Chapter 01 of 5
Tick-Tock, Badly
How mechanical watches kept time, and why they never quite could.
- The Heartbeat
Every Clock Needs a Beat
Any timekeeper needs something that repeats at a steady rate. Time is measured by counting those repeats.
- First Breakthrough
Huygens's Pendulum
In 1656, Christiaan Huygens built the first pendulum clock. It cut typical errors from around fifteen minutes a day to about fifteen seconds.
- Pocket Problem
Pendulums Can't Travel
A pendulum has to hang still and upright, so it's useless in a pocket, on a wrist or on a rolling ship.
17 more cards in this chapter
Could you answer this?
Roughly how much faster does a watch crystal vibrate than a typical mechanical balance wheel?
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⌚ The Crystal That Counts Your Seconds
- 01Tick-Tock, BadlyHow mechanical watches kept time, and why they never quite could.
- 02The SqueezeThe Curie brothers, a crystal that makes electricity when pressed, and why it works in reverse.
- 03The Crystal ClockFrom a room-sized clock to a tuning fork the size of a grain of rice.
- 04The Quartz CrisisThe watch that cost as much as a car, and the industry it nearly destroyed.
- 05Crystals EverywherePhones, computers, atomic clocks and the tiny crystal on your wrist.