4 ms·

I know this is kind of tangent to the point, but: > the mechanical oscillator that makes the watch advance (it drives the pallet fork and escapement wheel, whi

I know this is kind of tangent to the point, but: > the mechanical oscillator that makes the watch advance (it drives the pallet fork and escapement wheel, which produces the ticking sound) The balance wheel doesn't drive the escape wheel, it's the other way around! The mainspring powers the train, which eventually drives the escape wheel, and the escape wheel provides energy to the balance wheel via the pallet fork. (If you think about it, it's obvious that it couldn't be the other way around, else the watch would stop very quickly as the balance wheel runs out of energy). The pallet fork is driven by both the escape wheel and the balance wheel, at different points in the cycle.

dave_universetf 3y ago
Yeah I was imprecise in the description here, because I started trying to describe how a mechanical movement works and it went into the weeds really quickly :) More accurately, the balance nudges the pallet fork just enough to allow the escapement wheel to advance, and that advancing motion imparts some of the mainspring's force back through the pallet fork and into the balance, so that it continues to oscillate without dampening. It's a very clever mechanism, and surprisingly subtle. I can't be the only one who first saw a running mechanical watch and thought "wait, isn't that perpetual motion? How does that springy thing keep going without stopping?" Not magic, it turns out, just very very careful engineering :)