Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Almanac inquiry - What are the tourbillon, perpetual calendar and minute repeater on the watch for?

What are the tourbillon, perpetual calendar and minute repeater on the watch for?

1, tourbillon

It is a kind of clock speed regulating device invented by Swiss master Louis Breguet in 1795. French tourbillon (also known as Buron) means "whirlpool", which comes from the term used by French mathematician Descartes to describe the revolution of the planet around the sun.

Tourbillon mechanism, a mechanical watch equipped with "rotating escapement speed regulating mechanism", is used to correct the errors caused by gravity on clock parts in the clock industry.

2. perpetual calendar

It is the oldest solar calendar in ancient legends of China. A perpetual calendar is an annual calendar that records the dates of specific solar and lunar calendars within a certain time range (for example, 100 years or longer), which is convenient for people in need to query and use. Ten thousand years is just a symbol, indicating a long time span.

And the perpetual calendar used now includes several years' calendars or is it suitable for several years' calendars? . Modern perpetual calendars can simultaneously display various calendars such as Gregorian calendar, lunar calendar and official calendar, and can also contain various functional information such as good or bad luck, holidays and reminders, which is very convenient for people to query and use.

3. Minute repeater

Three kinds of chimes represent time, time and minutes respectively.

Tell the time by voice; In the dark, you don't need to look at your watch, but you can tell the time according to the kind and quantity of sounds your watch sounds. Minute repeater function (minute repeater, 1/4 minute repeater, minute repeater), alarm, remote timer and other functions.

Extended data

For ordinary mechanical watches, the balance spring in the escapement system will be affected by elasticity and metal fatigue, and the swing law of the balance wheel will also be affected by gravity, so the error is large. Tourbillon escapement speed regulating device has played a considerable role in overcoming the above-mentioned series of influences. Especially in the era of pocket watches, this rotary escapement greatly improved the time accuracy of watches.

Although today's watches have to face more position changes, and tourbillon's ability to adjust the accuracy is weakened, tourbillon is still sought after by most watch fans who like mechanical watchmaking and becomes the top watchmaking technology.

Tourbillon's idea is to put the escape mechanism of the clock core in a bracket, so that the frame can rotate 360 degrees around the axis (that is, the axis of the balance wheel) regularly. In this way, the original escapement mechanism is fixed, so when the static position of the watch changes, the escapement mechanism remains unchanged, resulting in different forces on the escapement parts and errors.

When the escapement rotates continuously for 360 degrees, the azimuth errors of the parts will be integrated and offset each other, thus minimizing the errors.

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