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The existing clocks of the time, which used the verge escapement with a crude balance wheel, were very inaccurate. The pendulum, due to its isochronism, could be a much better timekeeper. His son Vincenzio began building a clock, but both he and Galileo died before it was completed.
A great leap in the accuracy of escapements happened after 1657, due to the invention of the pendulum and the addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel, [29] [14] [23]: 124-125 which made the timekeepers in both clocks and watches harmonic oscillators. The resulting improvement in timekeeping accuracy enabled greater focus on the ...
In early mechanical clocks before 1657, it was a crude balance wheel or foliot which was not a harmonic oscillator because it lacked a balance spring. As a result, they were very inaccurate, with errors of perhaps an hour a day.
A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock. It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a spiral torsion spring , known as the balance spring or hairspring .
Each swing of the balance wheel thus allows one tooth of the escape wheel to pass, advancing the wheel train of the clock by a fixed amount, moving the hands forward at a constant rate. The moment of inertia of the foliot or balance wheel controls the oscillation rate, determining the rate of the clock. The escape wheel tooth, pushing against ...
Each beat gives the balance wheel an impulse, so there are two impulses per cycle. Despite being locked at rest most of the time, the escape wheel rotates typically at an average of 10 rpm or more. The origin of the "tick tock" sound is caused by this escapement mechanism. As the balance wheel rocks back and forth, the ticking sound is heard.
c. 1657: Balance spring added to balance wheel by Robert Hooke (1635–1703). [ 16 ] [ 17 ] c. 1722: Grasshopper escapement invented by John Harrison (1693–1776); Harrison created the H1, H2, H3 & H4 watches (to solve the longitude measurement problem).
The échappement naturel was the invention of Abraham-Louis Breguet, one of the most eminent watchmakers of all time.Following the introduction of the detent chronometer escapement with a temperature compensated balance, very close rates could be achieved in marine chronometers and to a lesser degree in pocket chronometers.