from Hacker News

New oscillator system in Zenith mechanical watches

by nichodges on 9/16/17, 4:57 AM with 63 comments

• by lb1lf on 9/16/17, 5:13 PM

  I am a long-time watch nut, and I loved this write-up - it concisely explained what makes this mechanism unique and was most educational.

  Fun to see a departure from the norm - until this, the probably largest innovation horology over the past couple of hundred years was George Daniels' coaxial escapement (which basically eliminated friction from the equation, ensuring all transfer of energy in the escapement took place between components tangential to each other, allowing for excellent long-term precision)

  The plural of anecdote is not data, but my ten year old Omega with coaxial escapement (in a c.2500C) is still accurate to within a second a day without ever having been serviced. That,in my book, is remarkable.

  (It is due for a service soon; I do not intend to run it into the ground...)

• by factsaresacred on 9/16/17, 7:03 PM

  Not only is the content incredibly interesting, but that website layout is perfect. So clean.

  The ads page is interesting:

  > The typical HODINKEE reader holds a master’s degree or higher, browses from his professional office, earns more than $200,000 per year, owns seven watches, and purchases, on average, three watches per year with an average value of $7,000 or higher per watch.

  An attrition rate of three $7,000 watches a year is a lot!

• by thyrsus on 9/17/17, 6:16 AM

  A nit: the article states "A guitar string is a harmonic oscillator; no matter how soft or hard you pluck it, a G string is going to play a G note."

  It's not that simple. I have a steel string guitar which, when a string is stuck loudly, will play sharp, then asymptotically approach the Hz it has when sounding its quietest. I hear it, and my digital tuner displays the effect as well. I speculate that when the the string is more perturbed (arced further away from straight), the tension increases more than proportionately to the displacement from straight.

• by SAI_Peregrinus on 9/16/17, 6:25 PM

  Much more practical but much less accurate than an atomic wristwatch[1]. I wonder how small a cesium frequency standard could be made. Miniaturization isn't typically a priority in their design, there's surely room for improvement.

  [1] http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-bill/ (Yes, that is a guy with an HP-5071A strapped to his arm.)

• by mixedmath on 9/16/17, 4:41 PM

  It's likely that this is a paid post. And if that's the case, then I think it's money well-spent, as this is a beautiful post and an effective advertisement.

• by sbmassey on 9/16/17, 4:29 PM

  All this technology is amazing, but does it have any applications beyond mechanical timepieces?

• by AnonNo15 on 9/16/17, 4:06 PM

  I wonder what are the mechanical properties of the case material (aluminium foam filled with plastic). This seems like entirely new class of composites.

• by fsiefken on 9/16/17, 3:54 PM

  So, these watches are all pre-sold and we can't buy one? When would be able to buy a watch with this innovative mechanism?

• by beloch on 9/17/17, 12:29 AM

  What interests me about this movement is that it's mechanically simpler than a conventional movement and should eventually be cheaper to produce. We might actually see these in relatively affordable watches rather than sold-out unobtanium stuff. This is a lot more exciting than yet another watch-maker piling on ridiculous numbers of complications to make a watch nobody will ever want to actually wear.

• by jacquesm on 9/17/17, 12:20 AM

  How durable would Silicon be in this application? Those teeth look awfully delicate.

• by kazinator on 9/18/17, 1:16 PM

  Love the irony of how silicon is used.

• by sv7n on 9/16/17, 4:43 PM

  Awesome write-up.