Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional stories - 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 clock speed regulating device invented by Swiss master Louis Breguet in 1795. Tourbillon (also called Buron) in France means "whirlpool", which comes from the term used by Descartes, a French mathematician, to describe the revolution of planets around the sun.

Tourbillon mechanism, a kind of mechanical watch equipped with "rotating escapement speed regulating mechanism", is used to correct the errors caused by gravity on watch parts in the watch 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 (such as 100 years or more), which is convenient for people in need to query and use. Ten thousand years is just a symbol, indicating a long time span.

Does the perpetual calendar in use now include several years or is it suitable for several years? . Modern perpetual calendars can display various calendars such as solar calendar, lunar calendar, and dry calendar at the same time, and can also contain various functional information such as good or bad luck, holidays, reminders, etc., 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 number of times the watch rings. Minute repeater function (minute repeater, 1/4 minute repeater, minute repeater), alarm, remote time alarm 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 kind of rotating 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 has weakened, tourbillon, as a top watchmaking technology, is still sought after by most watch fans who like mechanical watchmaking.

Tourbillon's idea is to put the escapement mechanism of the clock movement in a carriage, and let the frame rotate 360 degrees regularly around the axis, that is, the axis of the balance wheel. 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 mechanism 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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