Reason For Accuracy
A pendulum swinging in a vacuum at a constant amplitude free of external disturbances theoretically keeps perfect time. However, pendulums in clocks have to be linked to the clock's mechanism, which disturbs their natural swing, and this was the main cause of error in precision clocks of the early 20th century. An ordinary clock's mechanism interacts with the pendulum each swing to perform two functions: first, the pendulum must activate some kind of linkage to record the passage of time. Second, the clock's mechanism, triggered by the linkage, must give the pendulum a push (impulse) to replace the energy the pendulum loses to friction, to keep it swinging. These two functions both disturb the pendulum's motion.
The advantages of the Shortt clock are first, it reduced the disturbance of the master pendulum due to the impulse by only giving the pendulums an impulse once every 30 seconds exactly (30 pendulum swings), and second, it eliminated all other interaction with the master pendulum by generating the necessary precise timing signal to control the slave clock (and record the passage of time) from the impulse mechanism itself, leaving the pendulum to swing "free" of interference.
Read more about this topic: Shortt-Synchronome Clock
Famous quotes containing the words reason and/or accuracy:
“Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only one method of music—his own. To the great painter, there is only one manner of painting—that which he himself employs. The aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can appreciate all forms and all modes. It is to him that Art makes her appeal.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Such is the never-failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most perfect art in the world; the chisel of a thousand years retouches it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)