly proportional to the distance traversed by the ship, quite independently of the direction in which the timewheel travels.

   • 2005, J. Dykes, A.M. MacEachren, M.-J. Kraak, Exploring Geovisualization, page 583:

     In initial work assessing the relative effectiveness of these types, Kraak et al. (1997) refer to these indicators as temporal legends, and classify them as linear, cyclical (a similar distinction as the timeline and timewheel query tools described *30.4.1), and text, where the location in time of the animation is given simply by letters and numbers that change with the animation.

   • 2015, Denise Pope, Maureen Brown, Sarah Miles, Overloaded and Underprepared, page 167:

     We offer the timewheel tool in Figure 8.1 as one way to track how much time each kid is spending on daily activities and where some balancing work needs to be done.

4. (horology) A timekeeping device (or part of one) that operates by a geared wheel that advances at regular intervals.
   • 1871, Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the U.S. Patent Office, page 47:

     As the pendulum C may be subjected to various lengths of swing by the varying power of the battery, a provision has been made to prevent it from moving the timewheel more than one tooth at each forward swing of the pendulum.

   • 1923, Railway Signaling - Volume 17, page 141:

     The "bottom-cut" teeth will hold the wheel between impulses, at which time the timewheel does not get a chance to roll down the track, and hence keeps the holding pawl in the upper position where it will engage the top of the tooth which is not cut away.

   • 2021, A.E. Kincaid, The Demon, the Hero, and the City of Seven:

     Inside was a note and a pocket timewheel.