Clock Drift in Normal Clocks
Normal clocks such as clocks at home and wristwatches usually drift compared to the actual time. This is why it is necessary to reset them occasionally. Clocks often drift differently depending on their quality, the exact power they get from the battery, the surrounding temperature and other environmental variables. Thus the same clock can have different clock drift rates at different occasions.
Mechanical watches drift much more than quartz ones, but they are designed to drift ahead rather than behind, so that the watch gains time, making it easier to set the time to the second with the hack (stop mechanism) function.
More advanced clocks and old mechanical clocks often have some kind of speed trimmer where one can adjust the speed of the clock and thus reduce the clock drift. For instance, in pendulum clocks the clock drift can be manipulated by slightly changing the length of the pendulum. The formula of Fast drift is dc/dt>1.
Read more about this topic: Clock Drift
Famous quotes containing the words clock, drift, normal and/or clocks:
“The clock runs down
timeless and still.
The days and nights turn hours to years
and water in a gutter marks the circle of another world
hating, resentful, and afraid
stagnant, and green, and full of slimy things.”
—Margaret Abigail Walker (b. 1915)
“But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Philosophically, incest asks a fundamental question of our shifting mores: not simply what is normal and what is deviant, but whether such a thing as deviance exists at all in human relationships if they seem satisfactory to those who share them.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)